Don't mean to knock Montana, but he was purely a product of the system.
Walsh's then unheard of "west coast offense". If he had gone to nearly any other team, he wouldn't be in this discussion.
That was the genuis of Bill Walsh. He developed a system to suit his players, including the "weak" armed Montana.
He saw the smarts and the talent, he just had to adjust to it.
I am cool with the idea that Montana benefited from the system, but if Elway and Aikman can be excused form this, then Montana is for sure. Elway didn't benefit from playing in that offense? Sure he did. Aikman? Umm, yeah, you could say he had some talent around him.And this isn't about top QB of all time, it's most clutch. Frankly Aikman isn't even close to being on the same level as the other two. And it's for the same reason Brady isn't: They never had the opportunities to be clutch that Elway and Montana had. Montana and Elway WON games for their teams in the playoffs. You can trace the wind directly to their heroics.
This is by no means a knock on Aikman and Brady.
And Montana is my choice over Elway. Leaving aside Elway's
pathetic performances in the Super Bowl losses, the thing that really clinches it for me is this: Montana and Elway both led dramatic comebacks in big games, big-time clutch prformances. My thing with Elway was, he had a lot of comebacks, because he would put his team in a hole with dumb interceptions. All-time great QB that had some bad, bad games.
As to the talent level surrounding Montana, that is always open to discussion, but between Elway, Montana, and Aikman, if you look at the Super Bowl winning teams of all those guys, the worst team,
by far, was the 82 49ers. Leading rusher? Rickey Patton, followed closely by Earl Cooper and Johnny Davis. Kinda makes Gerald Wilhite and Steve Sewell look a bit better.
