by Jeremy Devries

Created on: February 05, 2009

Brett Favre is not only one of the best, but may in fact be the very best quarterback to ever play the game of footall. If you truly believe Brett Favre does not at least belong on the list of "best ever"....you may be mentally challenged. There is simply zero argument to be made that would preclude Brett from the list of best ever.

To the point of this discussion, we should first decide who deserves to even be mentioned then work backwards. Any intelligent person looking at this question objectively can at least understand arguments made for many great quarterbacks. The most legitimate in my opinion are Dan Marino, Joe Montana, John Elway, Tom Brady, Johnny Unitias, and Brett Favre. In a stretch someone could include Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Star, Steve Young, and maybe even a guy like Kurt Warner or Warren Moon. Each of these players have career faults that keep them from the title in my opinon.

Seve Young was hurt for over 50% of the games in his career. He was hurt for more games than he actually played in. No durability, he's out. I have the same feelins toward Troy Aikman although he was much more reliable than Young. Terry Bradshaw's statistics barely qualify him to play high school ball. Honestly, no matter what people say about Joe Montana, his career statistics were not so hot either. 20,000 less yards that Marino, Favre and Elway. Bart Starr, Unitas, and othere like Fran Tarkington and Otto Graham played against guys who were just barely over 200 pounds. Its not difficult to dominate that kind of a game, and todays athletes would simply crush the old school players. To think any other way is just not logical. Orville Wrights airplanes were just not as good as the airplanes of today. Its that same with athletes. Sorry old guys, you wouldn't even make the team for most Division I college programs.

Both Elway and Marino were tagged early in their careers with the inability to win the big game and it proved pretty true for their careers. For Elway, he got 2 Superbowl rings on the legs of a guy named Terrel Davis. Elway had marginal season, and terrible Superbowls even in victory for those last 2 seasons. Marino could never get into the big game and when he did, played admirably, but still lost. Neither Elway or Marino were the reason their teams won (or lost by the way) the Superbowl. Elway in particualr was just finally lucky enough to have a decent supporting cast around him. These two were workhorse quarterbacks and I certainly would rank them highly.

Eventually the facts are just the facts, or the stats are just the stats. Brett Favre holds just about every passing record, 2 superbowl rings and a league MVP. He is one of the best ever. He will eventually be passed on the record books by Peyton Manning, but for NOW, Brett not only deserves to be on the list of greatest ever, he may very well be at the top of that list. He did the very most with the very least amount of supporting cast around him. Brett Favre elevated the players around him because HE was a Hall of Famer. Other quarterbacks in this list were carried by the other players on the team. Joe Montana, Steve young, Troy aikman, Terry Bradshaw were all surrounded by other Hall of Famers for most of their careers. Brett never had a running back and threw to no name receivers his whole career but managed to put up the best numbers in NFL history. Imagine what Favre could have done had Emmit Smith been in his backfield, or Jerry Rice and Michael Irvin were catching his passes.

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