SPORTS
The greatest quarterback ever is…
In football, quarterback is arguably the most important position on the field. A great one can raise the ability of everyone on offense and is the de facto leader. While the position has always been important, with the rise of the passing game being exploited the position seems to have doubled in importance.
At the highest level of the NFL, it has been argued in this decade the only way a team can win a Super Bowl is with a quarterback who is deemed elite (Although backup quarterback Nick Foles threw a wrench into this thinking in the last Super Bowl).
How do we know when a quarterback is elite? When we see it, because that is vague enough for sports fans to argue quarterbacks merits.
With the importance of the position weighing so heavily in fans minds, the quarterback position is largely connected with and measured in championships.
Otto Graham
The standard was set way back in the 1950s, before the NFL was huge, when Otto Graham of the Cleveland Browns (hard as that is to believe) led his team 10 championship games all 10 years he played and won seven of them.
Four of those wins came in another league, but with four of the teams from that league later joining the NFL they had plenty of talent themselves, Graham is regarded as the greatest winner in NFL history though most modern fans have no idea who he is.
Johnny Unitas
The next quarterback thrown in the argument is Johnny Unitas, who played from 1955-1973, mostly for the Baltimore Colts.
While not as big of a winner, he did win championships in 1958 and 1959 and Super Bowl V.
The 1958 championship is arguably one of the most important games in the history of the league, as the Colts beat the New York Giants 23-16 in the league’s first ever overtime game. It was given the name of “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
Even with popular quarterbacks in the 1970s like Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach taking the NFL to another level of popularity thanks to television, Unitas was still the standard in most observer’s minds.
Joe Montana
In the 1980s came Joe Montana from the San Francisco 49ers. Along with his coach Bill Walsh, they stepped up the sophistication of the passing game even more with their famed West Coast offense.
It relied even more on the timing of the quarterback and receivers, but focused on short routes that, in Walsh’s mind, could make up for his team’s weakness in running the ball, at least initially. Every modern day passing offense takes standard elements from that West Coast offense.
While Montana did not have prototypical size or arm strength, his accuracy, touch, improvisation with his feet and uncanny ability to lead his team back on the biggest of stages made him magical.
His famed late drives to win against the favored Cowboys in the 1982 NFC Championship game and his 92-yard drive to win Super Bowl XXIII are the stuff of NFL legends. His usual calm composure when he played made everything he did seem effortless and in a term, magical.
While he played on great teams, Montana always had and seemed to play great when his team needed him to.
His four Super Bowl wins in the 1980s, tying him with Bradshaw for the most, along with his three Super Bowl MVPs unquestionably made Montana the greatest modern-day winner in league history at the quarterback position. No one had ever won more titles the way he had and no one did for the next few decades.
Tom Brady
In the early 2000s, a dynasty led by an unheralded quarterback seemed to threaten this as the New England Patriots won three Super Bowls in four seasons by the middle of the decade.
The famous Tom Brady was a sixth round pick in the year 2000 and was the seventh quarterback taken. The Patriots already had a franchise quarterback in Drew Bledsoe and had just signed him to a long and rich contract extension.
Bledsoe getting hurt in the second game of the 2001 season gave Brady his chance and he led the Patriots on an unprecedented season. They went 11-5 and won a famous divisional playoff game against the Oakland Raiders, upset the Pittsburg Steelers in the AFC Championship game and then upset the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl that featured a now famous drive by Brady to set up the game winning field goal on the final play.
Their second Super Bowl two years later again featured Brady coming through with a drive late in the game to set up a game winning field goal, almost on the final play, to win the Super Bowl against the Carolina Panthers.
While not as dramatic, their third Super Bowl win the next year against the Philadelphia Eagles did feature a good game from Brady, although it was his first and so far only Super Bowl win he was The talk died down as Brady did not have his best game, mostly due to facing a ferocious pass rush. He had failed where Montana never had on the biggest stage.
A missed season due to injury and a couple of playoff exits the next three years kept him in the conversation for the best quarterback in the league, but best ever talks were put on the backburner, even as Brady started to become more and more responsible for the Patriots offensive success as he put up the best numbers of his career.
In 2012, the Patriots again made it to the Super Bowl and were favored to win against the Giants. Again, a ferocious pass rush by the Giants limited Brady enough so the Giants could win in another upset. With two losses, talks were even more put to bed.
Brady and the Patriots continued to stay relevant the rest of this decade and then some. After two years of losses in the AFC Championship game, Brady and the Patriots made it back to the Super Bowl in 2016 against the defending champions the Seattle Seahawks.
Looking like nothing would slow him down this past season even as he turned 40, Brady led his team back to the Super Bowl for an outrageous eighth time since the turn of the century.
He faced the Eagles and in one of the most explosive offensive showings in Super Bowl history, one in which Brady broke not only the Super Bowl record, but the postseason record by passing for 505 yards, the Eagles won 41-33. The loss bumps his Super Bowl record to 5-3 and leaves some people questioning what they know or how to evaluate just a year after proclaiming him the new “best ever.”
The only people who care about this stuff are hard core sports nerds. Players who are named the greatest of all time do not get another trophy.
So why do we sports fans do it? Like every generation, we want to believe our culture, our music, our movies, our sports stars were the best that was and will ever be. Dismissing the younger and older generations and what they lived through is what gives us validation we lived during special times.
Do you agree with my choice for the greatest quarterback of all time? No? Who do you think it is? Click the link below to take our survey and share your thoughts, whether your agree or disagree.
A solid day was had by Montague county high school tracksters at the State Track and Field Meet May 16 in Austin.
Bellevue’s Mattie Broussard had a pair of second place finishes in both the 800-meter run with a time of 2:21.41 and the 3,200-meter run with a time of 11:31.33. Broussard also was 4th in the 1,600-meters with a time of 5:22.18.
Her teammate Brylie Hager was 9th in the 110-meter hurdles in 19.93.
Forestburg’s Brenna Briles was 4th in the triple jump with a 35’9 1’2” leap. Her teammate Jocelyn Rich was 4th in the pole vault with a 9’ leap.
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bowie had a pair of top four finishes at the State Track and Field Meet May 14.
Sophomore Brayden Willett made it onto the medal stand, finishing 3rd in the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:17.89. Bowie junior Tyler Richey finished 4th in the pole vault after a 14’6” effort.
The top two finishers from Holliday, also in Bowie’s district, celebrated with him after he crossed the finish line.
“It was kind of surprising,” Willett said about Ryder and Noah Stroman embracing him in a celebratory hug. “They’re good guys, so it was kind of cool.”
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
This past week found your outdoor scribe doing some rather mundane things such as yard work, vegetable gardening and repairs around the old cabin. Oh, I also wrapped up a couple of magazine articles. I always enjoy sharing my adventures with all of you in this column but to be perfectly honest, not nearly as much as my ‘field work’ hunting and fishing which is an iatrical part of any good outdoor column. If you’re like me, you much prefer reading about an adventure that you can also partake.
I am far more comfortable telling you about an outdoor experience I had firsthand knowledge of rather than the reporting part of my job as an outdoor communicator. So, this week, I’d do a bit of ‘reporting’ and share some planned adventures I have scheduled for the next couple weeks. By the time you’re reading this, I will have already been in the woods in quest of a fat ‘eater’ hog and probably have some freshly caught blue catfish fillets in the freezer, details will follow in the next couple of weeks.
I’ll kick things off early in the week heading down to my friend Jeff Rice’s Buck and Bass Ranch located on the upper end of Lake Fork. Jeff produces our weekly TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” which airs on Carbon TV and YouTube. Our plan is to film a segment of our show on stalking wild hogs. It will be a challenge to capture the shot with all the thick grown spring vegetation. It could happen fast and require a fast shot. We will be breaking in my CVA Cascade scout rifle in 308 caliber. This short barrel little rifle is light and easy to handle in thick cover, ideal for this type of hunting. Our plan is to hit the woods during the last couple hours of daylight and ease along the trails, watching and especially listening for hogs. Wild porkers are vocal critters and it’s common to hear them before seeing them. We will play the wind and attempt to get downwind and then close the distance for a shot but you can never guess how a hog hunt will unfold. Wild pork or not, Jeff and I always have a great time together and I plan to bring a side of wild pork ribs already slow smoked and covered in brown sugar and BBQ sauce with a side of camp baked beans!
After a tasty dinner we plan to get a good night’s sleep and head out the next morning for a planned fishing trip with guide David Hanson at Lake Tawakoni. Both channel and blue catfish are on a very good bite right but it’s hard to pass up those snow white blue catfish fillets when the bite is good. David is, to my knowledge, the most veteran catfish guide on the lake and became friends close to a quarter-century ago when we first began fishing
together. The plan is to use freshy cut shad in shallow water and target eater size blues weighing between 2 and about 10 pounds but as every catfish angler knows, it’s always possible to connect with a big trophy size blue when fishing Tawakoni.
Next week, I plan to join my long-time friend J.C. McCollough on the Red River below the Texoma dam. I’ve been fishing and hunting with J.C. for many years and look forward to getting with him again. I would describe this to catching big catfish in a barrel but in this case the deep holes in the river are comprised of several acres. The water level in the river below Texoma are dictated by the water release at the dam by the Corp of Engineers. When there is a current in the river, fish move upstream to feed on baitfish coming through the dam. When the water recedes, they fish move into the deeper holes where baitfish also seek refuge from the falling water. Catching will be fast paced with the chance to connect with some big fish as well as limits of “eater” size fish. We’ll be rigging with big live gizzard shad fished weightless on a free line, using medium spinning gear. The bigger fish will often nail the frisky live shad and the fresh cut bait is a sure way to connect with lots of smaller fish. There is something very exciting about fishing big live baits on a slack line. One minute your bait will be darting around and you will occasionally feel it taking up slack and the next when a big blue catfish grabs the bait, the rod will bow and the fight will be on. There is usually no ‘setting the hook’, by the time you feel the fish, it will already be hooked and making a strong run to the nearest submerged brush. Your job will be to keep the drag set just enough to keep pressure on the fish but not so much as to cause the line to break.
J.C. uses his airboat to access these deeper holes because of the very shallow water. While it’s not impossible to portage a kayak or small boat in the river, it often requires a few miles travel to get to these deep holes, this is best accomplished by experienced kayakers with plenty of endurance. There was a time when I was game for this type fishing but I much prefer to do my river fishing these days from a boat designed to negotiate the shallow waters.
Squirrel season is underway in many of the east Texas counties and there’s some pretty good fox squirrel hunting here close to home in Kaufman county and I’ve been thinking about how tasty a big skillet of smothered squirrel with rice, gravy and biscuits would be. Bream are on the beds now and my friend Edgar Cotton invited me to come do some ‘perch jerking’ with him and his son David-it’s in the plans! Well, hopefully next week I will have a ‘sure nuff’ adventure of two to relate you you-I’m ready to get some relief from all this work around the homeplace! LC
You can contact Tawakoni/Fork catfish guide David Hanson at 902-268-7391. Contact J.C. McCollough at 580-372-0320.
Listen to Luke’s podcast, “Catfish Radio” just about everywhere podcast are found.
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