Favre Doesn’t Crack List of Top 10 All-Time QBs

By Dave “Large” Larzelere
The retirement of a player like Brett Favre is a veritable bonanza to your average history buff listmaker like myself. It provides an excellent excuse to reconsider that most hotly debated of football lists – The Greatest Quarterbacks of All Time.
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This morning I noted that the Worldwide Leader already had compiled some thoughts on this list, and where Favre might fit on it, and I must say I was struck by the provisional top five offerings of Jeffri Chadiha (in no particular order) – Montana, Elway, Unitas, Marino and Peyton Manning. According to Chadiha, Favre ranks sixth.
My response to this is –- dah ... what? Obviously, there are different criteria for different lists, but doesn’t success, i.e. RINGS, have to be a central consideration for any greatest QB’s list? And if so, how does Manning make the top five while Brady does not? And how does Favre rate above Bradshaw or Sid Luckman? I mean, jeez, I’m not sure I’ve got Favre above Sammy Baugh on my list.
But the whole thing is subjective, I know, so much fodder for the water-cooler. One quarterback I always think gets short shrift in the GOAT debates is Roger Staubach. Two rings and a Heisman on his resumé, the man that Tom Landry called the best combination of athlete, passer and leader ever to play in the NFL. I grew up watching Staubach run the two-minute drill (God it seems now like he must have invented the two-minute-drill) and I tell you, still to this day there aren’t many quarterbacks I’ve seen short of Montana that I would rather have in there with the clock running down and the game on the line.
And with that, I realize that I have no choice but to step up the plate and offer my top ten. Get ready haters –- this is the kind of list that everybody in America has a strong opinion on. So without further ado, here’s my top 10:
1. Joe Montana
2. Johnny Unitas
3. Sid Luckman
4. John Elway
5. Terry Bradshaw
6. Sammy Baugh
7. Otto Graham
8. Dan Marino
9. Tom Brady
10. Peyton Manning↵