Debating the Top 10 Packers of All Time ... Again!

with the teammates that Favre had; especially the defensive teammates, and the offensive line teammates. :)

And I’m probably the biggest Ahman Green fan there is… But I don’t think I can honestly put Batman in the top 10. He was a great RB tho… It amazes me sometimes that Packer fans don’t hold him in higher regard. He was the best RB in the NFL, IMO, from ‘00 thru ’04. Led the league in rushing for that 5 year span, hold the highest single season rushing total that didn’t lead the league (1883 surpassed by Jamal Lewis’ >2000 yd season). Also one of only 2 RB to ever have 2 runs of 90 yds or more (Bo Jackson is the other). If he had started his career in GB instead of wasting 2 seasons in Sea he would be Canton bound and in the top 10 of this list. Just my somewhat biased opinion… But Ahman was GREAT!

I don’t think so. Maybe if he’d won another Super Bowl, but he shouldn’t be above Starr and Hutson.

Listen, four years ago, I would have been in favor of re-naming Lambeau after Favre, but the “messy divorce” DID change things. …and actions have consequences. When he engineered a move to our bggest division rival, he himself put the reconsideration of his legacy on the table. And, when he did that, I started re-thinking his whole career. And what I realized that he was nothing more than a self-glorifying, regular-season stat-machine. He came up biggest when it mattered the least. He won one Super Bowl. And, with the amount of talent we had…

I mean, I see the logic in what you’re saying, I really do. And I’m not just being bitter here. He had a long career with us and got a ton of records. Also, I would say he’s probably the most TALENTED Packer of all time. But, when it comes to talking about where he belongs on our all-time list, then the fact that every single season ended with a Favre choke-job needs to factor in. You look at the other guys on this list… they stepped up when it mattered.

And, according to Starr (three years ago),
Skoronski deserves to be in before Kramer.

On Jerry Kramer’s Hall of Fame qualifications …
Jerry Kramer was a great player. But a player who never gets mentioned, and I want to mention him, is our offensive captain Bob Skoronski, our left tackle, my blindside tackle.
I don’t think there’s an offensive tackle in the Hall of Fame who’s better than him. His grades were so close to (right tackle and Hall of Famer) Forrest Gregg’s that you couldn’t separate the two. I write a letter every year to the Hall of Fame committee. I don’t know how they can’t put him in.

That was at least as much Ken Bowman’s block on Jethro Pugh as it was Kramer’s.

But, unsuspecting of the end of the Glory Years, a young Bowman (4th year) allowed the praise to fall on Kramer without a peep; he figured he would get his share of the glory in the coming years.

Sadly, he was wrong.

In determining the top 10 Packers,
you only count a player’s time with the Packers.

(And, IMO, there is plenty of ammo to be used against Favre without exceeding those limitations.)

And, it doesn’t adversely affect Woodson, because his time with the Packers was nothing less than a ressurrection of his career.

BJ Raji?

but, even if Starr’s teammates helped make him better, he absolutely had the same effect on them!

Starr was a dynamic leader, and was also a film nut; he and Bratkowski used to spend hours ay a time in one of their basements watching film together.

Starr was a damned good quarterback, regardless of his teammates.

There’s passengers on a good team, then there’s elite on a good team. Bradshaw lit it up in the postseason when it counted, although he was never elite in the regular season.

If someone’s dominating, it’s because of flat out talent, not because of any given system they might be playing in. There’s such a thing as certain systems fitting certain QBs better, but a QB’s ability extends well beyond their acuity for a system. There’s no such thing as a “system running back”, but we see RBs that run the gamut in talent and can excel in certain systems that would just be relegated to a short-yardage back or a third-down back in others.

Is DT a system linebacker because he probably wouldn’t have excelled in a 4-3? No, he probably would have just become a less-stellar DE. Just like if you took Montana out of Bill Walsh’s system, he might not have been arguably #1 all-time, but he could still get the ball down field and he was smart as a whip.

*can’t

one player has never singlehandedly won a championship. But the teams that Starr and Favre played on were both good in their peak years. Favre had lots of help just like Starr did around him.

Plus, QBs may not win games but they can sure lose them in some spectacular fashion and Favre did that when it mattered far more than Starr did.

I have never seen 1 person single handly defeat 11 other guys.

You mean Favre didn’t need ALOT of help to set all those Individual records, but Starr did need help to win all the NFL CHampionships? Stupid argument… Winning SB’s and championships carry a heck of alot more wt then volume passing stats set in an ere when passing was taking over for the running game! Favre was a great passer, Starr was a Great Winner, leader, and QB. Starr>Farve in any real discussion…

In nearly every era of the game the QB was the life blood of the offense. If a team didn’t have a good to great QB the team would not win any championships. This was true in Lombardi’s era. It was true in dark ages of Starr, Gregg, and Infante. It was true for Holmgren. It’s true for McCarthy. Dan Devine traded away this franchise’s future for a QB, and failed. Wolfe made an equally brazen trade for a QB and succeeded. Quarterbacks lead and play in a way that transcends one position and pushes an entire team forward. As a result they are graded differently than other players (but not as radically different as you may think….I’ll get to that later).

As a result of this a QB is judged by championships as much or more than his individual stats. Now a ring isn’t a total replacement for stats. After all, Phil Simms generally isn’t thought of in higher regard than Dan Marino. But John Elway is thought of better than Marino amd those two rings are the main reason why.

The amount of championships changes the way any player is perceived and lauded. Charles Woodson didn’t become a lock to make it into Canton until after he won his Super Bowl. That season didn’t really do much for his chances statically, or even off the highlights, but it made him a winner and was the crown jewel of the resurgence of his career. Another good highlight to this is in the current logjam at the receiver position for entrance into Canton. I sincerely doubt that Michael Irvin was that much better than Tim Brown, Andre Reed, or Chris Carter, but he has three rings and all of them have none. As a result Irvin is first ballot HoF and DN has a yearly bitch session that Carter wasn’t elected.

So yes, even though winning is a team effort the separation between the good and the great (or in this instance the difference between the degrees of legendary) is often determined by the hardware supplied by the player. How that player was able to deliver wins when it counted. Both Starr and Favre were able to do that, but Starr did it more and more consistently. Hell, it was Starr’s teams that did something that no other team has done since and that’s win three NFL Championships in a row. It just so happened that the last two happened to be called Super Bowls. That trumps most anything any Packer team has done since, and as the QB and leader of that team he gets the lionshare of the glory.

It’s just part being the QB.

Really when you boil the whole mess down to its core I think that’s really what earned Brett animosity in Packer circles. It’s an animosity that doesn’t disappear quickly. Really that whole situation is one that many Packer fans (both here at APC and generally around any gathering of Packer fans) really don’t like getting picked at too much right now. It’s just too sensitive a topic for many. Including myself I guess.

I don’t get angry that Favre unretired, nor do I hold that against him. I get it. I don’t like the way he went about trying to get back in the game and pouting his way off the team while dividing the fan base.

I don’t mind him trying to find a contender to sign on with for one last run. I do mind him signing on with a division rival that he had been flirting with for over a year in an effort to “get back” at higher ups in the franchise. I mind even more when he drops quotes like “true Packer fans will cheer for me” and acting like he was the victim the whole time.

I understand other fan bases not understanding our emotional reaction to the whole mess of Favre’s post-Packer career. After all, very few fan bases had a player quite like Favre lead the team for so long and so well….and even fewer had that player come back at them with same amount of venom. I do mind trolls from those fan bases coming in like it’s my problem that it all happened and that I’m the jackass for having my feathers ruffled by the whole thing under the weak take of “he just wanted to play.” No, that’s not the moral high ground and that really doesn’t capture what happened.

So the hate that many will give over someone backing Brett comes from a frustration that comes with bad memories and hurt feelings. These sorts of situations and deep hurts go away, but it takes time and that’s just not something that has passed yet. Hell, Brett’s not been retired a whole season. The tea leaves are reading that the Packers want to bury the hatchet and Favre wants to mend fences, but everyone involved wants there to be some space first to let the healing process take its place. For fans this means that there is a little extra angst when someone states that Favre is the greatest Packer of all time with a fair bit of gusto.

" You cant do what you love doing at the place you love doing it at."

No, they told him, “If you are going to play here next year we want to know in a reasonable amount of time so we can make the Front Office decisions we need to in order to better ourselves next season. You can’t have control of this organization and do whatever you like because you are only a part of this equation.” He didn’t like that and got mad.

His issue was not that he wanted to keep playing (though he did and thats fine). It was that his ego became too big. He became the legend everyone talked about in his own eyes and felt entitled to do everything his way. When the team got true leadership again (MM and TT) it rubbed him the wrong way that they put him in his place and he ran away to get revenge.

He was at his best when he was leashed by Holmgren, and for one year again when leashed by McCarthy. But by McCarthy’s tenure his ego had grown out of control.