With the retirement of the highly overrated Brett Favre, its time to consider who are the best QBs of our generation. I’m not counting Unitas, Starr, Staubach, Bradshaw and anyone who played b4 the 80s. I’ve read about them, seen every NFL film about them ever made and watch them on teh rare occasion NFL network replayed an old superbowl, but how can you adequately rank guys you never saw play. My system is simple, since all these guys have great accomplishments, if I had 1 game to win, in their primes, who would I pick first. So starting with 1980, here’s the list:

1. Joe Montana – 4-0 in superbowls (with 0 ints), 2 of the greatest big game drives of all time (The Catch, SB 23), even carried an overmatched KC team late in his career to 1 game from teh SB. If you had 1 game to win, I don’t know how you would pick anyone else.

2. Tom Brady – sorry Catfish, but other then the Giants SB, he’s been great in every other big game. Had he beaten the Giants and capped of 19-0, he’d prob be #1 already. The early NE teams had no quality offensive players around him and once they loaded up with WRs, he broke records. Mindboggling 14-4 postseason record incl. 8-0 at home

3. John Elway – King of the 2 min drill, the perfect blend of arm strength and mobility. Had he won 1 of his 3 earlier superbowls, he might be #1, but 3 embarassments hurt him and then when he did win his back2back, he won on the back of Terrel Davis. Probably the most physically talented guy on the list.

4. Dan Marino – The guy who played with probably the worst supporting cast throughout his career of anyone on the list. I mean seriously the best play he ever played with was Keith Jackson for a couple of years. The best RB he ever played with is named after an NBA Center and he still set every record imaginable b4 the era of every rule favoring the offense. Only 1 superbowl appearance and no rings limits him badly, as 4 is the absolute highest he can rank.

5. Peyton Manning – Pretty much Marino with 1 ring and a better supporting cast. The 2nd half of the 2006 AFC champ game vs. NE saved his career. Unquestionably the best Regular season QB ever, but a badly checkered record in the postseason, hes a paltry 3-8 in the postseason outside his title year. Still he’s never missed a start in his career and he’ll likely break every record that Favre just broke

6. Brett Favre – Tony Kornheiser’s #1 is no higher then 6 on my list. He does own every record in the book, but no one on this list has killed his team in more big games then him. You can fill a 2 hour dvd of games killed by Favre ints into triple coverage. If it wasn’t for Desmond Howard, he would be one of the biggest chokers in sports history.

7. Steve Young – My favorite player on the list, probably the best running qb and best lefty qb ever. A killer 2-5 record vs Dallas and GB in the playoffs keeps him from being any higher. Probably the most effecient qb, always at or near the top in qb rating, but he lost a lot of years early on behind Montana and then had an up and down big game career.

8. Troy Aikman – He gets hurt by the fact that his stats were extremely average compared to most of the guys on this list and his supporting cast was the best of anyone on the list. But 3 rings are still 3 rings. He never hurt his team in big games and even won a SB with Barry Switzer as his coach. When things got bad, he was never good at adjusting, but  when this are good, he was as accurate a thrower as there was.