I promised a more detailed answer to Peter King’s crazy talk about Favre and where he stands all time, so here we go.  Now this is going to take more than one piece, because there’s too much stuff I looked at to make my decision.  I decided to do this tournament style; I looked at all the quarterbacks that I’ve actually watched and picked sixteen that I thought stood out.  These aren’t one game or one season wonders, and they aren’t highlight reel guys with little substance.  I’m talking about guys who played at a high level and put up big numbers over prolonged periods of time.  So you won’t see Doug Williams in the conversation here, or Rich Gannon or Eli Manning. I also threw out people I didn’t see; I can’t judge Sammy Baugh or Bart Starr so I won’t try.  So here’s the field:

Troy Aikman, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, John Elway, Boomer Esiason, Brett Favre, Jim Kelly, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, Joe Montana, Warren Moon, Phil Simms, Kurt Warner, and Steve Young.  Now I know some of the names have you all thinking, ‘huh?’  But hear me out first.  I’m starting with a field of 16, and I’m going to make cuts until I get to a final five or six.  The first cut will get rid of the obvious people, those who had better careers than most but aren’t anywhere near the best I’ve seen.  I felt that all these guys deserved some recognition though.

So who’s out first?  Brees.  He’s had a run over the last few years that is just awesome, which is how he made the list, but you can’t seriously call someone best ever just because they threw for 5,000 yards one year.  His numbers are going to be Hall of Fame worthy if he keeps it up (he’s already at 27,000 yards for his career at 30 years old; he could hit 50,000 in six years), but he’s got no rings and all of three playoff games to his name.  He’s going to need some more work.

Next out?  Esiason.  37,000 yards is very good for a career, along with an MVP award in 1988 and a Super Bowl appearance.  But he has only a few playoff appearances (five), none in the second half of his career, and an unimpressive 80-93 record as a starter.  Sorry Boomer.

Steve McNair?  Like Boomer, he has the Super Bowl appearance and the MVP award.  He’s got more playoff games the Brees and Boomer combined, and he’s got 31,000 career yards.  But that’s about it, and compared to the others on my list he comes up short.

Last one out in this round is McNabb.  He’ll pass 30,000 yards this season, he’s been to five NFC Championship games, and has a 9-6 playoff record.  Not bad at all.  But his NFC championship game record is 1-4, and he’s got no rings.  I can’t stand that next to Jim Kelly’s 4-1 AFC championship game record and call it even.   Sorry.

So that’s four guys out.  Next we go from twelve to some smaller number.