It’s taken some time for me to decide who to nominate for the mountain from football. This was incredibly tough. The default would be to load up with quarterbacks, but one has to remember that the game was not dominated by quarterbacks until at least the 1980s, when the rules started changing to benefit the passing game. There’s also offense and defense; running backs, receivers, tight ends and linemen on offense, and defensive line, linebackers, and defensive backs on defense. And to be sure, the game of the 50s. 60s, and 70s featured running the ball as much if not even more than passing it. So I will adhere to my rules and list the 8 nominees for the mountain, but I will also include a significant list of the “just missed.” And before I go on, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame Website. Much information was gathered form these sources.
Nominees for the mountain: Tom Brady, Jim Brown, Otto Graham, Joe Montana, Alan Page, Lawrence Taylor, Johnny Unitas, Gene Upshaw
Tom Brady: While I admit I don’t care for him as a person, and his pleading for a penalty flag (and too often getting one) every time he was hit doesn’t sit well with me, his record is untouchable, and his talent was immense. The Patriots were a great team with possibly the beat head coach ever, but without Brady, it doesn’t happen. He won almost 3/4 of his regular season starts and was an incredible 35-13 in the post-season, including 7 Super Bowl wins. The Patriots has a fairly balanced offense, so he didn’t throw for the most years that often, but he was usually near the top and had an above average completion percentage and yards per attempt (YPA) almost every year. And he won his division all but 2 years. That is amazing. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Jim Brown: This may be a bold statement, but I think that Jim Brown may have been the most dominant football player ever, and very possibly the greatest athlete to play the game (how many other football players were All-American in lacrosse in college?). How can I say this? Well, he obviously wasn’t a quarterback, but he played at a time (1957 – 1965) when most teams ran as much or more than they passed, and the ratio of running yards to passing yards was much higher than it is now. He played 9 years; he led the league in rushing 8 of those years (the year he didn’t he finished 4th). He rushed for 12,312 in those 9 seasons, which is amazing enough but even more amazing when you consider that 4 of those seasons were only 12 games, and the other 5 were 14 games rather than the 16 and 17 game seasons from 1978 onward. He averaged over 100 yards/game and 5.2 yards/carry. These numbers are better than those of anyone who played this many games, including Walter Payton and Barry Sanders, who were incredible players. He even caught 262 passes and averaged 9.5 yards/catch (excellent for a running back). Other than him, the Browns were a good but not a great team; their QB play was pretty average during this time period. But he did win a Championship in 1964 and played for it in 1965 (they tied for first in 1958 but lost the playoff game). Truly a man among boys.
Otto Graham: Speaking of Cleveland Browns … This selection may come as a surprise to some, but when the NFL named its 75th anniversary team (around 2000), Graham was of the 3 QBs on it. He was the Browns’ starting QB for 10 years; they won their conference title 10 times and the league title 7 times. Now I understand that 4 of those were in the All-America Football Conference, but the AAFC was probably equivalent to the AFL in the mid to late 60s, and he totally dominated it. He and the Browns were so good that in their first year in the NFL (1950), they had the league’s best record and won the league title. His passing yards don’t look like much compared to the modern era, but it was a very different game (fewer plays/game, more running plays, etc.). During his outstanding 10-year career, he led the league in passing yards 5 times, completion percentage 4 times, and YPA 5 times, including an unheard of YPA of >10 three times. In today’s NFL, a YPA of 8 would be considered excellent. In other words, he not only threw the ball accurately, but he did so throwing it down the field. His career YPA was 8.6, which is the highest in NFL history, greater than Brady, Manning, Montana, and Unitas. The Browns of 1946 – 1955 were a great team with a great coach (so great that team is named after him), but Graham was the straw that stirred the drink.
Joe Montana: Montana turned Bill Walsh’s offensive schemes into championships (4 of them, to be exact). What makes this even more impressive is that during the 1980s, the NFC was far superior to the AFC (other than the Raiders’ championships in 1980 and 1983 in which they were underdogs, the NFC ran the table). His best trait was his superior accuracy, as he led the league in completion percentage 7 times, including being the first passer to complete 70% of his passes in a full season. He was selected to 8 Pro Bowls and was first team All Pro 3 times. Even after moving to Kansas City in 1993, he led them to back-to-back playoff appearances and an AFC Championship game. He won over 70% of the regular season games he started and was 16 – 7 in the post-season. He and Bill Walsh were the architects of the passing game that is in use today, and he did it nearly flawlessly.
Alan Page: As I stated earlier, there have to be defensive players on this list, however, it is not easy identifying the greatest defensive players of all-time. Lots of defensive players made bunches of Pro Bowls and multiple All-Pro teams. So I admit that the selections are somewhat subjective, although I suspect that few would argue with the other player I chose (to be discussed in a bit). But Page was All-Pro 6 times, All-Conference 10 times, and was voted to 9 consecutive Pro Bowls. Sacks were not an official statistic for much of Page’s career, but according to Wikipedia (and the Vikings and Bears archives) he had 148 sacks, including 18 in 1976. I suspect these numbers are very close to reality. But having said all of this, what really puts him over the top is that he was the AP NFL MVP in 1971 (at the time the most respected selection). Not just the defensive player of the year, but the MVP of the entire league. Only one other defensive player has done this (again, stay tuned). I strongly considered Aaron Donald and Reggie White, but the MVP award makes him the best defensive line (and maybe best defensive) candidate for the mountain.
Lawrence Taylor: I know he’s had a rough go of it post-career, but he was an absolute beast who could dominate a football game unlike no other defender IMO. As I made pretty obvious from the Alan Page discussion, Taylor was the other defensive player to win league MVP (in 1986). He is in addition the only rookie to be named NFL Defensive player of the year. He was named first team All-Pro 8 times and second team twice. He forced an amazing 56 fumbles and had 132 sacks. In today’s NFL, arguably the most important positions on the defense are the edge rushers. Taylor basically invented the position with his fearsome pass rushing. But he also excelled against the run and more that held his own as a pass defender. The Giants were a bad team until they drafted Taylor. With him leading the way, they immediately became a playoff team and won the Super Bowl in 1986. I considered Ray Lewis as well, but as great as Ray was, he was not as dominant as LT.
Johnny Unitas: There were great QBs before Unitas, but I would argue that Johnny U was the first dominant one. For many years after, Unitas was the model that all QBs aspired to and tried their best to copy. Again, because he played from the late 50s to the early 70s, his numbers aren’t as gaudy as the QBs that have played since that 1990s, although they were significantly better than any of his contemporaries. But he won 3 Championships (one a Super Bowl) and won about 65% of his games. Unitas also won 3 AP MVP Awards and had a career YPA of 7.8, which is outstanding. He transformed the moribund Baltimore Colts franchise into winners and then back-to-back champions (1958 and 1959) and continued to be a force through at least 1967. He hurt his arm in 1968 and wasn’t the same after that, but he was still able enough to guide the Colts to a championship in 1970 despite pedestrian statistics. He called his own plays and always seemed to keep defenses guessing. You can argue that Johnny may not be the greatest of all-time, but if you don’t include him in the top 3 or 5 at worst, you don’t know football.
Gene Upshaw: I didn’t think I could list the greatest football players and not include an offensive lineman. Maybe you don’t agree with that, but there hasn’t been a great team that hasn’t had a very good if not excellent offensive line. The question then becomes which offensive lineman belongs here. This was an unbelievably hard choice, and maybe it’s surprising I didn’t choose a left tackle (like Jonathan Ogden or Anthony Munoz), but I settled on Gene Upshaw. He was first or second team All-Pro 11 times (first team 7 times). The Raiders were always an excellent running team even though they didn’t have a truly great running back (several good ones, but none lasted more than a few years). Upshaw, along with Art Shell and Jim Otto, were a great offensive line, with Upshaw being the best of the 3 (all Hall of Famers). Oh, and he also played 307 games in his amazing career. A tough call, but I’m good with it.
Players I hated to leave out of the Top 8: I mentioned several; Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Aaron Donald, Ray Lewis, Reggie White, Jonathan Ogden, Anthony Munoz, each of whom are quite worthy. Some people would rake me over the coals for leaving Peyton Manning out of the final cut, but despite great passing numbers, he didn’t have a great playoff record, and he was nothing more than a game manager when he won his second Super Bowl in 2015. The QBs I included here were in my opinion better than Manning, although he was great. The one player I agonized the most about was Jerry Rice. He was the greatest receiver ever, and he was #9 on the list. As hard as it was not to include him, I will stand by my selections. I also strongly considered Tony Gonzalaz, the greatest tight end in the history of the NFL. Again, it’s not a knock on him that he didn’t make it, but he came up a little short of the top 8.
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Disentangling the mess 