Kurt Warner first ballot or not?

[oldecapecod11]

In the quick blaze of slightly more than 49 months, his achievements were not numerically impressive
(in fact, he had lousy stats) but he made it to Mount Rushmore and most consider him the greatest.
In another thread, someone remarked the NFL might be rather different if the war for southern secession
had been won by the malcontents. The NFL might be even more different were it not for Abe.
So, how important is a short career? Really?

[Veeshik_ya]

So, given those criteria, what would you do with Rich Gannon? For four years he was about as good as anybody, but that came after a decade or so of mediocrity.

But Gannon wasn't really as good as anybody those four years. He was statistically as good as anybody. There's a difference.

Since this thread is about Warner, let's make the comparison sans statistics.

Gannon was a nickel and dimer his entire career, even his good years. Warner took what he wanted.

Gannon took the existing west coast offense (or whatever you choose to call it) to its logical end. Warner made the west coast offense look passe and irrelevant.

Gannon was a game manager. Warner was a play maker.

Gannon slowly made a mediocre team (the Raiders hadn't reached their nadir yet) better by executing his coaches' offense. Warner took two perennial losers and made them better the second he stepped on the field by playing his way (Warner's stint in AZ pretty much tells us all we need to know about Mike Martz's *genius*).

Warner won a Super Bowl and lost two. His championship game performances don't match up to his own high standards, but he played well enough in those games. Gannon had the worst game of his career and arguably the worst performance ever by a QB in the Super Bowl.

If Warner was an unknown tinkerer who cured cancer in his basement only to be never heard from again, then Gannon was the guy you see working in his garage every day for 15 years who eventually whittled a halfway decent chair out of cheap pine.

[Reaser]

So, given those criteria, what would you do with Rich Gannon? For four years he was about as good as anybody, but that came after a decade or so of mediocrity.

By the way, excellent point about Tingelhoff's longevity working against him, just the opposite of the way it would be for a running back or a receiver. I'd never thought of those two things together, but I think you're right.

I wouldn't give Gannon 4 years as the best - on the year by year basis.

Below is not specific to Gannon.

My 'criteria' is more about limiting the candidates to players who were actually the best (at their position for the modern one position players.) It's also equally about the other side of that which is excluding from the pool of candidates those that were never the best or really even close to the best.

Also doesn't mean I think anyone with 3 or so great years is auto-HOF, that's just a/the minimum to be "in the conversation" (i.e. a candidate), which is of course all personal preference. In terms of PFHOF I'd rather talk about players that were the very best than someone who was good and compiled some stats.

Basically I'd rather see a HOF with Gale Sayers than one with Jerome Bettis. A HOF with both in is conflicting, to me. One fits the criteria of greatness, one was never even close to the best back in football during his own career, let alone in all of history - to date. Yet when those two players are looked at by the majority, one is "exception to the rule" and one is "slam dunk" . . . That makes no sense, when one is a legend who was great and one is a good player who was never great.

Completely off-topic, I find this latest HOF class to be uninspiring. Though the greatest joy I've got from it is Tingelhoff and the look he had when he got the knock at his door and the look he had when on stage at the honors show, almost like a child walking into Disneyland for the first time. I enjoyed that, especially in comparison to the attitude of Brown and Bettis (and Greene's wife for a player who didn't get in) who were all about how they 'deserved' the honor and talked about how 'long' they had to wait. Rubbed me the wrong way.