Brett Favre: Top 5 QB?

Chuck says he ain't, and Ben says he is. I side with Chuck.

The point of football is to win. In football, the QB is the most important position. Thus, if football teams win, they almost certainly win because of, and not in spite of, the QB. So, good measures of QB excellence should be win percentage, playoff win percentage, and number of Super Bowl wins.

Consider these stats I found at Bill Simmons: Super Bowl diary - ESPN:

"Montana, playoffs: 16-7
Brady, playoffs: 14-4
Elway, playoffs: 14-8
Favre, playoffs: 13-11
Warner, playoffs: 9-4
Manning, playoffs: 9-9
Roethlisberger, playoffs: 8-2"

So, Favre isn't even in the top 5 in this list, at slightly better than .500.

I also like this ranking system, which tries to measure a QB's "value added." I told Ben that, in my opinion, Steve Young is the best QB of the modern era. Here's the top QB's according to that system. As you can see, Young is #1, Favre #15. But there are a lot of non-SB-winning QBs on the list...

Player Name  Value Career Attempts
Steve Young  7103 4149
Dan Marino  6752 8358
Joe Montana  6634 5391
Roger Staubach  5286 2911
Ken Anderson  5135 4475
Dan Fouts  5017 5604
Peyton Manning  4927 4333
Trent Green  3788 3329
Kurt Warner  3487 2340
Fran Tarkenton  3401 3445
John Elway  3155 7250
Bob Griese  3116 2491
Warren Moon  2908 6823
Jim Kelly  2885 4779
Brett Favre  2672 7612