When the careers of head coaches and quarterbacks in the NFL are ultimately judged, winning – or at least reaching – Super Bowls is one of the important measuring sticks that is used. For some reason, though, perceptions of those players and coaches vary. Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw both won four Super Bowls, and both receive accolades for this accomplishment, including induction into the Hall of Fame. But when the discussion of the greatest QBs of all time begins, Montana is usually at or near the top of the list, while Bradshaw rarely gets mentioned. The perception of Montana is that he was a football surgeon, slicing and dicing opposing defenses like no other before or after him. To me that perception is right on the money. I feel “Joe Cool” is the best quarterback of all time. But the perception of Bradshaw is that he was a bumbling knucklehead who rode on the coattails of the Steel Curtain defense to those 4 titles. Bradshaw wasn’t an instant success in the NFL, struggling early in his career and even getting benched a few times, but ultimately he developed into a top-notch passer – in fact it was Bradshaw’s arm that won a couple of the 4 Super Bowls the Steelers garnered in the 1970s. Bradshaw probably doesn’t rank with Montana at the top of the list, but he certainly should be in the conversation ahead of Dan Marino, who was a great passer but never won anything, yet is always mentioned in the argument over who is the best of all time. John Elway is another QB who, after winning 2 titles, moved up into the discussion. Yet it can be argued that Elway never managed to win anything until the Broncos added Terrell Davis and started running the ball to complement Elway’s passing. The argument over the top QBs is usually made using the narrow range of the Super Bowl era, only including players who played from 1967 and beyond. Unfortunately, using that range cheats players like Bart Starr, who won 2 Super Bowls but also won 3 NFL championships in the early 1960s before the Super Bowl began, which puts him ahead of both Montana and Bradshaw. Then there is Otto Graham, who quarterbacked the Cleveland Browns to the title game 10 times and won 7 times, although some of those titles were won in the old All- America Football Conference, before the Browns joined the NFL. Jim Plunkett was an overall first round draft choice who entered the NFL with much fanfare, but failed in early opportunities in New England and San Francisco and was considered a major bust. Then he joined the Raiders and resurrected his career, winning a pair of Super Bowls. Yet Plunkett gets no love at all when it comes to rating the top QBs, or even when it comes to being considered for Canton. His early perception as a bust still haunts him. Raider owner Al Davis has always claimed that there is an anti-Raider bias around the league because of all his lawsuits and battles with former commissioner Pete Rozelle, and he has a point, not only when you consider Plunkett but also his old coach, Tom Flores. Flores won 2 titles and is never mentioned among the top coaches. He won as many championships as Bill Parcells, yet gets no attention at all while Parcells is generally always tagged with the “genius” label. Parcells was a great football coach, but it took a field goal attempt sailing wide right by a couple of feet to get him his second title, so is he really a better coach than Flores was? Don Shula is always considered one of the best, if not THE best, head coach of all time. He won more games than any other coach, and had only 2 losing seasons in his 32 year run as a head coach. But Shula also only won 2 Super Bowls, and his overall record in the Super Bowl was 2-4. Tom Landry was one of the NFL’s most innovative and creative coaches, and his career includes some remarkable accomplishments, including guiding his Dallas Cowboy team to 20 consecutive winning seasons, and winning more post-season games (20) than any other coach. Yet his Super Bowl record is sub-.500 (2-3), and early in his career was considered a coach who “couldn’t win the big one”. Chuck Noll was 4-0 in the game, the late Bill Walsh 3-0. Walsh gets the “genius” tag also, deservedly so. But Noll, who was a low-key no-nonsense coach, rarely is thought of in the argument over the top coaches of all time.
Reaching the Super Bowl was a shining moment for QBs like Mark Rypien, Trent Dilfer and Jeff Hostetler, but it didn’t push any of them into the argument on top signal-callers of all time. Yet not winning titles has kept players like Sonny Jurgenson, John Brodie and Dan Fouts out of the conversation. The same can be said for some coaches who’ve reached the pinnacle. Brian Billick won in Baltimore and George Siefert won 2 following Walsh in San Francisco, raising their status above where it probably belongs, while long-time successful coaches like Don Coryell and Chuck Knox, who never won a championship, are considered “second tier” coaches on the all-time list.
