Best Quarterback Franchises: A Top 5 List

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Compiled through the work, and numerous articles by Football Outsiders Mike Tanier. His Top 5 QB lists were largely compiled during the lockout this past offseason, but you can find all his Walkthrough articles here:

http://footballoutsiders.com/walkthrough/2011/walkthrough-moth-balls

http://footballoutsiders.com/walkthrough?page=1

http://footballoutsiders.com/walkthrough?page=2

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AFC North
Pittsburgh Steelers
1. Terry Bradshaw.
2. Ben Roethlisberger
3. Neil O'Donnell
4. Like, Kordell Stewart, maybe.
5. The end-of-the-line Bobby Layne? I will take him over Mark Malone.

Baltimore Ravens
1. Joe Flacco
2. Vinny Testaverde
3. Steve McNair
4. Kyle Boller
5. He refused to choose.

Cincinnati Bengals
1. Ken Anderson
2. Boomer Esiason
3. Carson Palmer
4. Jeff Blake
5. Virgil Carter

Cleveland Browns
1. Otto Graham
2. Frank Ryan
3. Bernie Kosar
4. Brian Sipe
5. Milt Plum

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NFC North
Detroit Lions
1. Bobby Layne
2. Greg Landry
3. Gary Danielson
4. Scott Mitchell
5. Bill Munson

Minnesota Vikings
1. Fran Tarkenton
2. Daunte Culpepper
3. Tommy Kramer
4. Brad Johnson
5. Joe Kapp

Chicago Bears
1. Sid Luckman.
2. Jim McMahon
3. Jim Harbaugh
4. Billy Wade
5. Jay Cutler

Green Bay Packers
1. Brett Favre
2. Bart Starr. Some people will flip these first two. Knock yourself out.
3. Artie Herber. As I said a moment ago, I am always wary of these leather helmet guys. Give me a guy who started for eight years during my lifetime and led his team to a few 10-6 seasons over someone whose encyclopedia position entry reads TB-LB-QB-P-ZV and threw 124 passes per year. The old guys were undoubtedly tough, exciting to watch, and multi-talented, but the comparisons become more like "apples to giraffes" than "apples to oranges" the further you go into the era of two-way players. Still, Herber's a Hall-of-Famer, and the next few guys do not exactly have overwhelming resumes.
4. Lynn Dickey. An intermittently successful quarterback who put up big numbers in the 1980s. I rarely saw him play, because the Packers were never televised back then, so I don't know if he's really better than Rodgers. He never had a winning record as a starter.
5. Aaron Rodgers. This is Rodgers' third full season as a starter. Do you know how I remember that? By counting Favre Years. I noticed a friend doing the same thing last week. He was trying to remember if this was Rodgers' third or fourth year as a starter, so he started counting on his fingers: "the Jets year, the good Vikings year, this year, yep, that's three."

Tobin Rote was an excellent quarterback in the mid-1950s, but the Packers always seemed to go 3-9 with Rote starting. You have to be careful when you see impressive passing statistics from any era before 1978: Sometimes you are looking at an innovative coach and a great quarterback, but you are just as likely to be looking at a bad team that threw like crazy to catch up. The good-quarterback-bad-team statistical profile was more pronounced in the old days. Cecil Isbell was a contemporary of Herber. They shared the backfield with Hall of Fame fullback Clarke Hinkle, and it was a kinky three-way, with everyone throwing passes to everyone else. I will stick with Rodgers.

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NFC East
Dallas Cowboys
1. Roger Staubach
2. Troy Aikman
3. Don Meredith
4. Danny White
5. Tony Romo

New York Giants
1. Phil Simms
2. Charlie Conerly
3. Eli Manning
4. Y.A. Tittle
5. Fran Tarkenton

Philadelphia Eagles
1. Donovan McNabb.
2. Norm Van Brocklin
3. Ron Jaworski
4. Randall Cunningham
5. Sonny Jurgensen

Washington Redskins
1. Sammy Baugh
2. Sonny Jurgensen
3. Joe Theismann
4. Billy Kilmer
5. Mark Rypien

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NFC South
Atlanta Falcons
1. Steve Bartkowski
2. Matt Ryan
3. Michael Vick
4. Chris Chandler
5. Chris Miller

Carolina Panthers
1. Jake Delhomme
2. Steve Beuerlein
3. Kerry Collins
4. Matt Moore
5. Rodney Peete

New Orleans Saints
1. Drew Brees.
2. Archie Manning
3. Bobby Hebert
4. Aaron Brooks
5. Jim Everett

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
1. Brad Johnson
2. Doug Williams
3. Trent Dilfer
4. Vinny Testaverde
5. Jeff Garcia

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NFC West
Cleveland/Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams
1. Roman Gabriel
2. Norm Van Brocklin
3. Kurt Warner
4. Bob Waterfield
5. Jim Everett

San Francisco 49ers
1. Joe Montana
2. Steve Young
3. John Brodie
4. Y.A. Tittle
5. Jeff Garcia

Arizona/St. Louis/Chicago Cardinals
1. Jim Hart
2. Kurt Warner
3. Neil Lomax
4. Charley Johnson
5. Jake Plummer

Seattle Seahawks
1. Matt Hasselbeck
2. Dave Krieg
3. Jim Zorn
4. Warren Moon
5. Jon Kitna

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AFC East
Buffalo Bills
1. Jim Kelly
2. Joe Ferguson
3. Jack Kemp
4. Drew Bledsoe
5. Doug Flutie

New England Patriots
1. Tom Brady.
2. Drew Bledsoe
3. Babe Parilli
4. Steve Grogan
5. Tony Eason

Miami Dolphins
1. Dan Marino
2. Bob Griese
3. Jay Fiedler
4. Don Strock
5. Earl Morrall

New York Jets
1. Joe Namath
2. Chad Pennington
3. Ken O'Brien
4. Vinny Testaverde
5. Richard Todd

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AFC South
Jacksonville Jaguars
1. Mark Brunell
2. David Garrard
3. Byron Leftwich
4. Quinn Gray
5. Blaine Gabbert

Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans
1. Warren Moon
2. Steve McNair
3. George Blanda
4. Dan Pastorini
5. Vince Young

Houston Texans
1. Matt Schaub
2. David Carr
3. Sage Rosenfels
4. Tony Banks
5. Dave Ragone

Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts
1. Peyton Manning
2. Johnny Unitas
3. Bert Jones
4. Jim Harbaugh
5. Earl Morrall

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AFC West

Denver Broncos
1. John Elway
2. Craig Morton
3. Jake Plummer
4. Brian Griese
5. Frank Tripucka

Kansas City Chiefs
1. Len Dawson
2. Trent Green
3. Bill Kenney
4. Joe Montana
5. Steve DeBerg

Raiders
1. Ken Stabler
2. Daryle Lamonica
3. Rich Gannon
4. Jim Plunkett
5. Jeff Hostetler

Chargers
1. Dan Fouts
2. John Hadl
3. Philip Rivers
4. Stan Humphries
5. Drew Brees

[Upnorth]

I normally really like fo content, but favre as #1 bugged me then and now.

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Tanier wasn't doing a research paper, he was just constructing a list. And given his age, many of these people are encyclopedia entries, wikipedia pages and the season stat lines on profootballreference.com to him. So he does dismiss Starr too easily.

By his perspective, Favre would seem to notch above Starr statistically as titles do seem an unfair way to judge a QB alone. This and a few others are obvious quibbles, but the larger point is that most franchises haven't had 3 All-Pros starting at QB during their entire existence.

vince's original point was largely valid in the R vs. F career thread: there are very few teams with a number of very good QBs in their history. And the number 1 team on that list are the Bears, followed by the Steelers.

[channtheman]

Pretty sure this is Rodgers 4th year as a starter. 2008 (6-10), 2009 (11-5), 2010 (10-6), and now 2011 (4-0).

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Pretty sure this is Rodgers 4th year as a starter. 2008 (6-10), 2009 (11-5), 2010 (10-6), and now 2011 (4-0).

Good point, I should have labeled this as the work of the previous offseason. So for this list, Rodgers was starter for 3 years with a Super Bowl to his credit.

[Upnorth]

I am suprised at the quality of the qb's for the eagles, hard to believe they don't win. Also the colts have a better list than what I would have thought of the top of my head. Ditto the redskins.

[channtheman]

Good point, I should have labeled this as the work of the previous offseason. So for this list, Rodgers was starter for 3 years with a Super Bowl to his credit.

Oh I see, got it.