30.) Boomer Esiason
In his favor, Boomer Esiason won an MVP, led a Bengals franchise away from the dark ages for another decade, extending their relevance for another few years and even another Super Bowl appearance. He was also the first QB to really implement a no-huddle offense. His offense was revolutionary at the time, coming before the Bills did the same with the K-Gun. On the other side, he had a long fall in Arizona and New York that hurt his career stats. Not having great receiving options (I mean, Cris Collinsworth was arguably his best receiver in his career - and he was not that good) hurt his stats as well. Esiason never reached the heights that he could have on a better team, but with that no-huddle offense, his memory will lie on. Also, I have a personal soft-spot for him as one of the co-hosts of the great morning show on WFAN with Craig Carton. Easily the most accessible great QB in history.
29.) Donovan McNabb
Donovan McNabb was a lot better than people will remember. He was a lot better especially at the things people thought he was bad at. Donovan McNabb was incredibly careful with the ball, throwing interceptions on just 2.2% of his throws (a great figure for the early to mid 00's). He was better at evading sacks than almost any 'running' QB. He was also better at making competent-at-worst offenses out of nothing receivers. For most of his career, he was throwing to Todd Pinkston, James Thrash and Fred-Ex Mitchell. The one year he was given a motivated, play-nice Terrell Owens, he had an awesome year and led his team to the Super Bowl. His 11-years in Philadelphia will never be remembered by the people that cheered him on as much as it should, but we should all remember just how good Donovan McNabb was. He and Andy Reid made a really nice duo for 10-years. It all fell apart rapidly, but he's easily the best modern-era QB the Eagles ever had. Donovan McNabb was a lightning rod way more than anyone with his success, his ability and his performance ever should have been.
28.) Eli Manning
Everyone from here on out either is, will be, or should be in the Hall of Fame - and we start off with the QB who will get in but maybe shouldn't, but let's not pretend that means he isn't good. Eli Manning has been the most polarizing QB of the modern era, mainly because his play has necessitated it. How else do you explain a QB having a passer rating at the time below 80.0 winning a Super Bowl in an historic upset. How else do you explain a guy going from having one of the better full seasons when you count postseasons in 2011, to having a passer-rating under 70.0 in 2013? Eli Manning is unexplainable. At his best, he was easily a Hall of Fame worthy QB. For Eli's benefit, two of those periods of 'best' were four-game stretches in January and February. The Eli Manning regular season experience has been more or less than of a #8-#12 level QB for most of his career, but he's had enough peaks and enough handful-of-game stretches where that touches #3-#1. Eli Manning will never be underrated. Hard to be that when your best games are in your highest profile games, and your team misses the playoffs enough times that the natural regression over a bunch of playoff games (see: Rodgers, Aaron) brings that back to earth. Eli Manning has been dependable, has been very good in late-game situations, has elevated the level of his players around him, and has been able to succeed at times with marginal running games and o-lines. Succeed is a relative term, but Eli has shown an ability to do all these things at least once - and twice in January and February.
27.) Daryle Lamonica
Placing Daryl was really tough. He was really a starter for just six seasons - but then again, his fellow Raider Rich Gannon made this list with just four real seasons. Lamonica was a very accomplished player. In his Raiders career, he was 62-16-6 as a starter. He threw a bunch of TDs, didn't throw (for the 70's) that many INTs, and threw for a bunch of yards. Lamonica also held his value better than contemporary AFL QBs that made the transition into the merged NFL. Lamonica was also a great playoff QB, improving his stats across the board - including a great INT% given the era. The Raiders of that time had some great players on defense and at o-line, but this was before Casper and the only reliable option he had was Biletnikoff. Lamonica is another player who was just overlooked due to having more 'interesting' competition - mainly that of Namath. Statistically, Lamonica is better and it isn't very close. Both made a Super Bowl, and while Lamonica lost it was to one of the best teams of all time, and overall had far better playoff success. Out of the three great Raider reclamation projects (Daryl, Gannon, Plunkett), Lamonica was the best. Al Davis, Jim Otto, Gene Upshaw, Art Shell. All of these guys overshadowed Daryl, but his importance on those early Raiders teams shouild not be forgotten.
26.) Philip Rivers
In many ways, Philip Rivers is the anti-Eli Manning. Forget the fact they were basically traded for each other, but Rivers has been good in all the ways Eli has not. Rivers has been far more consistent, a more accomplished passer in statistically and performance-wise in the regular season. He has been the QB of teams that went 13-3 and 14-2. He has been on multiple occassions, one of the Top-3 QBs in the NFL (2008, 2009, 2013), including leading the league in Y/A three straight years. He's piled up 'black ink', including leading the NFL in completion percentage twice, yards once (on the way in 2015), yards per completion once, and passer rating once. He';s done it all... except have a good 3-4 game stretch in January. However, unlike Manning, or Rodgers (2011 onwards), or other guys who have not fared well in the playoffs, his stats match someone who has not been a good performer. He hasn't been unlucky, he's just been plain bad in a lot of those games. He was bad in his one-and-done's. He was gritty playing on a torn ACL in the 2007 AFC Championship, but it showed with his performance. Rivers is better than Manning because the regular season makes up 80%-90% of a player's career, but had he had Manning's playoff career, he may be well in the Top-15 of all time. People I guess feel the Manning vs. Rivers debate is over - and in a way it is. The Giants got what they wanted: 2 Super Bowls. But in terms of who was actually the better player, it was Rivers - and depending on how much you feel those 8 games matter for Eli, it ranges from a lot better to just marginally better. But either way, it was better.
25.) Warren Moon
It is hard to separate Warren Moon's playing career from his historical legacy. Warren Moon was the first African-American QB to really succeed at QB. He himself would say he was far from the first with the talent, but he was the first to truly make it. He begat Cunningham and McNabb, McNair, Culpepper, and to the point know where it isn't really a big issue. The one difference, and maybe this is why he really lasted and became such a great trailblazer, is that he wasn't played for athelticism, or as a 'dual-threat'; he was played, paid and persevered, because he was a great passer. Warren Moon came closest to making the run-and-shoot work. He had some amazing years, including the back-to-back stellar seasons in 1990-91. Despite it seeming recent, 1990-91 was a long time ago, and his 4,690 yard seasons were something out of the future at the time. Moon is a deserving Hall of Famer on his playing career alone, but his legacy gets deservedly bumped for what he represented. Let's not forget he lost years of his career playing in the CFL. His career in the NFL started at 28, he peaked at 34-35, he had a long tail to end his career of slightly mediocre play, but that peak is good enough to be one of the best 25 to date. It may have been better had he been in the NFL the whole time. In that way, his career is a lot like...
24.) Kurt Warner
No QB may have been harder to place than Warner. Let's state the facts first. Warner is a two-time league MVP. Not many QBs have done that, and the one's that have (Manning, Favre, Montana, Rodgers, Brady, Young) are, spoiler alert, in the Top-20 of this list. Warner led two moribund franchises to the Super Bowl, and put up some of the best playoff stats of all-time. Warner was the key cog in an offense that was revolutionary, that put up volume stats that hold up 15 years later in a wildly more conducive to offense era. Those are all pluses. Kurt Warner was also bad enough in 2002-03 that the Rams were almost forced to release him. It is easy to call Warner's career one of peaks and valleys, but we should qualify that. The peaks were being the best QB in the league ('99-'01), and a Top-5 QB ('07-'09), and the valleys, apart from 2002, weren't all that bad. His QB Rating+ (adjusted for league conditions), was only below 100 (average) one time in a season that he started more than 2 games. He was anywhere from 106-111 in his first three years in Arizona, where injuries held him back. Once he stayed healthy, and the team got slightly better, he was a consistent QB again. Kurt Warner was as good as we remember him at his best, but he was also better than the player we remember him being at his worst. Guys who complete 65.5% of their career passes, with a career Y/A of 7.9, and a career passer rating of 93.7, playing mostly before passing stats exploded, is a player deserving of a Hall of Fame nod. Add in the playoff dominance, two league MVPs, and you get what should be a shoo-in.
23.) Len Dawson
I'm stretching my 'Super Bowl Era' rules with this and the next pick. Len Dawson played many years before the mgerger; his best year's came right before or during the merger; his stats were not as good after the merger. Yet, there are two reasons why I want to include him, and put him so highly. First, it wasn't like he played in the 40's-50's. The per-merger AFL was far closer to the NFL than, say, the AAFC was. Second, his stats were so amazing pre-merger, far better than Namath, or Lamonica, or the other great AFL QBs. Len Dawson also didn't drop nearly as much as some of his contemporaries. Len Dawson was the Peyton Manning of the AFL, black ink on his stat page everywhere. From 1962-1968, Dawson led the NFL in completion percentage six times, passer rating six times, TDs four times, and yards per attempt three times. The league's merged the year after, and while the black ink stopped, his passer rating adjusted for era was on average 12% better than league average. Dawson dominated the AFL because that was his peak, but he was pretty darn good in the merged league, leading a Super Bowl champion that first year. Becuase he didn't win with a guarantee, he''ll always be overlooked, by Len Dawson was, and will always be, the best QB ever to play in the AFL.
22.) Sunny Jurgenson
While Dawson was dominating the AFL in the mid-60's, Jurgenson was doing the same thing to the more-established NFL. His team wasn't as good as Dallas, or Green Bay, or even the LA Rams, but the Redskins were a consistent winner without much talent surrounding good ol' Sonny Boy. Between 1961 and 1968, Jurgenson led the NFL in completions four times, yards five times, TDs three times, and passer rating twice. Jurgenson was in many ways playing a different sport than most of the other 'winner' QBs of the time, passing shorter and more accurately. Jurgenson was the player most thought Archie Manning was - a guy playing for a franchise that really didn't given him much to work with, succeeding to all-pro levels. Jurgenson retired with the all-time lead in passer rating in the modern era, and again did this without hall of famers surrounding him like the other great QBs of his day.
21.) Ken Anderson
It has become almost passe to say that Anderson is the best QB not in the Hall of Fame. He likely will get in the Hall of Fame through the Veteran's Committee sometime soon. It's good too that he will, because it is hard to argue Anderson, a man who was the first QB to thrive and play well in Bill Walsh's offense, was not deserving. Ken Anderson has done more in his career with less around him than nearly any other QB in his era. Anderson had four different seasons that would play well in the 1990's, let alone his own era. His 1974-75 seasons, are something absurd for that era, averaging 62% completions, along with Y/A above 8.0, and passer ratings around 94.0. Those were Troy Aikman seasons from 20 years later, not seasons in the heart of deadball playing for a Northern team in an open-air stadium. Anderson then almost had a Kurt Warner-esque dip in the middle of his career, but rebounded with an even better two-season stretch in 1981-82, this time he averaged a 65% completion percentage, and a 97.0 passer rating. These are not normal seasons for QBs of that day not named Marino or Montana. Anderson was also a pretty good playoff QB, with a career 93.5 rating, albeit in only 6 playoff games. Anderson did everything well, did them in different eras with different coaches, and at his best he was putting up stats that Troy Aikman would blush at. That's good enough to be in the Hall of Fame, guys.
In his favor, Boomer Esiason won an MVP, led a Bengals franchise away from the dark ages for another decade, extending their relevance for another few years and even another Super Bowl appearance. He was also the first QB to really implement a no-huddle offense. His offense was revolutionary at the time, coming before the Bills did the same with the K-Gun. On the other side, he had a long fall in Arizona and New York that hurt his career stats. Not having great receiving options (I mean, Cris Collinsworth was arguably his best receiver in his career - and he was not that good) hurt his stats as well. Esiason never reached the heights that he could have on a better team, but with that no-huddle offense, his memory will lie on. Also, I have a personal soft-spot for him as one of the co-hosts of the great morning show on WFAN with Craig Carton. Easily the most accessible great QB in history.
29.) Donovan McNabb
Donovan McNabb was a lot better than people will remember. He was a lot better especially at the things people thought he was bad at. Donovan McNabb was incredibly careful with the ball, throwing interceptions on just 2.2% of his throws (a great figure for the early to mid 00's). He was better at evading sacks than almost any 'running' QB. He was also better at making competent-at-worst offenses out of nothing receivers. For most of his career, he was throwing to Todd Pinkston, James Thrash and Fred-Ex Mitchell. The one year he was given a motivated, play-nice Terrell Owens, he had an awesome year and led his team to the Super Bowl. His 11-years in Philadelphia will never be remembered by the people that cheered him on as much as it should, but we should all remember just how good Donovan McNabb was. He and Andy Reid made a really nice duo for 10-years. It all fell apart rapidly, but he's easily the best modern-era QB the Eagles ever had. Donovan McNabb was a lightning rod way more than anyone with his success, his ability and his performance ever should have been.
28.) Eli Manning
Everyone from here on out either is, will be, or should be in the Hall of Fame - and we start off with the QB who will get in but maybe shouldn't, but let's not pretend that means he isn't good. Eli Manning has been the most polarizing QB of the modern era, mainly because his play has necessitated it. How else do you explain a QB having a passer rating at the time below 80.0 winning a Super Bowl in an historic upset. How else do you explain a guy going from having one of the better full seasons when you count postseasons in 2011, to having a passer-rating under 70.0 in 2013? Eli Manning is unexplainable. At his best, he was easily a Hall of Fame worthy QB. For Eli's benefit, two of those periods of 'best' were four-game stretches in January and February. The Eli Manning regular season experience has been more or less than of a #8-#12 level QB for most of his career, but he's had enough peaks and enough handful-of-game stretches where that touches #3-#1. Eli Manning will never be underrated. Hard to be that when your best games are in your highest profile games, and your team misses the playoffs enough times that the natural regression over a bunch of playoff games (see: Rodgers, Aaron) brings that back to earth. Eli Manning has been dependable, has been very good in late-game situations, has elevated the level of his players around him, and has been able to succeed at times with marginal running games and o-lines. Succeed is a relative term, but Eli has shown an ability to do all these things at least once - and twice in January and February.
27.) Daryle Lamonica
Placing Daryl was really tough. He was really a starter for just six seasons - but then again, his fellow Raider Rich Gannon made this list with just four real seasons. Lamonica was a very accomplished player. In his Raiders career, he was 62-16-6 as a starter. He threw a bunch of TDs, didn't throw (for the 70's) that many INTs, and threw for a bunch of yards. Lamonica also held his value better than contemporary AFL QBs that made the transition into the merged NFL. Lamonica was also a great playoff QB, improving his stats across the board - including a great INT% given the era. The Raiders of that time had some great players on defense and at o-line, but this was before Casper and the only reliable option he had was Biletnikoff. Lamonica is another player who was just overlooked due to having more 'interesting' competition - mainly that of Namath. Statistically, Lamonica is better and it isn't very close. Both made a Super Bowl, and while Lamonica lost it was to one of the best teams of all time, and overall had far better playoff success. Out of the three great Raider reclamation projects (Daryl, Gannon, Plunkett), Lamonica was the best. Al Davis, Jim Otto, Gene Upshaw, Art Shell. All of these guys overshadowed Daryl, but his importance on those early Raiders teams shouild not be forgotten.
26.) Philip Rivers
In many ways, Philip Rivers is the anti-Eli Manning. Forget the fact they were basically traded for each other, but Rivers has been good in all the ways Eli has not. Rivers has been far more consistent, a more accomplished passer in statistically and performance-wise in the regular season. He has been the QB of teams that went 13-3 and 14-2. He has been on multiple occassions, one of the Top-3 QBs in the NFL (2008, 2009, 2013), including leading the league in Y/A three straight years. He's piled up 'black ink', including leading the NFL in completion percentage twice, yards once (on the way in 2015), yards per completion once, and passer rating once. He';s done it all... except have a good 3-4 game stretch in January. However, unlike Manning, or Rodgers (2011 onwards), or other guys who have not fared well in the playoffs, his stats match someone who has not been a good performer. He hasn't been unlucky, he's just been plain bad in a lot of those games. He was bad in his one-and-done's. He was gritty playing on a torn ACL in the 2007 AFC Championship, but it showed with his performance. Rivers is better than Manning because the regular season makes up 80%-90% of a player's career, but had he had Manning's playoff career, he may be well in the Top-15 of all time. People I guess feel the Manning vs. Rivers debate is over - and in a way it is. The Giants got what they wanted: 2 Super Bowls. But in terms of who was actually the better player, it was Rivers - and depending on how much you feel those 8 games matter for Eli, it ranges from a lot better to just marginally better. But either way, it was better.
25.) Warren Moon
It is hard to separate Warren Moon's playing career from his historical legacy. Warren Moon was the first African-American QB to really succeed at QB. He himself would say he was far from the first with the talent, but he was the first to truly make it. He begat Cunningham and McNabb, McNair, Culpepper, and to the point know where it isn't really a big issue. The one difference, and maybe this is why he really lasted and became such a great trailblazer, is that he wasn't played for athelticism, or as a 'dual-threat'; he was played, paid and persevered, because he was a great passer. Warren Moon came closest to making the run-and-shoot work. He had some amazing years, including the back-to-back stellar seasons in 1990-91. Despite it seeming recent, 1990-91 was a long time ago, and his 4,690 yard seasons were something out of the future at the time. Moon is a deserving Hall of Famer on his playing career alone, but his legacy gets deservedly bumped for what he represented. Let's not forget he lost years of his career playing in the CFL. His career in the NFL started at 28, he peaked at 34-35, he had a long tail to end his career of slightly mediocre play, but that peak is good enough to be one of the best 25 to date. It may have been better had he been in the NFL the whole time. In that way, his career is a lot like...
24.) Kurt Warner
No QB may have been harder to place than Warner. Let's state the facts first. Warner is a two-time league MVP. Not many QBs have done that, and the one's that have (Manning, Favre, Montana, Rodgers, Brady, Young) are, spoiler alert, in the Top-20 of this list. Warner led two moribund franchises to the Super Bowl, and put up some of the best playoff stats of all-time. Warner was the key cog in an offense that was revolutionary, that put up volume stats that hold up 15 years later in a wildly more conducive to offense era. Those are all pluses. Kurt Warner was also bad enough in 2002-03 that the Rams were almost forced to release him. It is easy to call Warner's career one of peaks and valleys, but we should qualify that. The peaks were being the best QB in the league ('99-'01), and a Top-5 QB ('07-'09), and the valleys, apart from 2002, weren't all that bad. His QB Rating+ (adjusted for league conditions), was only below 100 (average) one time in a season that he started more than 2 games. He was anywhere from 106-111 in his first three years in Arizona, where injuries held him back. Once he stayed healthy, and the team got slightly better, he was a consistent QB again. Kurt Warner was as good as we remember him at his best, but he was also better than the player we remember him being at his worst. Guys who complete 65.5% of their career passes, with a career Y/A of 7.9, and a career passer rating of 93.7, playing mostly before passing stats exploded, is a player deserving of a Hall of Fame nod. Add in the playoff dominance, two league MVPs, and you get what should be a shoo-in.
23.) Len Dawson
I'm stretching my 'Super Bowl Era' rules with this and the next pick. Len Dawson played many years before the mgerger; his best year's came right before or during the merger; his stats were not as good after the merger. Yet, there are two reasons why I want to include him, and put him so highly. First, it wasn't like he played in the 40's-50's. The per-merger AFL was far closer to the NFL than, say, the AAFC was. Second, his stats were so amazing pre-merger, far better than Namath, or Lamonica, or the other great AFL QBs. Len Dawson also didn't drop nearly as much as some of his contemporaries. Len Dawson was the Peyton Manning of the AFL, black ink on his stat page everywhere. From 1962-1968, Dawson led the NFL in completion percentage six times, passer rating six times, TDs four times, and yards per attempt three times. The league's merged the year after, and while the black ink stopped, his passer rating adjusted for era was on average 12% better than league average. Dawson dominated the AFL because that was his peak, but he was pretty darn good in the merged league, leading a Super Bowl champion that first year. Becuase he didn't win with a guarantee, he''ll always be overlooked, by Len Dawson was, and will always be, the best QB ever to play in the AFL.
22.) Sunny Jurgenson
While Dawson was dominating the AFL in the mid-60's, Jurgenson was doing the same thing to the more-established NFL. His team wasn't as good as Dallas, or Green Bay, or even the LA Rams, but the Redskins were a consistent winner without much talent surrounding good ol' Sonny Boy. Between 1961 and 1968, Jurgenson led the NFL in completions four times, yards five times, TDs three times, and passer rating twice. Jurgenson was in many ways playing a different sport than most of the other 'winner' QBs of the time, passing shorter and more accurately. Jurgenson was the player most thought Archie Manning was - a guy playing for a franchise that really didn't given him much to work with, succeeding to all-pro levels. Jurgenson retired with the all-time lead in passer rating in the modern era, and again did this without hall of famers surrounding him like the other great QBs of his day.
21.) Ken Anderson
It has become almost passe to say that Anderson is the best QB not in the Hall of Fame. He likely will get in the Hall of Fame through the Veteran's Committee sometime soon. It's good too that he will, because it is hard to argue Anderson, a man who was the first QB to thrive and play well in Bill Walsh's offense, was not deserving. Ken Anderson has done more in his career with less around him than nearly any other QB in his era. Anderson had four different seasons that would play well in the 1990's, let alone his own era. His 1974-75 seasons, are something absurd for that era, averaging 62% completions, along with Y/A above 8.0, and passer ratings around 94.0. Those were Troy Aikman seasons from 20 years later, not seasons in the heart of deadball playing for a Northern team in an open-air stadium. Anderson then almost had a Kurt Warner-esque dip in the middle of his career, but rebounded with an even better two-season stretch in 1981-82, this time he averaged a 65% completion percentage, and a 97.0 passer rating. These are not normal seasons for QBs of that day not named Marino or Montana. Anderson was also a pretty good playoff QB, with a career 93.5 rating, albeit in only 6 playoff games. Anderson did everything well, did them in different eras with different coaches, and at his best he was putting up stats that Troy Aikman would blush at. That's good enough to be in the Hall of Fame, guys.
