Reliving the Legacy: The Greatest Quarterbacks of the 1980s and 90s

Ed's up in just a moment to tell you all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

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A. Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hees of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to another episode of Fun.

We have our friend Ed Cleese joining us and he's got a really interesting event that we're going to take part in here, and maybe you'll have some fun listening to us talk about it, and maybe you can do it with your friends too.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, thanks for having me back.

Pumped about this one.

Yeah.

This is a really cool and different, very unique event that we're going to be doing here.

And I'm going to let you share your brilliant idea, let you tell what it is and what the ground rules are.

Sure.

Well, I don't know about brilliant, but I do appreciate that it's so like most football fans, I also love the draft and I love any kind of draft.

I love drafting fantasy football.

I can draft breakfast cereals, whatever it is, I like drafts.

So I came up with this idea to.

Oh, wait a second.

You drink a draft with breakfast cereal?

Good one.

Or in your breakfast cereal?

How about in your breakfast cereal?

So I came up with this idea to draft the quarterbacks from the 80s and the 90s.

And like everything that I do, I have a very firm set of criteria on this.

So I wanted them to be able to 80s or 90s quarterbacks, guys that really played in the 90s, not necessarily guys that got drafted in the 80s and 90s, but the guys that really made their mark in the 80s and 90s.

So I came up with, you had to have played at least five years in either of the 80s or 90s decades.

Okay.

So it's okay if you were drafted in the 70s, as long as you played five years in the 80s, and it's okay if you were.

So that's Kind of the scope we're looking at.

And so, so they had to have.

Played at least 25% of that 20 year period.

Right?

Exactly.

There you go.

You're doing.

You were doing math for me there.

And that's always hard for me to do in my head.

So I take my shoes off for that one.

But there we go.

Yes, yes.

25% of that 20 year period.

Perfect.

So, and so for me, when I'm drafting quarter, then you kind of talk about, okay, well what are we drafting?

Are we drafting the best career, the best player, the guy that's best for one game?

And for me it's sort of just all of the above, the total package.

I don't discount longevity and consistency.

Those are very important things.

But that isn't necessarily my top criteria.

For me personally, I've always liked to look at and also, like, don't like to boil it down to just one.

One game.

Who do you want?

One game.

I always kind of think, who would I want in one season if you gave me an average NFL roster and then said take X quarterback at his peak, who would you pick over who?

And that's kind of how I do mine personally.

But I don't think there's a right or wrong way on how we're drafting.

I just know that when it's done, my eight quarterbacks are going to outshine your eight quarterbacks.

Oh, boy, he's throwing the gauntlet down early.

Now, folks, you are going to be the judge here.

We're going to pick our eight quarterbacks.

We're going to go, you know, take turns and Ed is going to go first.

He won the coin flip backstage before we came on and he's going to go first.

And at the end, we're going to ask you to be the judges on whose selections you like best.

And Ed's going to even post on some social media.

We'll copy it and share it and we'll have a lot of fun with this.

Sir, let's get going.

Okay, you have the first pick, my friend.

Okay, so the first pick.

While there's a lot of debate, you know, hopefully we have a lot of debate.

There could be a lot of back and forth.

I don't think there is any real true debate on who the number one pick should be.

I am very confident in choosing one Joe Montana to be the first pick of this draft.

I think.

I really don't think I need to even talk too much about him.

I think for the most part, everybody understands why he would be the first Pick the total package in terms of he has the numbers, he has the wins, he has the rings, he had, he had longevity because, you know, drafted in the late 70s, plays all through the 80s and into the, almost the middle part of the 90s with the Chiefs was still very effective quarterback.

So Joe Montana is my pick.

Joe Cool, I think it's easy and he is unbeatable on this list, in my opinion.

I wouldn't disagree with you on that.

When you have four Super bowl wins, you have multiple Super Bowl MVPs, you know, you are an All Pro, you're a Pro Bowler, you have everything going for you and you know, like a name like Joe Cool and you're a Notre Dame guy.

What can go wrong?

Yeah, Joe Montana, that's an excellent pick and jealous you got that one.

All right, all right, well, I'm gonna go scientific here.

I am going to, you know, you're saying you want for one season.

Well, I'm going to go with the stats.

All right.

I love the analytics, I love the statistics.

And these are these quarterbacks all playing sort of in that same 20 year period.

There is pretty equal footing.

The game was pretty much the same in the 80s and 90s, you know, with some changes.

The west coast offense I understand coming in in the middle of that, but pretty much quarterbacks for quarterbacks.

It's not like comparing a quarterback, Patrick Mahomes to, you know, Johnny Unit.

That's kind of two different games that they were playing.

So I think it's fun to use the stats in this case.

And I'm looking at just like we talked with Montana, I'm looking at championships, I'm looking at passing yards, I'm looking at touchdown passes, I'm looking at league MVPs.

And really important, I think besides being a Hall of Famer, maybe even more important than that is all decade teams because I think that really sums up.

You're the best at your position in that decade.

And we're talking about two different decades here.

So I think that makes it fun.

And you know, he had 302 games.

He had a 62 percentage of passing completion.

Super bowl champion, league MVP, 11 Pro Bowls, three all pros and made the all decade team.

He scores high on my chart using the stats.

Well, Darren, I am very glad that you chose Favre, so I didn't have to.

This may come as a Surprise to a lot of people but he was not even in my top five and I know that's a bit of a controversial take, but I have reasons.

First of all, I will get this out of the way.

He is completely deserving of his gold jacket.

He is an easy.

No doubt about it.

First ballot Canton hall of Fame for sure.

No arguments there at all.

The numbers are incredible.

I do give him a lot of credit for not only the longevity of his career but being so durable within that career.

He was there every week and that is huge.

But what knocks him down on my list is the tendency and the consistency with which he made horrible backbreaking game losing plays.

Now you might argue that he made a lot of winning plays too, but a lot of these guys on this list, they're not going to have it 50, 50 kind of split.

It's usually they, they did the winning and far.

There's three playoff games right off the top of my head that you can think of where he threw a game losing interception and this wasn't in a fourth down and long desperation.

These were just like oh my gosh, what is he doing?

They have the game one or they're going down to what he's throwing a law Pat like what is happening backbreakers.

Those three games I'm thinking of don't even include his six interception game in the playoffs.

And as we know he wound up leading it holds the all time record for most interceptions.

Again, the longevity there, the volume I don't discount, I don't hold that too much against him but he just was too much of a gambler for me to take in my top three probably on this list.

All right, well you know that I, I respect your opinion is but I'm going to take his over 71,000 yards passing and I'll take that into my season here and have a pretty good season, I think.

Well, fair, fair enough.

And I, as we speak, I can see the defensive back taking one back right now.

So.

All right, the packers fans will probably love that.

So for my second pick, I'm very happy that you didn't select this guy because this was the one guy on the list that I would have maybe given a little bit of consideration to bumping Montana and that is John Elway.

Again, this is a very easy pick for me similar to Montana in terms of the longevity.

You know, basically John Elway came into the league in 83.

He won the Super bowl in 98.

So that is a long time to.

And you know 98 was the last year and he may have been winding down at that point, but the year before, in 97, he was one of the main reasons they won the super bowl like that.

He was still John Elway at that point.

We know about the comebacks.

We know about all the amazing moments.

He's got a lot of aura about him, and this is an easy pick for me.

The.

The other thing I'll point out is, in his whole career, until the very end there, he did not.

He was never surrounded by a great supporting cast.

There wasn't a lot of, like, tremendous defenses on his team.

He didn't have a lot of great weapons probably again, until, like, the mid-90s with Terrell Davis and Rod Smith and McCaffrey, you know, there wasn't.

It was.

He kind of carried that team for well over a decade.

He did it well.

Ran into a couple of juggernauts in the super bowl, but I don't hold those against him.

And John Elway is my second pick.

Okay, that's is a great pick.

But you talk about losing big games.

I mean, John Elway, heck, the first 16 years of his career was, you know, he was losing the big games.

You know, I believe multiple super bowl losses until he finishes his career with two super bowl wins.

But, you know, I don't see how you could knock him and knock Favre and take Elway.

They're almost the same kind of quarterback, you know, taking chances, strong armed forces, forcing the ball, probably where most mortals not dare to put it, but having a lot of success doing it.

I think it's a great pick you had.

My counter to that would be that when I talk about those Favre plays, I'm thinking of moments in games where the packers either had an incredible chance to win and blew it, or should have won and lost because of Favre.

In those games that you mentioned, the Super Bowls for Elway, they were completely overmatched.

We're not going to lose to anybody.

They scored every single time they had the ball.

In that game against Denver, the Broncos had no chance.

There was nothing Elway could have reasonably done in those games to win.

He was never really in a position until the very end, 97, 98, where he needed to make plays to win them Super Bowls.

And when he was finally put in that position, he did it, especially that one.

Against who?

Favre in 97.

Yeah.

Good points.

Good points.

All right, well, I'm going to go with my second pick.

And, you know, those that listen to this show all the time.

No, I'm from Western Pennsylvania, I'm a Pennsylvania homer.

This year I have pit season tickets and I'm taking Pitts golden boy, the pride of Western Pennsylvania.

I'm taking Dan Marino as my next pick.

Now it goes against a little bit what I'm saying with the, the championships.

He has zero.

He did play in one super bowl, lost to Montana.

And I believe it's his rookie year or maybe it was a second year.

It was early on in his career, he was 84.

That was year two, so year two.

Okay, so, but his passing yards, his touchdown passes, you know, this, this man had 200, I'm sorry, 273 touchdown passes, I'm sorry, 420 touchdown passes.

Looking at the wrong guy in his career, you know, didn't have the greatest defenses on the other side of his team, you know, for his teams to do.

He had much of time have his offenses win games, you know, had some good receivers.

Didn't have the, you know, exceptional receivers that some of the other quarterbacks we've talked about didn't have Jerry Rice, you know, playing for per se.

But he had some good receivers that he made even better because quick release, very pinpoint accuracy, didn't take a lot of chances and he was a very clever and great field general.

Well, while I enjoyed pushing back hard on your Favre selection, I am not going to push back on the Marino selection.

I did have one more person ranked ahead of him who I'm about to take.

However, that was a very tough call.

Marino was great.

I do think that some, sometimes he is maybe a little historically underrated because he only went to that one super bowl, never got back again.

I think what you mentioned, a little bit of a victim of circumstance there.

The Dolphins really didn't do a very good job throughout his career of really building around him.

I'm trying to think of any other player that would even have sniffed Canton in his entire career from the Dolphins.

Certainly maybe Richmond Webb, the lineman.

You know, I don't think certainly no skill position players, but yes, I would agree.

I think Marino is a good pick and I know as a Western PA guy that prob just warms your heart.

Certainly does, Certainly does.

So who do you have for your third pick?

My third pick is.

This is the one that I'm probably most proud of and most excited about.

And that is a guy that I do not think people remember in exactly the correct light.

And that is Steve Young, one of my all time favorite quarterbacks.

Even though he played for A team I really hated growing up as a.

As a Washington fan.

I kind of hated all those other NFC teams that were good back then.

You didn't like Tampa Bay?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's really funny.

Yeah.

No, so, yes, but of course, yes, he did start in Tampa Bay, and I think that's part of the reason maybe history has changed things for him a little bit, is that, you know, he was in his eighth full season before he really became a star, a true starter in, in the league.

Was the first year he was kind of all in.

And then, you know, I think it went pretty much all through the, through the 90s there, at least through 98.

And during that run, he went to seven straight Pro Bowls.

Five times he led the league in completion percentage.

Four times.

He led the league in touchdown passes.

He six times led the league in passer rating, and he averaged over four rushing touchdowns per year.

He was, for anybody that remembers, he was, I wouldn't quite say dual threat in the way that we think of it now, but he certainly was a great scrambler, extremely good athlete, accurate.

A.

And the other thing is, I know sometimes we'll maybe knock him because he just had the one super bowl, but in all of those years, not only did this 49ers make the playoffs, all but one of those years, they also advanced in the playoffs.

So Steve Young was the total package.

Hurt a little bit by getting a late start on his career, but a true winner, a great player, and a little bit of a precursor to some of the quarterbacks we see today.

Yeah, I have no argument with you at all on Steve Young's career.

I think he was a brilliant quarterback.

I mean, any guy that can sort of push the 49ers to trade Joe Montana to another team and keep him, you got to be pretty good.

And it proved out to be a good choice because they both had success after that as a win win for both teams, the Chiefs and the 49ers, and Steve Young and Joe Montana, they both had great careers after that.

And he, you know, you actually took the guy, Steve Young, fifth in my, my chart charting here.

So all five picks have been taken so far.

That's the top five that I had selected so far.

So it's going to make it pretty easy for my next pick.

I'm going to take number six on my, my list.

And that is a guy that had you talk about late bloomers.

This is a guy that really didn't even make it into the National Football League for four years.

He had to go to another league to have success before he got noticed.

And that's Warren Moon.

Now, Warren Moon had some exciting offenses he played, you know, and we're just looking at his stats in the National Football League.

I don't remember what age he was when he came in.

Oh, yes, I do.

He was 24 years old when he came in the National Football League.

So basically three of his first years of playing were in the cfl.

And I believe he won a great cup up there.

But we can't count those stats in this because we're talking about National Football League.

But Warren Moon had, you know, scored very high in the.

By charting here.

He had over almost 50,000 yards passing in the National Football League.

He had 291 career touchdown tosses.

Didn't have any championships, but he did make it to the hall of Fame, the Pro Football hall of Fame, had nine Pro Bowls and, you know, had a very great career and playing in some very innovative offenses.

You know, Mouse Davis is running shoot for one.

When he was at the Houston Oilers, really set the bar high for what Warren Moon can do.

And then he went on to other teams in Seattle and.

And the like, the Vikings, I believe, just using that great arm, great accuracy and finding the open man made the supporting cast around him even better by his fine play.

All right, all right.

So Moon.

Don't hate it.

Don't love it.

I have.

There's a good handful of guys still on the board that I would take above.

Above Moon.

And it is difficult sometimes because you want to be sure that you're not being hypocritical in how you're judging one guy versus another.

But Moon just didn't.

Wasn't part of enough big winning, big wins for me.

It's not even.

I don't.

Well, you know, we can say that Elway got blown out in a couple Super Bowls, but he was always there right there either in the super bowl.

On the cusp, Moon, there's just.

It's kind of empty once we get to the postseason, there's just very little to almost no success.

There's not a lot of advancement in the playoffs.

There's some really poor personal performances in the playoffs.

He, of course, was on the losing end of the 35 to 3 comeback game in Buffalo, which you certainly cannot put all on him.

Obviously, their defense completely fell apart.

He did throw a couple picks in that game in the second half that were.

That proved to be very harmful to the Oilers chances.

That's the kind of situation where I think maybe when the wheels are falling off, you need your quarterback to, like, save you.

And he was unable to.

So there's just.

I think it's an okay pick.

He had a great career.

I don't have any problem with him going to the Pro Football hall of Fame, but I do think there's still guys on the board that I would rather have a quarterback in my team than.

Okay, let's hear him.

Let's hear this one.

This is going to be.

I think, I feel like this one's going to cause a lot of.

For the analytics crowd.

For sure they're not going to like this pick, and I know that already because I know the analytics crowd probably doesn't even think he should be in Canton.

And that is my fourth pick.

That is Troy Aikman.

And the reason that I am choosing Troy Aikman is because I think it's a little bit of a philosophy I have in both life and football, and that is don't mess up.

If you can go through your day without making any big mistakes, you've probably had a pretty good day.

And Troy Aikman went through his entire career with almost never really screwing up.

He was surrounded by hall of Famers.

I've always thought that that has hurt him in the.

In the eyes of people.

His stats are kind of pedestrian.

A lot of times it's because they just didn't need to be much better.

The Cowboys were so good, they were so dominant through those years that Aikman was able to kind of just do what he needed to do and get the job done.

As a fan, that was always rooting against him and that team.

I can't tell you how frustrating it was on third and six to have that.

You see Aikman drop back.

He's going to hit Irvin for nine.

He's going to hit Alvin Harper for 12.

He's going to make the plays.

When you needed Aikman to do something a little above and beyond, he did.

And I think he is worthy of his gold jacket, and I think he is worthy to be right in the middle of my list on the.

On this.

In this draft.

Well, I think that is a great pick, too.

Now I have.

I still have one guy rated higher than Aikman, but Aikman comes up next on that list in the eighth spot.

So I think that's a solid selection.

You can't argue with winning championships.

You can't argue with being part of a dynasty at which the Cowboys were in the 90s.

They were very hard to beat.

The triplets are world famous.

And he was one of those, you know, I think he's a great pick.

Solid and very consistent player and great pick.

All right, so the player that I have rated just a little bit higher than him did not have the championships that Aikman had, but he had numbers that did it.

And when I talked about earlier the all decade teams, this guy was in the all decade teams, that's Dan Fouts with the San Diego Chargers.

And Fouts, you know, had a great career of passing.

You know, he had some, some great receivers.

You know, let's, let's face it, had some great bodies to throw to 254 touchdowns.

He had over 43,000 yards passing.

So Dan Fouts is my pick.

Of your four picks so far, that's my favorite.

I think that's the best value on the board.

He would have been my next pick as well.

I think a lot of people associate him with the 70s like you said, but he made the Pro bowl five times in the 80s as well.

And he has admitted that he simply could not feel or throw the ball that day and probably would have been a different story had he been able to.

But, but yes, I think Fouts is a great, a great choice.

And man, what a great beard.

Yeah, great, great beard.

And that all decade team.

Impressive.

Impressive for sure.

Yeah.

All right, so I guess we're going to move on to the back half of our picks now.

We each have four with four to go.

So this one, I'm pretty excited about it.

Another guy that I think is historically underrated.

And when we say dual threat, I mean this was true dual threat at a time where this was not happening.

And my fifth pick is Randall Cunningham.

Now, please note that this pains me a little bit to take two back to back NFC east opponents of mine as a, as a Washington fan growing up, but I believe that Randall is a historically underrated quarterback.

We're talking an Incredible talent.

I think at the time, there was still a stigma attached to quarterbacks that did a lot with their legs.

It was almost as if he was knocked.

If he had.

If he had a huge rushing game where he ran for two touchdowns, it was almost like a negative in some people's eyes.

Like, oh, it's because he can't throw the ball in the pocket, which he most certainly could.

An absolute cannon of an arm.

Again, a player that he didn't really play with any many great running backs.

He kind of was always the best.

He needed to be the leading rusher on the team.

He, from here and there, he had a couple good receivers, but for the majority of his career, he didn't.

He was incredible.

I believe he had 34 touchdown passes that year.

I think by that time was kind of just a pocket passer.

He did have some great receivers then and really took advantage of it.

Kind of makes you wonder, had he had them earlier, if he would have put up even bigger numbers.

But just a real talent, a great player, a very dangerous guy, has some really good, like, late clutch moments.

Randall Cunningham is my number five pick.

Well, you can't argue with that.

You know, when you have a guy that's sort of before his time, sort of setting the stage for guys like Lamar and, you know, some of the others that are running quarterbacks, you know, because he could do both.

Like you said, triple threat.

You didn't know, you know, made defenses not know what to do.

You have a DB out on the edge.

Do you stay in cover?

Do you come up and.

And tackle him before he starts, you know, moving, because he's a big man to get down.

Once he got moving and he had some great moves and some great speed.

Randall Cunningham, I. I don't argue with that one at all.

All right.

I do have a bunch of quarterbacks ahead of Randall Cunningham, though.

So you left me with a lot of selection for my next pick, and I'm going to take another guy.

I sort of like these late bloomers.

I have that theme going on here, and especially guys that come from other leagues.

And a guy that had some great seasons in the USFL when he came out of Miami, that's Jim Kelly.

And he carried right on through with the Buffalo Bills, took them to four Super Bowls, set the world on fire.

With Machine Gun Kelly, they were kind of.

And you had the no huddle.

He sort of made that in vogue that, you know, teams still use today.

They used as a weapon at any point in the game, not just in the two minute drills.

And you know, Jim Kelly talk about being consistent.

He, he made, made plays, made his teammates around him better.

You know, he was absent during that 35 to 3 game you talked about earlier against Houston.

Frank Reich was the, the winning quarterback and that wouldn't have been.

Let that come back.

But Jim Kelly was that steady Eddie.

And you know, when Rake got done with that game beating Houston, who was back in the mix, it was Jim Kelly at the helm of the Buffalo Bills and playing in the Super Bowl.

Well, this is the second pick in a row where you took the guy that I would have taken next.

So I really like your last two picks.

I think Kelly's great.

The other thing I'll add about Kelly that I really like is my, my mom's family's from Buffalo and talk about a guy that's beloved there and I believe pretty much has made Buffalo his home.

He is still a huge part of the community there, a great relationship.

I think it's really cool.

Kelly was a winner.

I understand that you say.

Well, he lost four Super Bowls in a row.

Of those four Super Bowls, they were only the better team once.

In the first one against the Giants, that was a heartbreaker.

Kelly did drive them down for the game winning field goal.

That kick goes in.

Kelly's the hero, right?

He kind of did his job that day and you know, wide right.

And then the next three years they were completely outmatched.

So I just think this is a great pick, a great player.

I like how you pointed out that he was started a little bit late.

Great pick, good job.

Oh, thanks.

You might be catching up to me a little bit here.

Just a little bit.

I forgot the best part.

Another Western Pennsylvania.

He's from the Pittsburgh area as well.

That's true, that's true.

Yes.

Western New York's not too far from me either.

I'm only an hour and a half away from, from there too.

But yeah, Kelly, like you said, he's a great guy and you know, all prayers go out to him and his family with some of the troubles he's going through health wise.

So we hope he gets right.

For sure.

For sure.

So my next pick is a little bit of a homer pick, but I do have what I think is some pretty good reasoning for it.

So my number six pick is going to be Joe Theisman, Notre Dame guy.

Right there for you, Darren.

Right off the bat.

Okay.

Yeah, that's true.

Golden Domer.

There you go, both of them.

That's right, there you go.

So Theisman is my pick again, a little bit like Steve Young.

Not as good as Young, but in terms of was in the league the whole time, but didn't really become the full time starter for the Redskins until his fifth year.

As a matter of fact, his first couple of years they really didn't have him play quarterback.

They had him returning punts and doing some special teams things and he was just trying to find any way he could to get on the field.

Once he did get on the field, the Redskins offense improved dramatically.

So from the very late 70s right on into the 80s, Theisman again, if you look at his numbers, like his rushing numbers, you would say, oh, this guy wasn't really dual threat but he was a scrambler.

He made a lot of plays with his arm by extending the play with his legs.

And if you go through your history books, which I know you know very well, Darren, and you look at NFL league MVPs, they're not a lot of random guys on there.

There's not a lot of, you know, one year wonders in there.

We're talking about a list of majority are in the hall of Fame.

I'm not saying that Theisman should be in the hall of Fame.

He probably comes up a little, a little short in the numbers game, but I think at his peak he was as in the top three to four quarterbacks in the league at the time he played.

We all remember how his career ended, unfortunately.

And I think that's what most people think of in the broken leg in 85 against the Giants on Monday night.

But I hope that people realize what a great player he really was and brought, you know, my favorite franchise, Washington, their first Super Bowl.

Theisman was a very solid pick.

You know, I think he was one of the, the top Washington quarterbacks, you know, that era.

And they had, they've had some great ones.

You know, when you, you have names, you know, like Kilmer and Jurgenson and you know, some of the others that have gone through there and played and even today, you know, Theisman's name is still in the top of that hierarchy.

Very solid pick because He's a Notre Dame guy.

That probably makes him, you know, gives that extra edge on there and the Golden Domers having success.

And, you know, really unfortunate because I don't think he was done yet when his suffered that leg when lt, you know, smacked him down on Monday Night Football there.

And just one of the most gruesome injuries I think I've ever saw on tv, on the news, football game, whatever.

That was pretty gruesome to watch.

And it's a wonder the man can even walk this day.

And I understand why he decided not to play football again, because that was pretty gruesome.

But great quarterback, very accurate.

And he was a winner.

Absolutely.

All right, well, speaking of winners and speaking of the NFC East, I'm going to go with one that has a couple Super Bowls under his belt here, one that he played in, one that he had to sit out because of injury, and that's Phil Sims of the New York Giants.

Because this guy, you talk about being a guy not to make mistakes and to help his team win and, you know, it doesn't have to do it all on his own.

Let's.

Phil Sims to a tee.

Guy was consistent.

You know, we know parcels teams love to run the ball.

They had, you know, great backs when Sims was there, but, you know, he made the most of it.

When his team needed him to, he would pass the ball.

I believe he still has an NFL record in the playoffs for most consecutive completions in the playoffs games.

And I think that was on their super bowl run right into the NFC Championship game against the Niners, I believe.

And, you know, Phil Sims, very consistent.

And, you know, like I said, the super bowl wins the passing yardage and just a winner.

That guy's making my list.

He wouldn't have quite made my top eight, I don't think.

However, you could also make the argument that he's very similar to a guy I did pick earlier, and that's Troy Aikman, another NFC east quarterback.

And I can just tell you firsthand, as a kid, I could not stand Phil Sims.

And it was because he was just so steady.

You kept thinking, this guy isn't good, this guy isn't good, this guy isn't good.

And he just keeps beating you and beating you, converting third downs, throwing touchdowns.

And eventually you tell yourself, you know what?

Maybe this guy is actually good.

And I think that was kind of, you know, he's.

He had a lot.

He was so boring.

Their offense was boring, but they beat people.

And it was.

He was a very frustrating player to play Against.

And I think that's a good feather in your cap.

If you're a quarterback, when the other team and the other opposing fans find you annoying, that's probably good.

So I don't have any real issue with your seventh pick there.

Okay, well, you're down to your final pick now.

Who do you select?

Well, I'm.

This is seven for me.

I'm sorry.

That was your.

I messed up.

That was your sixth.

Okay.

Okay.

So this is your seven.

I lost track.

That was my fault.

I did, too.

I'm on my seventh pick, and I am going to take a guy that might be the, perhaps the worst athlete I've ever seen play quarterback, and that is Bernie Kozar.

Bernie Kozar is going to be my number seven pick.

This is sort of just one of those from the gut type picks.

I'm not sure Bernie's numbers really stack up, but a guy that just could fling the ball, he was.

He just knew how to play quarterback.

Right.

And talk about heartbreak, you know, 86, 87, 89, AFC championship game all three years, lose to the Broncos all three years.

And really, in both 86 and 87, just got Elwayed, you know, really, he just got away.

Because Kar was one of the reasons the Bronco, the Browns, excuse me, were about to win those games.

He was very clutch in those games, especially in 87 and Mile High.

Now, that was undone, of course, by the fumble miner, Kar.

They were down big in that game that the Browns were in.

Kosar brought them back.

He was launching.

He was.

Their offense looked unstoppable in the second half of that game.

They're going in to tie the game and force it to overtime.

Possibly finer fumbles, heartbreak.

But Kar was great.

I think he was a winner.

He's easily been the most successful Browns quarterback in the modern era.

That's not even close, really.

You'd have to go way back pre merger to find Otto Graham and somebody else that was, that was better than Kosar, more productive.

So Kosar is my number seven pick.

Yeah, I, I don't disagree with you.

He's okay.

You talked about Phil Sims being annoying to when your team's playing him.

Well, my team, the Steelers, played the Browns twice a year.

And Kar, like you said, he's very awkward.

His whole throwing motion was awkward.

His stance was awkward.

He just looked like that, you know, some nerdy kid out there, especially in his youth, but God, the guy could spin the ball.

He knew the game.

Very smart player.

And he was a winner, you know, he made, he elevated the Browns.

I think it's one of the greatest travesties in sports that he lost a starting job.

Divinity Testaverdi because I think Kosar, at least from the opinion of a football fan that watched a lot of Browns games because I'm sort of in their market close by and had to see him twice a year against my team, I think Kosar is definitely the better quarterback between him and Testaverde at those points in their careers.

And I thought that was a shame that he lost his job.

But I don't slight you at all for picking Bernie Kozar.

I think that's a solid pick.

All right, well now this is your number seven pick, so let's see who you got.

All right, my number seven pick, I'm going to take somebody that's sort of off everybody's radar.

As a matter of fact, it's even off the, the hall of Fame's radar for a long time.

This guy doesn't get the credit he deserved because this guy is another AFC Central now AFC north quarterback and that's Kenny Anderson.

Because Kenny Anderson in my mind had was a brilliant career.

Ended up becoming a quarterback coach for the Steelers just a few years ago because that's how good his mind was.

So six years into our era that we're talking about, that qualifies him.

He threw over 30, over 32,000 yards during his career.

197 touchdowns.

And you want to talk about winning on a bad team.

He finally made the hall of Fame just recently, last couple years was an NFL MVP on a bad team with the Bengals.

Four Pro Bowls and all Pro.

And you know, I think Kenny Anderson is my seventh pick for those reasons because his numbers take him there.

Solid, solid pick.

I have, I have no real issue with that.

I was going to actually my number eight pick came down to two guys.

I was going to possibly choose his air Ken Anderson's heir apparent Boomer, but I am not.

So I'll leave him on the board for you.

Potentially, I'm going to take a guy that I think is goes down for me as, as a bit of a what if guy, but had just enough in the tank here to qualify for my list.

And talk about off the off the radar here, but I'm going to take Neil Lomax.

He had a very brief career.

He was undone, I believe by a neck or a back injury, you know, maybe six, seven years into his career or something like that.

He played for a very Poor franchise, the Cardinals.

Very bad organization that didn't do much winning really ever in that era.

A couple things he was a.

That's kind of significant to me because that's in the heart.

Montana, Marino, Elway, all those guys.

And Neil Lomax leads the league in, in.

In passing yards.

And unlike a lot of his counterparts there in the 80s, and especially in the 80s where a lot of these great quarterbacks did not have very good touchdown interception ratios back then, Lomax did.

He threw a lot more touchdowns than picks.

I think that if he was on even an average team or organization, he would have been much more productive, much more of a household name.

If anybody ever gets a chance to go check out some old Neil Lomax stuff, I'd suggest you do it.

So that's my one real sleeper pick.

A little off the map and he's going to round out my team.

I think Lomax is a solid quarterback.

You know, he sort of came in on the.

The coattails of Jim Hart, who was a great Cardinals quarterback.

I don't think Jim Hart gets a lot of credit for what he did in the 70s.

He played in a, you know, the NFC east basically at the time.

Don't ask me why the St. Louis Cardinals were in that league and why Dallas was in that league with the.

But it was a very tough league when you had the Giants and the Eagles and, you know, the Redskins and, you know, and you're all your teams there in the east, you know, the five teams I think they had at one point just all vying for championships every year.

It's tough for the Cardinals to do that and Lomax was sort of in that same brood.

He just couldn't get had.

Didn't have enough firepower around him with his defense and the rest of his offensive mates to overcome that strong, contentious teams that are in your own division and own conference to make it out there.

But I think Lomax is very underrated and not a bad pick at all.

Full representation from the 80s, NFC east on our lists combined.

Yeah, well, I think I'm going to have to represent once again the division that my team's in.

And I am going to take Kenny Anderson's successor.

I'm going to take Boomer Siason, who had success not only with the Bengals, took him to a Super Bowl Lost it to Montana, but he also played with the jets and had a great career there in New York too.

He, you know, had over 30, almost 38,000 yards passing, 247 touchdowns, was a four time Pro Bowler, made the all pro team once and you know, Boomer Sias and still talking about football on your Sunday mornings to this day because he has a great mind for football and he was a great player.

Well, that last pick was, it was on the, it was on the cusp for me, for Lomax or Siason.

So I think it's a really good pick.

Again, his team was winning with, you know, a little over a minute to go and Montana got it done.

So really have no fault of Boomers, but I think it's a good pick.

Yours, your list is solid.

Mine's better, but yours is solid.

Well, that was a fun exercise here.

Now let's go ahead and review for the listeners so they know who our picks were.

All together here.

Why don't you go ahead and give us a rundown.

Well, I'll give you, I'll do yours first.

So you wound up with Brett Favre, Dan Marino, Warren Moon, Dan Fouts, Jim Kelly, Phil Sims, Ken Anderson and Boomerasia.

Correct.

And then the winning list would be Joe Montana, John Elway, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Randall Cunningham, Joe Theisman, Bernie Kozar and Neil Lomax.

That's my eight.

All right, folks, there you have it.

They had to play at least 25% of the 20 year span in the NFL.

And you know, you help us choose whose list you like better.

If you like the list that, that I picked, which was the stronger list or if you want Ed's, you know, sorry sack list that he cobbled together, you know, I think scraping off the bottom of his shoes, you could, you could take that too.

No, I think they're both great.

Great list.

I think you have some 16 really awesome quarterbacks I think any franchise would be happy to have for one season and any one of them could win a lot of games with you.

So.

But if you want to choose that list, look on social media for Ed.

Ed, why don't you give your social media handles.

Yeah, my account that people probably find more interesting is the Washington football memories.

That's at Skins Memories 77.

I share a lot of obviously Washington football stuff there, but also general NFL as well.

All right.

And you can also, you can email me@pigskindispatch gmail.com follow us on our exit @pigskindispatch and Facebook pigskindispatch.

You know, this has been a great exercise, a lot of fun, and I think we talked a lot about a lot of legends and historic figures here in National Football League history.

Super fun, Darren.

I had a great time.

Thanks for having me.

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