Palmer is the one guy in the list I would probably take as a QB. He was decent but was on bad teams, like how we saw Archie Manning back in the day.

History says...stay away from Heisman Trophy winners, especially those that play QB. Some years back I looked up how many Heisman winners won a Super Bowl. The results showed that Heisman RBs had a decent showing. QBs...not so much.

On stat sites, guys debate how good Archie truly was, cause he really did not elevate the Saints in those early years.

The Saints actually lost more games after he was drafted, which is the opposite of the old claim that a good QB will get you a few wins the team would've lost without them.

The flip side to this is that Manning was pretty much ruined before he could've even got started and that's a fair argument to push. He was sacked over 50+ times in those first two seasons and when he finally started to hit his peak as a player, the damage was done.

I think Archie is the greatest "what if" argument in NFL stat realms cause BOTH arguments have their points and it's really impossible to take sides. He's one of the very, very few players in history and through stats where there is a common ground in the middle where both sides are right.

I've long believed this is why Archie didn't want Eli going to San Diego. He probably told him "don't go to a team with horrible management, you'll end up like me." and that prompted his decision to refuse to go there. I don't entirely fault Eli for this or blame Archie for wanting something better for his son. John Elway did it too and he knew what the hell he was doing by avoiding the mess with the Colts organization in those years.

All true.

Another Heisman QB who was a massive bust - Andre Ware. The Lions managed to draft him and Barry Sanders; two Heisman guys on the same team.

Ware was pretty much a bust who couldn't throw down field that first year. Detroit used to put him in for clean up duty when they were getting blown out.

Funny enough despite the narrative of how "bad" the Lions were in Sanders' years, they made the playoffs in 1991 when they had Erik Kramer at QB replacing Ware. They even won a playoff game, something that no other Lions team managed to achieve.

Back in this era good QBs never necessarily made a team better like it does today. We saw guys like Jim Zorn, Manning, Norm Snead, Pastorini (sp?), list goes on that never really took their teams to much anything, Pastorini was the closest but was on a team that built a good lineup of players and a guy like Earl Campbell. Any of those guys added to a Raiders or Steelers squad in the 70s probably would of made them better than having Stabler or Bradshaw.

Jackson is in his second year. He’s led his team to a 5-2 record so far. That’s first in their division.

1,650 passing yards
63% completions
11 passing TD’s
5 INT’s

576 rushing yards
6.9 ypc
3 TD’s

I promise if that was the stat line for Taysom Hill over 7 games and he was 5-2 this fan base would be slobbering all over his dick and calling him a MVP candidate.

Not sure how Cam Newton is a bust either. He brought his team to a Super Bowl and has set plenty of NFL records.

29,041 passing yards
182 TD’s
108 INT’s
58.6% completions

4,806 rushing yards
58 TD’s
5.0 yards per carry

Hell, that’s far better numbers than Troy Aikman. Cam has more passing touchdowns on far less attempts.

This is simply not true and I'll explain at length.

Good QBs not named Archie Manning, have helped bad teams win games. Archie is statistically one of the few good QBs not to (and arguably the only one out of famous QBs), hence why this argument comes up with stat nerds who analyze this sort of thing. Archie holds the record for all time most career losses. Ken Anderson was on some dreadful Cincy teams early on and got them more wins than they would've achieved without him. Brian Sipe also was on some pretty bad Browns teams and they won games that they were supposed to lose. A young Joe Montana also got the 49ers some wins in 1980 when they should've lost; including that 35-7 comeback against us. Archie does not have any games like that on his resume. He was on the opposite side of huge comebacks; that 49ers game from 1980 and the 1979 MNF loss to the Raiders where Stabler came back against us.

Sipe and Anderson went on to win MVPs after they developed into good QBs and had their peaks (Anderson is the one QB who should be in the HoF and isn't). Montana as we all know became one of the best ever.

Dan Fouts also played on some terrible Chargers teams and got them wins when they should've lost. Fouts became an elite QB after the 1978 Mel Blount rule that opened up offenses. This is also when Archie finally put together a pretty good season and started having his peak. It wasn't dominant like Fouts, but he was pretty good. One topic that is brought up with stat nerds who analyze the 1970s, is this rule and how it changed the game so much, cause suddenly passing offenses opened up. At the time, the SB rematch between Dallas and Pittsburgh became the highest scoring SB ever with that rule change in effect. Terry Bradshaw also put up a great season with that rule change and won himself an MVP. Steve Bartkowski also went on to have a little prime peak and make pro bowls after the rule change.

There's also Bert Jones; the QB who really deserves to get all the credit Archie gets as the "best that never was" but is never mentioned by anyone except old Colts fans and stat nerds. Jones won an MVP and put up one of the statistical best seasons of QB at the time back in 1976. Even to this day, that is still an impressive year for a QB and it looks better than the other MVP seasons from QBs in the 70's cause in the decade where INT percentage was at an all time high, Jones had the lowest besides Roger Staubach (whom never won an MVP and Jones' 1976 campaign arguably stole it from him). Jones could've been amazing and he truly carried what was a mediocre Colts team to the playoffs where they were slaughtered by Pittsburgh. Those 2 Colts teams with Jones who made the post season were not that great. They failed to build an o-line and ended up getting the poor guy injured as a result of it cause he spent most of his time running for his life. Jones did everything Archie never did and with a mediocre team around him.

Archie is the only one of the good QBs who didn't make his team better in this time frame and hence why stat nerds argue and debate this endlessly. The Saints lost more after Archie was drafted and the starter. He didn't really begin to turn it around until 1978 and then 1979, and yet we were still a losing team those years. We were a 1-15 train wreck in 1980 and yet that was probably his best season. Archie is an anomaly. I have watched a number of Saints games from back then on tape and one thing I can say, we absolutely crapped the bed in the few primetime games we had. Archie would meltdown in those games. The MNF game against the Raiders is the worst.

Pastorini was not a good QB and I've watched a lot of old Luv Ya Blues Oilers tape over the years, I always had a soft spot for the Oilers and miss them as a team. Those Oilers teams entire offense was just Earl Campbell and they won games because of their defense and Earl being awesome. Part of the reason Earl has been in such bad shape since he retired is cause Bum liked to run him every down, it tore his body up. Their defenses were actually underrated in the Bum Phillips era and don't quite get the credit they deserve. They completely wrecked the Chargers in San Diego with Gifford Neilsen at starting QB and that game was largely won thanks to defense. Vernon Perry; a name forgotten in history, picked off Fouts 4 times. If one game made you a Hall of Famer, Perry had it that day. Fouts had a total of 5 INTs in that game and the Chargers lost 17-14. The Oilers didn't have to score a ton of points, they just had to commit less mistakes than SD was making that day.


They went from Pastorini to a washed up Ken Stabler and actually regressed. Stabler is one of the most overrated QBs of all time. I am stunned that he's in the Hall of Fame and Ken Anderson is not when Anderson has everything you could ask for except a ring and a much better resume than Stabler. People complain about Joe Namath being in there, but Stabler's efficiency numbers are just as bad with Namath being slightly worse. Namath at least had his deep ball and low sack percentage numbers that still look impressive today in some regards. Stabler had a 5 year window where he was good and only in 3 of those years was he truly elite. Both Namath and Stabler suffer from the same thing though - they declined so much after their peaks and the longer they stayed in the NFL, the worse their overall career averages became. This is a trend with gunslinger QBs too. All of them not named Brett Favre those bad overall numbers and even Favre had some down years.

Stabler was only good for 5 years of his career and even during that time, the Raiders were absolutely loaded with HoFers and All Pro players on both sides of the ball. He had a good post season run in 1977 and one of his last memorable games was the one against us with the big comeback win on MNF. But there was a reason why the Raiders wanted to move on from a guy who had an MVP and won a SB.

The Raiders were so stacked they were able to get rid of Stabler, grab a journeyman QB and go back to the SB the next year. There's a reason why Plunkett isn't in the HoF despite having 2 rings.

Stabler actually had the chance to stick it to the Raiders when they faced Houston in the playoffs. He put up horrible numbers and the Oilers got blown out. Houston ultimately wasted Earl Campbell's prime with having bad QBs, not that far fetched from how the Lions squandered Barry Sanders' prime. I always found it crazy that when Bum came here and got rid of Archie, he brought in Stabler, who had been terrible in Houston.

One last note on Archie - the guys on Canal Street Chronicles who do the Saints Happy Hour podcast and Drunk Saints History, did a segment a few summers ago debating on who was the most overrated Saint ever. Ralph on there picked Dalton Hilliard, and I can't remember who said Archie, but he was brought into that discussion. Ralph mentioned the Peter King SI article which has the best run down of Archie's woes that set him up to fail. One thing they brought up that I do agree with - Archie was the "light at the end of the tunnel" for many older fans who wanted to believe those teams had a chance. We didn't really turn it around until the Bum Phillips years that opened the door to Mora and later his success.