LAKESHOW wrote:Chicago76 wrote:LAKESHOW wrote:the only thing about young is, he was just a big choker. dude had solid teams, but couldnt win it until THEY TRULY STACKED THE DECK with primetime and everyone else on that squad. truly talented teams on both sides of the ball. numbers wise he had statistical data to support him, but he never came up big in the clutch.
Again, you're basing an entire career on 3 or 4 games. If we wanna go this route, then we can look at Elway's 6 playoff losses in his first 11 years in the league: 64.0, 61.1, 83.6, 36.8, 19.4, and 49.9. Those were his QB ratings up until the 1994 postseason. Or we can talk about his supposed "47 4Q comebacks" when the actual number is 34.
Terms like clutch and choke are used when people want to confirm their preconceived biases more than anything else.
using statistical data as the sole basis to judge a QB in its totality, shows lack of true experiential knowledge of the game.
Here's the "experiential" context of all of this:
Reeves restricted Elway. No doubt about it. Elway also didn't have good offensive weapons either. His line wasn't good at all, but it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. His sack rates compared to other mobile QBs of his era weren't out of line with expectations.
Elway made a lot of his own problems in the Reeves era, however.
-poor defensive recognition
-poor rush evasion in terms of recognizing where the pressure was coming from and taking a more simple 2 or 3 step approach to dump the ball to an open player in the slot. He often evaded by backing up and then running to the overloaded side of the field.
-great arm but poor touch. He didn't know how to properly weight a ball to dump it off for a high percentage play, which led to him rocketing an uncatchable ball into coverage to a receiver 12 yards downfield with the same velocity required for a 60 yard bomb.
-too much reliance on athleticism at the expense of developing a pocket presence that would make him a more effective QB.
Looking at the 12 QBs with the highest number of non-rookie starts (Elway included) during the Reeves era, Elway ranked dead last in ANY/A+, which is probably the best efficiency metric out there that is easily accessible for that era. I don't care how restricted Elway was, there is no way he should score that poorly behind the likes of Steve DeBerg or guys who didn't qualify based upon starts like Jay Schroeder. Including his rookie year, Elway had exactly 1 more TD pass than INT over his first ten years. Even considering the uphill climb, this isn't good enough for Marino, Montana, Manning, Brady, Young territory. http://pfref.com/tiny/QJbZy This wasn't a case where Elway's weapons were taken away due to injury for a game or a season or two. He had 10 years to figure out how to become a more consistent passer, but he didn't get it done. Given what he had to work with, there's no way could he have ever been as efficient as the other elites in this time period, but he should have been better than what he was.
Move forward to the 4 years after the Reeves era and the 12 QBs with the highest number of non-rookie starts. Those were his best statistical seasons and Elway was still young enough (early to mid 30s) to be effective. Denver was also developing a good offensive skill set (better O line and bigger receivers Elway needed due to short accuracy concerns + TD). He had a couple of years of McCaffrey, 4 good years from Sharpe, Rod Smith at the very tail end, and TD for a couple of years.
He rates 4th out of 12. http://pfref.com/tiny/h3JrR Far behind Young, but with fewer weapons than the Niners. Not enough to make the difference IMO though. A bit behind Aikman, but with fewer weapons. I do think Elway was a much better QB than Aikman. Ahead of Moon and Kelly, who also rate behind Elway to me. He's just a smidge ahead of a younger and less experienced Favre, who I rate basically even with Elway. Marino however probably didn't have as much support and was much more efficient/effective. I can't see an argument in Elway's favor there.
Elway was also getting brought down at a higher rate in those initial post-Reeves years, which confirms what my eyes told me: Elway was still learning how to be a pocket passer. Elway went on to have a couple of his most efficient seasons ever in his final two SB years. I'd take his overall QB support package in those two years (O-line, receiver trio, and 2 great RB seasons) over anything the Niners or Cowboys ever had, however. It's not really fair to compare a 37-38 year old QB anyway.
I wrote a lot (and way off topic) to basically say I like Elway a lot, but not enough to put him fully into that top category. He and Favre are better than the bulk of HOF QBs who entered the league in the SB era. His overall QB skills were just a notch below the best of that extended era of Montana, Marino, Manning, Brady, Young, and Staubach. If someone wants to argue Young doesn't quite belong because he was handed the keys to a Ferrari that was slowly built in Montana's reign when SY had a lot of maturity, fine. You can argue context all day long with that group of five (defensive help, weapons, O line, dome/outdoors, quality of Ds faced, schemes, etc.). Elway never got himself in the ballpark over what should have been his most productive seasons. You can blame personnel and Reeves for some of that, but a lot of it comes down to QBing skills, Xs and Os, and maturity that fall on Elway's shoulders. In terms of raw ability, he could pull a rabbit out of a hat in spurts, but his overall consistency was lacking...which is partially responsible for him having those 4Q opportunities. Elway gets some credit for getting Denver to multiple SBs in the Reeves era, but let's not forget the AFC competition in that period was pretty awful.