- Johnny Unitas is the greatest quarterback in the history of the National Football League
- What sets Unitas apart is his legacy of toughness, intelligence, and accuracy
- Other candidates include Joe Montana, Brett Favre, Dan Marino, John Elway, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning
We’ve all come to love these great quarterbacks as we’ve watched them light up the football scoreboards. We’ve seen their faces full of joy or defeat and now they’re getting the recognition they deserve. These are the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
In his 17 seasons in the NFL, Johnny Unitas became best known as the leader of the Baltimore Colts team that won back-to-back NFL titles in 1958 and 1959 and a Super Bowl in 1970. Unitas carried a heavier burden than did the star quarterbacks of more recent years, in that he called all of his own plays and lacked the rules of today that protect the quarterback from vicious hits.
Toughness
Among the practices now outlawed that Unitas had to endure when he played were shots to the head and being thrown to the turf. He also had the disadvantage of defensive backs’ being able to jam receivers more than five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Despite an almost constant pummeling, Unitas rarely missed a game and often played with more than one injury.
Unitas endured adversity early on, as his father died when he was five and his mother had to work two jobs to support her children. After finishing his college career at Louisville, Unitas was not drafted until the ninth round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who soon released him. He got a break when the Baltimore Colts signed him and made him a starter when the number-one quarterback was injured. Unitas quickly grew into his role.
Intelligence
Like most other quarterbacks of his era, Unitas called his own plays. He showed a keen ability to exploit a defense’s weaknesses. He charted the tendencies of all of the league’s defensive backs and was not afraid to go after even the best of them. He was brilliant at clock management and at mixing plays to keep an opponent off balance.
The most famous game of Unitas’s career was the NFL championship game of 1958. Unitas led the Colts on a touchdown drive in the final two minutes that resulted in a come-from-behind victory over the New York Giants. Several major sporting publications called the contest The Greatest NFL Game Ever Played. Unitas’s leadership of the final drive is considered a textbook example of how to get a team down the field quickly. It featured several passes to his favorite target, wide receiver Raymond Berry. Unitas and Berry came to know each other’s abilities so well that they developed their own set of audibles.
Accuracy
Unitas had supreme confidence in his ability to get his ball to the right spot at the right time. He stunned onlookers during his famous last-minute drive in 1958 by throwing the ball near the goal line when a field goal would have sufficed for the victory. He completed the pass to the one-yard line, and the Colts ran the ball in on the next play. He later scoffed that the pass was a gamble, because he had spotted a hole in the defense and knew he had a high-percentage play.
In 2002, Sports Illustrated and the Elias Sports Bureau compiled a table of key quarterback attributes and ranked the top quarterbacks in all eras of the NFL in each category. Unitas came out on top because of his top scores in game management and toughness, and his high scores in accuracy and passing touchdowns per game. Joe Montana finished second in the rankings. Unitas set a record that still stands for throwing a touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games.
This thread is definitely argument waiting to happen. I’ve always been a Joe Montana fan and he will always be the best quarterback in my eyes. There are quarterbacks that were probably better stat wise, but Montana was smoothe and calm under pressure and he knew how to call plays with few mistakes.
I have to laugh at the intelligence section listed above about Unitas. Johnny Unitas was orginally drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers but was traded because management didn’t feel he was smart enough to be a quarterback. Funny how that turned out, isn’t it? I bet the old time Steelers management were kicking themselves ater he won that first Super Bowl.
I like how you wrote this article about Unitas. He was definitely the best quarterback the NFL ever put out and while today’s quarterbacks are versatile, they just could not take the pounding of the old games like Unitas and Bradshaw and other QBs did.
While I may not agree with Unitas being the best quarterback ever in the NFL I will say this: when he played, football was a rough, hard hitting sport, and you had to be able to take the hits. I’ve seen a few of today’s quarterbacks take hits that should’ve had them on their collective arses, but I can only wonder if they would’ve made it during Unitas’ day or if they would’ve walked off the field crying for their mommy.
I’m going to disagree with some of the comments concerning toughness. The size and speed of today’s defensive players far surpasses what Unitas saw in the 50s and 60s. Johnny U never had a Lawrence Taylor hit him from the blind side.
>I’m going to disagree with some of the comments concerning >toughness. The size and speed of today’s defensive players far >surpasses what Unitas saw in the 50s and 60s. Johnny U never had a >Lawrence Taylor hit him from the blind side.
Believe me, he did. Many players tried (and some succeeded) at crippling him. Unitas took many truly vicious hits (shots that would be illegal and get you into court today), one time a blind side hit, a helmet shot square to the middle of the back as he was outstretched and in the process of making a forward pass. He went down like a building being demolished. He took several weeks to recover from that one. People were amazed he wasn’t paralyzed. His career should have been over. When it comes to toughness, there were none tougher than Unitas. Ask Merlin Olsen for a detailed history. As for what Unitas saw and didn’t see, you can’t directly compare athletes of different eras in any case. Or, to say it another way, being “tough” (i.e., showing no backdown) has nothing whatsoever to do with the size of the player you’re facing; it’s a “nonsequitur.”
YOU GUYS ARE FORGETTING THE ONE RECORD THAT UNITAS HOLDS THAT IS PROBABLY THE MOST PHENOMENAL IN ALL OF SPORTS AND HAS WITHSTOOD THE TEST OF TIME.
THE 47 GAME TOUCHDOWN STREAK, FOR THIS REASON JOHNNY U IS THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL, A RECORD THAT MAY NEVER BE BROKEN
It’s rather amazing that record hasn’t been “broken”—-given that the passing rules are so liberalized today, it should have been done years ago. In that context, Unitas’ record CAN’T BE BROKEN. For it to be broken, the quarterback setting the “new record” would have to do it under the same rules of the game that Unitas faced.