Steelers were pretty much #1 for years, or close anyway. So Big Ben is also ####ty I guess?
No one said anything about ####ty, but I am very much of the opinion that Big Ben is quite overrated and have been very vocal about that here on these boards.
Remember, this is a guy that people were arguing was top 5 ALL-TIME after his second Super Bowl win. The last few years Pittsburgh's defense has fallen to being merely statistically average and Pittsburgh has been pretty much a non-factor, with only one playoff appearance and 0 appearances past the wildcard round. Which is pretty much exactly what I argued would happen if Pitt's defense ever dropped off.
I guess I don't know what QBs you consider "above average." I would say Big Ben, Flacco and Wilson are all that. Big Ben is borderline elite, Wilson probably with that capability as he shows that ability at times. Flacco no, but he's an elite playoff QB by almost any measure. An elite defense will certainly help a QB win games, no argument there.
But all three of the guys I mentioned have shown the ability to step up in key spots when their team needs it most. To me that's a valuable commodity and even though they aren't putting up Brees and Manning numbers (well Ben is starting to), they still represent great value to their franchises.
Not making any claims about them being bad or even average. But this isn't a thread about Russell Wilson being a good quarterback, it's a thread about whether or not we should count him in the class of Brady if the Seahawks win in a couple of weeks.
Guys like Brady and Peyton haven't just "won" Super Bowls, or won games on great teams.
They not only have the stats, but they've also won a ton of games on some pretty mediocre teams that would have been complete non-factors were it not for those guys. Wilson hasn't done that yet, so the jury is still out on him. He may very well be the greatest QB in NFL history who just happened to spend the first couple of years of his career on a team who was good enough that they didn't need him to do too much. All we know right now is that he can win on a team that would probably be in the Super Bowl right now with half the QBs in the league starting for them. That's one piece of the equation, but it doesn't in and of itself make him great. 5 of the last 10 Super Bowls have been won by the team with the #1 ranked defense.
I remember people making the point after Big Ben won his 2nd Super Bowl "if the Pitt defense is so great, how come Kordell Stewart or Neil O'Donnell didn't win a Super Bowl?" Well, because Big Ben is better than Stewart and O'Donnell (with whom those Pitt teams were still pretty darned good, btw). But there's still a long ways between "better than Kordell Stewart" and "top 5 of all-time". This year Pittsburgh had a great running game, a great WR, and a mediocre defense. That's better than Peyton or Brady have had to lean on in many of the last 10 years yet those guys had their teams as major contenders nearly every year. Big Ben gets a pass for going 8-8 a few times because he was playing with that "horrible" 16th ranked defense that no one could win with, meanwhile Peyton keeps getting 1st round byes with the 25th ranked defense year after year. That's a big difference.
The Seattle defense won't be great forever. I'll be interested to see how Wilson's career shakes out when they have to really lean on him. I'll be interested to see if he can make the playoffs year after year after year even when the defense is terrible like Peyton and Brady have proven they can do. The jury is already in on whether or not Wilson is a good QB. He is. But the jury is still very much out when we're talking about elite and putting him in the same sentence as guys like Brady.
ETA: And btw, as a Dolphins' fan, nothing I've ever done on this board has been more painful than having to talk about Brady in that manner.
on the rest.
