John Elway is the most OVERRATED quarterback of all time

But bro he dove and did a helicopter in the air during the Super Bowl.

Yeah, I cannot take anyone srsly who thinks he was one of the all time greats. They just got spoon fed that he was and apparently, he is a unicorn . Funniest s**t I have on read here in a while. It is like, ppl who believe this kinda hype..just don't really watch football or these kind of players in particular..but more so news and hype lines..like the "rocket arm". Yes, the rocket arm unicorn that we were all so lucky to have witnessed. Lol

John Elway was never once a 1st team All Pro.

He was 2nd team All Pro three times. Many people think he's a top 10 QB of all time, yet was only 2nd team three times out of 16 years? Miss me with that.

i think Elway is properly rated he's maybe the best prospect of all time, and when paired with Papa Shanny they became pretty much unbeatable and if not upset by the Jags they may threepeat. he retires and that near threepeat team is 6-10

Many people claim that Elway had a garbage team around him and he had to drag bad teams on his back. I believe that idea is vastly overblown.

For example, Steve Watson. Watson was a 2nd team All Pro with 38 year old Craig Morton throwing to him. During that season, Watson had 60 catches for 1244 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Over the next 6 seasons with Elway, Watson averaged 47 catches for 773 yards and 4 touchdowns.

A lot of people blame Dan Reeves, for Elway's poor production and cite his predictable playcalling and system.

Under Reeves, Elway's 16 game averages were:
54.7 completion %
3195 passing yards
18 TDs
17 INTs
7.0 YPA
73.8 passer rating

For comparison sake, here are two quarterbacks that most believe are somewhere between average and below average in the same system as Elway was in:

Craig Morton in 1981:
59.8 completion %
3357 passing yards
21 TDs
14 INTs
8.5 YPA
90.5 passer rating

Chris Chandler in 1998:
58.1 completion %
25 TDs
12 INTs
9.6 YPA
100.9 passer rating

John Elway is supposed to be one of the greatest of all time right? So why are his numbers in the same system so abysmal in comparison to two journeymen QB?

Was my pro comp for Trey Lance during draft

Originally posted by ChaunceyGardner:
Was my pro comp for Trey Lance during draft

this may be the most convincing of all arguments

Led the Broncos to 3 out of 4 Super Bowls where they were beaten by better teams, he was a one man gang.

Guided back to back championship teams when he had a real roster surrounding him and a good HC coaching him.

Screw the Broncos and John Elway, but he was still good regardless if I don't like him/them.

Originally posted by ChaunceyGardner:
Was my pro comp for Trey Lance during draft

That's about how good he would be if he played today.

"John Elway dragged bad teams to the Superbowl by himself"

Elway's 16 game averages from 1983 to 1989:
.653 winning percentage
54.2 completion percentage
3027 passing pards
17 touchdowns
16 interceptions
73.6 passer rating

Elway's backup QBs stats from 1983 to 1989 (13 games)
.692 winning percentage (better)
56.6 completion percentage (better)
4115 yards (better)
29 touchdowns (much better)
23 Interceptions (much worse)
78.0 passer rating (better)

Elway's backup QBs produced at a higher level than he did over the course of the seasons where Elway supposedly dragged bad teams to three Superbowl appearances (where they got smoked in historic fashion). Steve DeBerg, Gary Kubiak, Scott Stankavage, and Ken Karcher were the backup QBs who attempted more than 3 passes during this time frame. None of those guys are even considered average QBs, yet combined produced at a higher level than Elway did.

**edit** I am aware its a relatively small sample size, but 3 games shy of a full season over the course of 7 years isnt as small as it seems.

Football Outsiders rank QBs from 1st to however many QBs take snaps in a given year by Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement (DYAR).

Elway's average rank from 1986 to 1998: 12th (although he did finish 1st once)

Before anyone accuses me of excluding the first 3 years of his career for some strategic reason, Football Outsiders did not start tracking this until 1986.

Joe Namath? Troy Aikman? Eli Manning? Just to name a few.

Elway was clutch in the 1986 playoffs to get Denver to the Super Bowl, dominated in the 87 and 89 conference championship to get Denver to those super bowls, made 6 afc championship games and 5 super bowls, played well in his first Super Bowl against NY, was great in his final game against Atlanta in the Super Bowl and won sbmvp, if he had went to a team with a more modern offense instead of the one Denver ran, his final career numbers would've been much better than they are. John Elway wasn't perfect as some would suggest, but he is still one of the top 10 QBs of all time, bad take.

Originally posted by RiceOwensStokes:
Joe Namath? Troy Aikman? Eli Manning? Just to name a few.

Elway was clutch in the 1986 playoffs to get Denver to the Super Bowl, dominated in the 87 and 89 conference championship to get Denver to those super bowls, made 6 afc championship games and 5 super bowls, played well in his first Super Bowl against NY, was great in his final game against Atlanta in the Super Bowl and won Super Bowl mvp, if he had went to a team with a more modern offense instead of the one Denver ran, his final career numbers would've been much better than they are. John Elway wasn't perfect as some would suggest, but he is still one of the top 10 QBs of all time, bad take.

A bit to unpack here, but I will try.

If you pull up virtually any top 10 list, you wont see any of them include Namath, Aikman or Eli. So you can make the argument that Aikman was overrated (he does appear in some top 20 lists), but none of the 3 guys are nearly as highly rated as Elway. You see Elway in top 10 lists and sometimes even top 5 lists.

In 1986, you wont hear me disagree with you about him being clutch against Cleveland. He orchestrated a masterful 15 play drive to put his team ahead in the final minute of the game. Great drive. But people often hang on this particular drive to demonstrate how clutch he was. Many quarterbacks have a singular super clutch drive. But this drive was special, and you will never hear me try to downplay it. What I will downplay is the game prior to it. The Broncos won in spite of Elway (40% completion percentage, 1 TD pass, 2 picks).

He did dominate in the 87 and 89 conference title games. 6 touchdown passes, only 1 turnover and passer ratings over 110 in both. Again, no disagreement here. But then what happened? He played like absolute garbage in the Superbowls. Completion percentage below 40%. 5 interceptions to 1 touchdown. Absolutely abysmal quarterback play.

In terms of Elway potentially having better numbers if he was in more modern or better offenses, I have addressed this already. Dan Reeves got more out of quarterbacks who are objectively somewhere between average and terrible QBs than he did out of Elway. Stats are listed in previous messages.

The most overrated QB of all time is Justin Herbert.