When was the golden age of quarterbacks in the NFL?

[saturdaysarebetter]

When was the golden age of quarterbacks in the NFL? I'm not talking just the cream of the crop as I listed below, but in terms of overall quality throughout the league.




Some of the big names that come to mind:

60s - Unitas, Jurgensen, Starr, Namath, Lamonica, Dawson, Brodie, etc.

70s - Staubach, Bradshaw, Stabler, Griese, Anderson, Tarkenton, Jones, etc.

80s - Montana, Elway, Kelly, Marino, Fouts, etc.

90s - Aikman, Young, Favre, Kelly, Elway, Moon, etc.

00s - Brees, Manning, Rivers, Brady, Favre, Roethlisberger, Warner, etc.

10s - Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Manning, Roethlisberger, Brees, Mahomes, Wilson, Rivers, Luck, etc.

20s- Mahomes, Rodgers, Brady, Allen, Burrow, etc.

[DesertSteel]

For me, it seems the golden age of everything was the 70s. Football, baseball, bodybuilding, music, TV. Definitely not basketball. That was the 80s.

[tube517]

70s had a lot of great Qbs.

In the 80s was the best draft of quality QBs in 1983 but that decade was dominated by Montana for Super Bowls and stats were dominated by Marino. Elway and Kelly had more success in the 90s appearing in 6 Super bowls between them

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[Born2Steel]

Last year.

[DuckHodges]

90s were my favorite, after that the game got too pussified and even made up rules on the spot to protect certain QBs who will not be named

[86WARD]

I would say there’s not really just one. Brady, Manning,, Ben, Brees, Rivers, Eli, Romo, Vick era would be the most recent. Marino, Elway, Kelly, Aikman, Cunningham, Moon would be another one. If I had to say which was the most talented, it would be the first.

[ALLD]

1980s had the best QBs.

[EzraTank]

They were all great in their own way. Anything prior to 1977 when they changed the PI rules is really hard to judge because prior to that football was a pound the rock sport.

I agree with Desert though about basketball ... the 80's and early 90's where the golden age of Bird, Jordan, Barkley, and Magic. The cry babies that play today are a joke. Lefraud would never lead the league if he had to play against the defenses and hard fouls of that era.

[Steeler-in-west]

They were all great in their own way. Anything prior to 1977 when they changed the PI rules is really hard to judge because prior to that football was a pound the rock sport.

I agree with Desert though about basketball ... the 80's and early 90's were the golden age of Bird, Jordan, Barkley, and Magic. The cry babies that play today are a joke. Lefraud would never lead the league if he had to play against the defenses and hard fouls of that era.

The 70’s had Pistol Pete. Magic owes what he learned from him. To this day, nobody can do what Maravich did.

as far as football in the 70’s, everyone on the team was a football player. They all took vicious hits and could take it. The QB’s didn’t dink and dunk, they hung in the pocket, scrambled, and threw for bigger yardage. And they were better at throwing long I think then the QBs today

[steelreserve]

From about the mid-80s to the late 90s. After that, too many rule changes to favor the offense and pump up passing stats for any of it to be believable.

Dan Marino had the only 5,000-yard season in the first 85 years of the league; now there are one or even multiple 5,000-yard passers almost every season, including Jameis Winston. That alone should tell you what a joke it's become. Joe Flacco has more yards than Joe Montana. Alex Smith has more than Jim Kelly and Ryan Tannehill is above Steve Young.

Besides the inflated stats from defenses being handcuffed, another aspect I think is overlooked is that talent is spread more thinly because of expansion and the enforcement of a hard salary cap. The measure of a great QB pre-2000s was not just stats but who could succeed in big games against the toughest competition. There used to be multiple dominant teams around, now everybody's got problems even if they're 13-3, and at least 80% of the league is kind of meh. Half the teams that make the conference championship are pretty much a surprise even to their own fans. I guess if you're super into randomness, er, I mean "parity," that's fun, but if you don't think it's watered down the competition at the high end, you're fooling yourself.

[Orion]

wont be long before every team makes the playoffs.

[Mojouw]

Anything before the initial rumblings of the West Coast offense is gonna be so rudimentary that it is hard to compare QBs across eras. Then there has been the recent schematic descendants of Air Raid entering the NFL that are helping teams put up video game numbers.

While I do not disagree that the rules have shifted to favor offense and devalue defensive oriented approaches, there are a ton of other factors at play that may be supporting the current seemingly unprecedented QB stats as the new normal and an indicator that QBs are just better than ever before.

Just in my football watching lifetime, guys used to need 2-4 years to learn how to be an actual QB. Their HS and college offenses did not prepare them for life in the NFL. I remember guys being flummoxed by taking snaps from the shotgun or under center or whatever. There was time that many QB's were unprepared to do much behind hand to a RB out of the I formation and get the heck out of the way. Now, QBs (or at least the highly regarded ones) are the products of year round training, 7on7 football, and fairly advanced HS and college offensive structures. These guys hit the NFL ready to go. Current draft eligible QBs are hitting the NFL with far more experience, knowledge, and capabilities than many QBs had in their first 3 years in the NFL as recently as the 1990's (also known as THREE whole decades ago!).

Long story short, even the 1980's and 1990's is closer to the leather helmet days than the QB we are watching now in the NFL in terms of the preparation and background level that draft prospects start from.

[86WARD]

Anything before the initial rumblings of the West Coast offense is gonna be so rudimentary that it is hard to compare QBs across eras. Then there has been the recent schematic descendants of Air Raid entering the NFL that are helping teams put up video game numbers.

While I do not disagree that the rules have shifted to favor offense and devalue defensive oriented approaches, there are a ton of other factors at play that may be supporting the current seemingly unprecedented QB stats as the new normal and an indicator that QBs are just better than ever before.

Just in my football watching lifetime, guys used to need 2-4 years to learn how to be an actual QB. Their HS and college offenses did not prepare them for life in the NFL. I remember guys being flummoxed by taking snaps from the shotgun or under center or whatever. There was time that many QB's were unprepared to do much behind hand to a RB out of the I formation and get the heck out of the way. Now, QBs (or at least the highly regarded ones) are the products of year round training, 7on7 football, and fairly advanced HS and college offensive structures. These guys hit the NFL ready to go. Current draft eligible QBs are hitting the NFL with far more experience, knowledge, and capabilities than many QBs had in their first 3 years in the NFL as recently as the 1990's (also known as THREE whole decades ago!).

Long story short, even the 1980's and 1990's is closer to the leather helmet days than the QB we are watching now in the NFL in terms of the preparation and background level that draft prospects start from.

Remember when a WR used to need 3 years to excel?

[Mojouw]

Remember when a WR used to need 3 years to excel?

Yup!

I think for many positions, there is just less of an adjustment period to the NFL because the gap between what is being done at the college and even some HS levels has shrunk. Additionally, "elite" prospects all do year round personalized training and technical study. Many of these guys are basically pros already.

And then there are positions that you just can not replicate the NFL reality at a lower level. Both lines - the strength and detailed technique at the NFL level is still an adjustment for a high percentage of the prospects. TE is another. College offenses just do not ask their TE's to do what the NFL requires of the position.

[steelreserve]

Anything before the initial rumblings of the West Coast offense is gonna be so rudimentary that it is hard to compare QBs across eras. Then there has been the recent schematic descendants of Air Raid entering the NFL that are helping teams put up video game numbers.

While I do not disagree that the rules have shifted to favor offense and devalue defensive oriented approaches, there are a ton of other factors at play that may be supporting the current seemingly unprecedented QB stats as the new normal and an indicator that QBs are just better than ever before.

Just in my football watching lifetime, guys used to need 2-4 years to learn how to be an actual QB. Their HS and college offenses did not prepare them for life in the NFL. I remember guys being flummoxed by taking snaps from the shotgun or under center or whatever. There was time that many QB's were unprepared to do much behind hand to a RB out of the I formation and get the heck out of the way. Now, QBs (or at least the highly regarded ones) are the products of year round training, 7on7 football, and fairly advanced HS and college offensive structures. These guys hit the NFL ready to go. Current draft eligible QBs are hitting the NFL with far more experience, knowledge, and capabilities than many QBs had in their first 3 years in the NFL as recently as the 1990's (also known as THREE whole decades ago!).

Long story short, even the 1980's and 1990's is closer to the leather helmet days than the QB we are watching now in the NFL in terms of the preparation and background level that draft prospects start from.

There is a lot of truth to all of that. And part of why I feel like the '80s and '90s QBs were the best is because they had to actually play quarterback and master all that came with it, whereas in today's game it feels like there are an awful lot of QBs who look impressive and put up impressive numbers, but may as well simply be executing a program. Kind of like how I'd be a lot more impressed with an F-15 pilot who won 20 dogfights, than a modern pilot who got 30 kills pressing a button to launch missiles at targets over the horizon with assisted lock-on.

The 80s and 90s are what I would call the minimum level of serious competition to make the cut - 300-pound linemen or guys with 4.4 speed were not uncommon, and none of that bullshit where you were playing against guys who had summer jobs selling cars. A guy like John Elway or Dan Marino would have no problem fitting into today's hyperfocused, highly engineered and sabermetricised offenses and putting up big numbers, if that's how they'd learned the game. The reverse, I'm not so sure of.

In other words, I don't think all the advances in coaching and scheming that have happened over the past 25 years or so have resulted in better quarterbacks, just better offenses that are highly scripted and highly regimented in order to be that efficient. It's no wonder why virtually any team that needs to use a backup for more than spot duty is completely fucked and the offense spends all day just flailing around. It's all about "how much of the routine do you have down, and how well can you execute it with X number of first-team reps," and less of whether you can just go out and play.

Not to say that there are no QBs anymore who are just flat-out good, or that every modern QB is a product of the system, but there is an awful lot of noise that makes it hard to trust who's a "good" QB today, and also ridiculous IMO to think that there are multitudes of guys who are head and shoulders above some of the all-time greats of the past, when they really don't pass the eye test.

[Born2Steel]

If the meaning is there is much more analytics in the game today, agreed. Too much though? I don't think so. Competitive sports is also a competition in learning, adapting, and evolving over time. Baseball may be the very definition of that rule, but I think it is accurate for football and QBs as well.

The vast majority of fans don't actually want to go back to leather helmets and no forward pass.
When you see the Lombardi film of him explaining blocking and setting a seal for the RB it may be on a chalk board instead of on an ipad or through a headset, but the fundamental of football remains.

The game itself has evolved over time if by only finding new paths to success and failure. QBs are no different. As defenses evolve, the QB has new things to learn. This is why it's so difficult to compare QBs of different eras with any accuracy. Remember the wishbone formation?

These innovative offensive genius coaches come and go, with differing levels of success. I don't think any of it has changed football. Not the true essence of fundamental football. Bigger, faster, stronger, and stay low/hit first, are still the way of things. Can the QB read the Mike? Move the Safety with his eyes/stance? Make the tight window throw, or take the hit while completing the pass? Analytics can have no hold over the player. Yet the game has evolved. And how the QB approaches it has evolved.

[steelreserve]

If the meaning is there is much more analytics in the game today, agreed. Too much though? I don't think so. Competitive sports is also a competition in learning, adapting, and evolving over time. Baseball may be the very definition of that rule, but I think it is accurate for football and QBs as well.

The vast majority of fans don't actually want to go back to leather helmets and no forward pass.
When you see the Lombardi film of him explaining blocking and setting a seal for the RB it may be on a chalk board instead of on an ipad or through a headset, but the fundamental of football remains.

The game itself has evolved over time if by only finding new paths to success and failure. QBs are no different. As defenses evolve, the QB has new things to learn. This is why it's so difficult to compare QBs of different eras with any accuracy. Remember the wishbone formation?

These innovative offensive genius coaches come and go, with differing levels of success. I don't think any of it has changed football. Not the true essence of fundamental football. Bigger, faster, stronger, and stay low/hit first, are still the way of things. Can the QB read the Mike? Move the Safety with his eyes/stance? Make the tight window throw, or take the hit while completing the pass? Analytics can have no hold over the player. Yet the game has evolved. And how the QB approaches it has evolved.

Well, there is one set of assumptions under which you could argue that, say, Jared Goff or Carson Wentz would be a monster QB back in the '80s, because they came up knowing all sorts of advanced concepts that are second nature to them, but defenses would be blown away by back then.

Then there is another set of assumptions under which those guys would get eaten alive because in the current state of the game, excelling at a few particular things will get you better stats than Marino or Montana, which drowns out the fact that you are not really a "complete" quarterback, in today's terms or yesterday's. Bring that type of game to 30 years ago, and there's a good chance it just comes down to "who's better," you or Ronnie Lott, and good luck Jared Goff on that one.

I actually tend to think that the "modern" QBs would have a field day in the '60s and '70s just because you could get away with more, and certain knowledge or style differences would be SO dominant against guys who were significantly slower and smaller than you have today. But once you have a level of competition and types of athletes similar to today's, forget it.

Of course there is no way to know any of this for sure, and I am not saying that all QBs of today would struggle in the past, just that many of them benefit from stat inflation and their hype is more than their real talent. This is a golden age FOR quarterbacks, not a golden age OF quarterbacks.

[Mojouw]

There is a lot of truth to all of that. And part of why I feel like the '80s and '90s QBs were the best is because they had to actually play quarterback and master all that came with it, whereas in today's game it feels like there are an awful lot of QBs who look impressive and put up impressive numbers, but may as well simply be executing a program. Kind of like how I'd be a lot more impressed with an F-15 pilot who won 20 dogfights, than a modern pilot who got 30 kills pressing a button to launch missiles at targets over the horizon with assisted lock-on.

The 80s and 90s are what I would call the minimum level of serious competition to make the cut - 300-pound linemen or guys with 4.4 speed were not uncommon, and none of that bullshit where you were playing against guys who had summer jobs selling cars. A guy like John Elway or Dan Marino would have no problem fitting into today's hyperfocused, highly engineered and sabermetricised offenses and putting up big numbers, if that's how they'd learned the game. The reverse, I'm not so sure of.

In other words, I don't think all the advances in coaching and scheming that have happened over the past 25 years or so have resulted in better quarterbacks, just better offenses that are highly scripted and highly regimented in order to be that efficient. It's no wonder why virtually any team that needs to use a backup for more than spot duty is completely fucked and the offense spends all day just flailing around. It's all about "how much of the routine do you have down, and how well can you execute it with X number of first-team reps," and less of whether you can just go out and play.

Not to say that there are no QBs anymore who are just flat-out good, or that every modern QB is a product of the system, but there is an awful lot of noise that makes it hard to trust who's a "good" QB today, and also ridiculous IMO to think that there are multitudes of guys who are head and shoulders above some of the all-time greats of the past, when they really don't pass the eye test.

A great deal of truth to all that.

I offer only one small counter. Take out the extremes from each era. Like ignore Elway and Marino. Ignore Mahomes and Rodgers. These guys could play in most eras no matter what. Then ignore the truly awful in each era. Those guys stink. Who cares?

So that leaves the muddled middle. Here’s where it gets a bit interesting. For instance, in the 80s and 90s O’Donnell and Brister were above average fairly sought after QBs. I’m not sure they could start for most teams in the league right now.

There were a lot of what we would call “bad” QBs in the 1980’s and 90’s that were viewed as top 15-20 guys back then. I kinda think Rudolph could’ve started then.

I just think the basic level of play is higher for the position. Sure, schemes and rule changes have inflated counting stats, but that’s always been the bugaboo with cross era comparisons.

[Born2Steel]

Well, there is one set of assumptions under which you could argue that, say, Jared Goff or Carson Wentz would be a monster QB back in the '80s, because they came up knowing all sorts of advanced concepts that are second nature to them, but defenses would be blown away by back then.

Then there is another set of assumptions under which those guys would get eaten alive because in the current state of the game, excelling at a few particular things will get you better stats than Marino or Montana, which drowns out the fact that you are not really a "complete" quarterback, in today's terms or yesterday's. Bring that type of game to 30 years ago, and there's a good chance it just comes down to "who's better," you or Ronnie Lott, and good luck Jared Goff on that one.

I actually tend to think that the "modern" QBs would have a field day in the '60s and '70s just because you could get away with more, and certain knowledge or style differences would be SO dominant against guys who were significantly slower and smaller than you have today. But once you have a level of competition and types of athletes similar to today's, forget it.

Of course there is no way to know any of this for sure, and I am not saying that all QBs of today would struggle in the past, just that many of them benefit from stat inflation and their hype is more than their real talent. This is a golden age FOR quarterbacks, not a golden age OF quarterbacks.

I see players referred to and debated as the 'GOAT' and I think that gets thrown around way too much. I go with the "GOHT" approach, which stands for greatest if his time. Since the SB era, for me it's Bradshaw, Montana, Aikman, Brady. There were other great QBs over those eras but these guys won the rings. Lots of guys that are fun to talk about, just that a few stand out above the rest. Now I'm waiting to see how the Patrick Mahomes career arc goes.

Goff and Wentz? I can't say seriously that those 2 QBs 'made it' in their own era. SOME QBs could succeed in any of the eras we have witnessed. Very little debate on that. SOME QBs would struggle. I was more talking about the analytics and how the game itself has changed. Analytics will tell you to go for it on 4th down more often than punt on 4th down. If you live by that, you will die by that, is my opinion. Analytics can't predict TP43 for instance.

Where you and I seem to agree 100% is how the majority of QBs coming into the league today are successful only in certain systems, only in a clean pocket, or 1 read and go. That can work short-term, but QBs like those are not team leaders. I think an NFL QB needs to be a team leader. If a QB becomes basically worthless once a play breaks down, the team won't trust him and you can't follow somebody you don't trust. Brady and P. Manning were maybe the 2 exceptions to that. If the play went wrong they would just throw the ball into the seats and move on to the next play.

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A great deal of truth to all that.

I offer only one small counter. Take out the extremes from each era. Like ignore Elway and Marino. Ignore Mahomes and Rodgers. These guys could play in most eras no matter what. Then ignore the truly awful in each era. Those guys stink. Who cares?

So that leaves the muddled middle. Here’s where it gets a bit interesting. For instance, in the 80s and 90s O’Donnell and Brister were above average fairly sought after QBs. I’m not sure they could start for most teams in the league right now.

There were a lot of what we would call “bad” QBs in the 1980’s and 90’s that were viewed as top 15-20 guys back then. I kinda think Rudolph could’ve started then.

I just think the basic level of play is higher for the position. Sure, schemes and rule changes have inflated counting stats, but that’s always been the bugaboo with cross era comparisons.

If 3rd string Rudolph could have been a starter, Cousins may be in that 'GOAT' conversation.

[Mojouw]

I see players referred to and debated as the 'GOAT' and I think that gets thrown around way too much. I go with the "GOHT" approach, which stands for greatest if his time. Since the SB era, for me it's Bradshaw, Montana, Aikman, Brady. There were other great QBs over those eras but these guys won the rings. Lots of guys that are fun to talk about, just that a few stand out above the rest. Now I'm waiting to see how the Patrick Mahomes career arc goes.

Goff and Wentz? I can't say seriously that those 2 QBs 'made it' in their own era. SOME QBs could succeed in any of the eras we have witnessed. Very little debate on that. SOME QBs would struggle. I was more talking about the analytics and how the game itself has changed. Analytics will tell you to go for it on 4th down more often than punt on 4th down. If you live by that, you will die by that, is my opinion. Analytics can't predict TP43 for instance.

Where you and I seem to agree 100% is how the majority of QBs coming into the league today are successful only in certain systems, only in a clean pocket, or 1 read and go. That can work short-term, but QBs like those are not team leaders. I think an NFL QB needs to be a team leader. If a QB becomes basically worthless once a play breaks down, the team won't trust him and you can't follow somebody you don't trust. Brady and P. Manning were maybe the 2 exceptions to that. If the play went wrong they would just throw the ball into the seats and move on to the next play.

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If 3rd string Rudolph could have been a starter, Cousins may be in that 'GOAT' conversation.

Maybe.....I just searched a random year: https://www.nfl.com/stats/player-sta...singyards/desc

I might want Cousins or Rudolph over 10-12 guys on that list....

[Born2Steel]

Maybe.....I just searched a random year: https://www.nfl.com/stats/player-sta...singyards/desc

I might want Cousins or Rudolph over 10-12 guys on that list....

Just look at those yards per attempt. Bubby and Kenny both at 6.2

[DuckHodges]

Just look at those yards per attempt. Bubby and Kenny both at 6.2

Surprised with Jeff George at 6.2, that guy had a gun

[willy]

The 70’s had Pistol Pete. Magic owes what he learned from him. To this day, nobody can do what Maravich did.

as far as football in the 70’s, everyone on the team was a football player. They all took vicious hits and could take it. The QB’s didn’t dink and dunk, they hung in the pocket, scrambled, and threw for bigger yardage. And they were better at throwing long I think then the QBs today

Bird to Maravich, ‘If you were any damn good, they wouldn’t be double-teaming me.'”

Per Cornbread, Maravich passed to Bird as the future star found himself quickly double-teamed.

“We come to the timeout, and Pete Maravich says to Larry, ‘Larry, Larry, they’re double-teaming you,” said Maxwell. “‘You can’t force up those kind of shots.’ Larry looks up and goes, ‘If you were any damn good, they wouldn’t be double-teaming me.'”

“This is one Hall of Famer to another,” he added. “I was in shock.”

[Dwinsgames]

Surprised with Jeff George at 6.2, that guy had a gun

completion percentage has such a huge impact on this stat and why George's numbers are low IMO

[Edman]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this modern era is probably the best the Quarterback has ever been, yes, the rules favor the passing game, but the overall quality of Quarterback play across the league is at an all time high. Colleges and the NFL have a much greater grasp on what makes Quarterbacks good, and what makes others not good. As much as we like to tout about the 80's and 90's, with Marino, Elway, Kelly, Montana/Young, Favre, and others, the cupboard was EXTREMELY bare in those days. There were the haves, and have-nots. The top guys stood out not only because they were so good, but because the colleagues around them were clearly not good.

I might want Cousins or Rudolph over 10-12 guys on that list....

Mason Rudolph would've been a starter for multiple years in the 80's and 90's, his predecessor (Neil O' Donnell) certainly was.