Young only won 2 MVP’s. So clearly he did not win 3 in a row.
You are right. For some reason I thought he won in 93 as well. He ought to have, but whatever. The point being, he was better than Elway or Brees, and 1 fewer MVP award than I thought doesn't change that.
What EXTREME talent on offense? Were Franco Harris or Lynn Swann EXTREME talents? People seem to say the same thing about them too, that they weren't that great. There are 4 Steelers in the top 100 of all time, look at who they are.
I'd agree that those Steelers teams were led by their defense. The Steel Curtain, had multiple easy HOF players, in Lambert, Ham, and Greene, and another guy I'd vote for in Donnie Shell, though his contributions came more toward the end of the run. They also had great, but not HOF worthy players in my eyes, in Mel Blount(who is in) and LC Greenwood.
The offense was much more of a sum of its parts, the only guy I'd call an elite player at his position was Mike Webster. Harris, Bradshaw, Stallworth, and Swann were all very good players, but they were more of a unit than any individual standout. If it were up to me, none of them wold be in the HOF, except for Webster. That said, I'd take Bradshaw over Elway.
Elway was the weakest link of those two super bowl offenses, and by a wide margin. If you treat the O-Line as a unit, the Bronco Super Bowl teams were far better than the Saints at every position. How people are arguing that Brees had more to work with is insane. And the 80s Broncos were a lot better than you guys remember, but the AFC was terrible. There were probably 5 better teams in the NFC those years.
Elway to me is much more akin to a guy like Ben Roethlisberger to me. A very good QB, but never the best, and carried by others to his rings. Both made plays that won said titles, but had several better players around them then they were.
I really don't know how Elway's legacy became what it did. He had very notable moments(the drive, the whirly-bird, retiring as back-to-back champion) but he also had multiple seasons with more INT's than TD's, and only once led the league in any meaningful statistic, and even then, it was most passing yards in a year that he led in pass attempts, which is less a HOF milestone, and more something Jameis Winston could do.
Elway won a joke MVP in 87, a season where he was barely one of the top-5 QB's the NFL. How Montana didn't win that year is a mystery to this day.