Thread: What John Elway really did 47 times in his career

This may have already been posted as it's a few days old. If so I'm sorry.

Thought it was an interesting article

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=7993

Interesting read.

Whenever I read articles like this one, they hardly ever mention the reason they have to make a comeback. Special Teams, INTs or defense just not very good. But the writer definately put some effort into it.

Dude sounds a little bitter.

I don't care how Elway did it or the intricacies of the events. Far as I'm
concerned, he had 47 comebacks. That is one flavor of kool-aid I'm not going
to give up . . .

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Originally Posted by topscribe

I don't care how Elway did it or the intricacies of the events. Far as I'm
concerned, he had 47 comebacks. That is one flavor of kool-aid I'm not going
to give up . . .

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One third of his victories were combacks. That's amazing!

These stats highlight something I've said about Favre forever. He is a turnover machine at the most critical times. Whether it's an interception or a lost fumble he turns the ball over in the crunch way too much.

The lost fumbles get left out most of the time because people think primarily about interceptions, but Favre loses a ton of fumbles in these situations as well, and they kill a drive just as well as an interception.

I've watched all three ply their trade in the 4th quarter. Marino and Elway are head and shoulders above Favre. If Marino beat out Elway by one. .. well that's pretty damn good company, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. But I know this: If I have a team down by a touchdown late in the 4th quarter there is only one person I want leading the team. That's John Elway.

Originally Posted by topscribe

I don't care how Elway did it or the intricacies of the events. Far as I'm
concerned, he had 47 comebacks. That is one flavor of kool-aid I'm not going
to give up . . .

-----

Just think of how much better Elway would have been early in his career if he had a Mike Shanahan offense in place instead of the Dan Reeves (run, run, pass) scheme.

Originally Posted by BroncoStud

Just think of how much better Elway would have been early in his career if he had a Mike Shanahan offense in place instead of the Dan Reeves (run, run, pass) scheme.

So true... What people don't realize is that Elway could have played well in every system. His numbers weren't so good because he didn't have all the talent many great QB had/have.

I would have liked to see Montana with Broncos and Elway with 49ers... Guess what? I do believe 49ers would have won at least as many SBs as they did... But I don't think Broncos would have made 3SBs appareance.

Now, I don't say Montana is a bad QB... No way... He is one of the greatest... But dismissing Elway because of his numbers is really stupid and shows a lack of knowledge of football and sports in general...
Stats are great, but they are overrated.
Anyone who has seen THE DRIVE knows what I'm talking about

And yeah... Elway with Shanny & co for 16 years... wow... I could imagine how terrific this could have been. One of the greatest O I've ever seen (with 89's 49ers) and a defense that we could called a D (though our ball control was a good way for not exposing our D at that time).

What people always forget about 49ers or Steelers of the ol' good day is that they had great D and a lot of talent at key positions. That wasn't the case for #7 until his last years.

Originally Posted by NightTrainLayne

These stats highlight something I've said about Favre forever. He is a turnover machine at the most critical times. Whether it's an interception or a lost fumble he turns the ball over in the crunch way too much.

The lost fumbles get left out most of the time because people think primarily about interceptions, but Favre loses a ton of fumbles in these situations as well, and they kill a drive just as well as an interception.

I've watched all three ply their trade in the 4th quarter. Marino and Elway are head and shoulders above Favre. If Marino beat out Elway by one. .. well that's pretty damn good company, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. But I know this: If I have a team down by a touchdown late in the 4th quarter there is only one person I want leading the team. That's John Elway.

There's a lot of reasons why a team is behind in the fourth quarter. Special teams, fumbles, the team could be playing an inspired team or a superior opponent. It's really hard to cherry pick this out of a single season, doing it over a long and illustrious career like Elway's is hard to do.

Obviously Elway was a factor in the team being behind in a lot of those game. He has the ball in his hands every play and he's throwing the ball down the field.

The thing with Favre is that he being a turnover machine is offset by him being such a stat monster. And he's had a ton of fourth quarter and come from behind wins as well. People are colored by this year, but he had like three last year.

To defend Favre, Elway's pass to INT ratio is barely better than Favres, and Favre has way more passing attempts.

As far as the GOAT conversation goes, define your criteria and then there's usually an obvious choice.

If you want late game heroics, Montana, Elway or Brady could be your guy. If you want flat out winning, Otto Graham is your guy. If you want stats, but you want them from a harder era to throw the ball, Jonny Unitas is your guy. If you just want flat out stats, Marino, Elway and Manning is your guy.

If you want stats and winning in a modern era, Favre, Manning and Elway are your guys.

If you want more winning but still good stats then it's probably Montana.

For me, stats mean more than anything as far as individual players go. Winning is a tiebreaker. There are too many obvious examples of Trent Dilfer having a ring and Marino not. Or, the one I use is that Brady has three SB rings and Peyton Manning has one. No one is going to believe that Brady is three times the QB that Manning is.

Originally Posted by frenchfan

So true... What people don't realize is that Elway could have played well in every system. His numbers weren't so good because he didn't have all the talent many great QB had/have.

I would have liked to see Montana with Broncos and Elway with 49ers... Guess what? I do believe 49ers would have won at least as many SBs as they did... But I don't think Broncos would have made 3SBs appareance.

Now, I don't say Montana is a bad QB... No way... He is one of the greatest... But dismissing Elway because of his numbers is really stupid and shows a lack of knowledge of football and sports in general...
Stats are great, but they are overrated.
Anyone who has seen THE DRIVE knows what I'm talking about

And yeah... Elway with Shanny & co for 16 years... wow... I could imagine how terrific this could have been. One of the greatest O I've ever seen (with 89's 49ers) and a defense that we could called a D (though our ball control was a good way for not exposing our D at that time).

What people always forget about 49ers or Steelers of the ol' good day is that they had great D and a lot of talent at key positions. That wasn't the case for #7 until his last years.

I'll never forget how Reeves passed on Carl Pickens who would have complimented Elway
as he played for the next decade... and instead Dan took Tommy Maddox.

And when Reeves turned up in New York... he brought Maddox along.

Then when he went to Atlanta... he brought Maddox along again.

Maddox is selling Insurance in Phoenix now I think....

Originally Posted by BroncoStud

Just think of how much better Elway would have been early in his career if he had a Mike Shanahan offense in place instead of the Dan Reeves (run, run, pass) scheme.

You know, a lot of people blast Reeves' scheme, but he was until Shanahan the winningest coach in Broncos' history. In twelve seasons he had posted eight winning seasons, only two seasons of .500 or worse and only two losing seasons as a head coach. His only real mistake was trying to trade Elway, and drafting Maddox. Reeves' led the Broncos to five AFC West titles, two more then Shanahan, six playoff berths...one less then Shanahan, but only one Wild Card loss...three took us to the Super Bowl and the others were lost in the Divisional or AFC Championship games. That's not too F'n shabby...but always we remember him trying to trade Elway over the grand scheme of things, I actually believe Reeves is a terrific judge of talent, and a great coach with all things said and done.

It's kind of comparable to McDaniels, who traded Cutler before he could become a factoring status with Bowlen, so he got traded unlike Elway who had already spent years leading the Broncos, who had become the defacto face of the franchise...and Cutler was on his way to that point fairly quickly. There are some differences, but it still effected the fanbase, caused issues that have made McDaniels more hated. The difference is one was a proven head coach, the other hasn't proven a damn thing.

In the end though, Elway was without a doubt the comeback kid, every other team in the NFL was scared to let up because he could pick them apart. And there are few that have that aptitude like Elway and a select few back in the day, Rivers, Manning and Brady, Sanchez is climbing that ladder as well...man I miss the days of old.

Originally Posted by King87

To defend Favre, Elway's pass to INT ratio is barely better than Favres, and Favre has way more passing attempts.

Once again, you've ignored Favre's fumbles. As I posted above, all the Favre apologists ignore his horrendous lost fumbles stat. If you look at total turnovers it's not even close. . .but you being a stat guy somehow overlook that every time we have this conversation.

Originally Posted by Canmore

One third of his victories were combacks. That's amazing!

Originally Posted by BroncoStud

Just think of how much better Elway would have been early in his career if he had a Mike Shanahan offense in place instead of the Dan Reeves (run, run, pass) scheme.

Originally Posted by frenchfan

So true... What people don't realize is that Elway could have played well in every system. His numbers weren't so good because he didn't have all the talent many great QB had/have.

I would have liked to see Montana with Broncos and Elway with 49ers... Guess what? I do believe 49ers would have won at least as many SBs as they did... But I don't think Broncos would have made 3SBs appareance.

Now, I don't say Montana is a bad QB... No way... He is one of the greatest... But dismissing Elway because of his numbers is really stupid and shows a lack of knowledge of football and sports in general...
Stats are great, but they are overrated.
Anyone who has seen THE DRIVE knows what I'm talking about

And yeah... Elway with Shanny & co for 16 years... wow... I could imagine how terrific this could have been. One of the greatest O I've ever seen (with 89's 49ers) and a defense that we could called a D (though our ball control was a good way for not exposing our D at that time).

What people always forget about 49ers or Steelers of the ol' good day is that they had great D and a lot of talent at key positions. That wasn't the case for #7 until his last years.

Elway put some relatively bad teams on his shoulders and carried them to
the playoffs. That was even before he took good teams to Super Bowl wins.

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Originally Posted by NightTrainLayne

Once again, you've ignored Favre's fumbles. As I posted above, all the Favre apologists ignore his horrendous lost fumbles stat. If you look at total turnovers it's not even close. . .but you being a stat guy somehow overlook that every time we have this conversation.

First off, I'm not a Favre apologist. I'm just not a Bronco fan. Bronco fans ignore the fact that Elway's pass to INT ratio is barely better than Favre's. I've taken into the account of his lost fumbles. Even when you take into account how many snaps he's taken it's a knock against him.

So....what was that again?

One stat that really matters?
Elway played in 5 SB, won 2.

The 3 he lost were with a team that would have had troubles to make the playoffs without him. Plain and simple.
It's easy to look at numbers, but they don't tell all the truth... I've never seen a lot of QB that could achieve that...
Sorry...

Tell me about 4 SB wins, about the most yards passed, and so on... Well, in a collective sports, individuals stats are great, but they are far away to be the whole story.

I've never have the luck to see Otto Graham, nor Unitas playing... But according to what I know about them, they were great QB too... no doubt about that.
I'm just taking about what I really know and seen...
And really, it's hard to tell who's the best of best...
If I had a top five to give, I'll go with that (in no particular order and only QB I've seen) :
- Joe Montana... of course
- Dan Marino... the best pure passer I've ever seen
- John Elway... the most complete and the closest to a one man gang
- Peyton Manning... do I have to develop?
- Tom Brady... Montana's brother

Favre is close, but wouldn't make it... sorry. I like him but I do believe all those 5 I've named are/were better than him.