#11 - Fran Tarkenton
We like to put QBs in groups. Manning the neo-Marino. Brady the neo-Montana. This makes sense - it is always best to try to explain greatness by comparing it to other greatness. There are many great QBs today who run around throw the ball and 'play the game like a kid out there.' All of those players, whether Favre, or Roethlisberger, or even Tony Romo, are the neo-Tarkenton.
Fran Tarkenton was the bridge, in a way. The last QB to be famous purely for running around and throwing off-balance bombs. Football fans can see that mental image, that grainy black-and-white highlight of some Otto Graham or Norm Van Brocklin highlight of the player rolling around, evading lithe 200-lb 'defensive lineman', running backwards 30-yards to throw it 40-yards - netting just 10 yards, but taking 15 seconds and creating a memorable moment that could be scored to some nice orchestra NFL Films music. Fran Tarkenton was the last of these players. But he was also one of the first to throw more than he handed off, to run a dynamic, vertical offense that was the key to his teams offense. Tarkenton represents the NFL's stylistic turning point.
Tarkenton was also surrounded by a startling lack of offensive talent, both in New York and then in Minnesota - where he also had to compete with outdoor weather and frigid winters. There were real reasons his stats were slightly supressed. But talent wins out - talent that allowed Tarkenton to retire with the records for career yards and TDs.
Tarkenton famously never won a Super Bowl, probably the first player to really have that criticism and label attached to him, weighing his legacy down. Years later, we can see the lack of talent that surrounded him, the three Super Bowls his Vikings did play in (losing each time to All-Time great teams in the 70's Dolphins, Steelers and Raiders). We see the unfortunate loss in 1975 to the Cowboys off of the 'Hail Mary'. We see him wasting his prime (by age) in New York. We understand now why Tarkenton did not win a playoff game - the only person hurt by this delay in Fran himself.
If you see an interview with Tarkenton, he comes across bitter, somewhat jaded, almost unloved - not that you can blame him as he was a player often criticized for what he wasn't rather than what he did. He had the unfortunate luck of being so much better than an Archie Manning he could drag dreadful talent around him to creating a good offense - but not a great one that could win a title. That land in the middle might be worse than being Archie Manning. It is, in a way, easier to mythologize the guy who ran backwards before throwing it when his team goes 5-11 ("What could have been?") than when they go 10-6 ("What should have been?"). Luckily for Tarkenton, enough people opened their eyes to see his extraordinary career - just I wish it was sooner for his sake.
