Now that Favre is officially done, where does he rank all time?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Mc2guy

Under your criteria, you could have a fantastic year or two, play for a long time, and rank highly? A Randall Cunningham in Minnesota '00 if you will?

I respectfully disagree. From my perspective the greats have to have capacity to play exceptionally and do it often for an extended period of time. In addition to this, intangibles mean something. Great leaders make players around them better and make teams better than they would otherwise be, and that has to count in my book.

I could see how stats and "longevity" could overlap, but that is the nature of performance based metrics, invariably performing well in one area will bleed over to other areas.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying stats and longevity, for example, can not be compared because they do not share the same genus (i.e. components of QBing greatness).

Longevity and peak performance DO share the same genus, and therefore, can be compared under the same critieria, because (speaking philosopically), when you are talking about longevity, you are saying nothing about peak performance, and vice versa.

Anyway, I'm being real nitpicky there, but only because I thought your methodoligy was very sound, so I felt I could throw my two cents in and maybe thin some stuff out.

The bolded statement is totally unsubstanciated. I mean, it sounds good when said in a Disney movie, and some very smart football people certainly believe it to be true, but it's not a proven factor in quarterbacking. We can not prove that some quarterbacks automatically make players on their team try harder than other QBs. We know we can make them look better by playing better than other QBs, but that's all we know. It's my opinion that QB leadership is an important off field component of locker room chemistry, but changes nothing regarding on-field performance. Some QBs are more mentally prepared than others, but that can be measured statistically, and is hardly an intangible.

Again, I liked your initial post, because most people don't try to define "greatness" before coming up with a list. That's a pretty important step.