The Class is Good, the 2018 version

[JohnTurney]

I think it's pretty simple. He was a backup to the greatest quarterback in his generation, and he had no control over it. He's a first ballot HOF player because he was the best quarterback in the NFL for 3 seasons (1992-1994) and a top 3-4 QB for 4 years after that.

John Elway or Dan Marino are first ballot HOF quarterbacks, and if they had been traded to the 49ers, they would have been on the bench as well.... unless Elway threatened to walk away and play baseball.

Also, while Young only won 1 run himself, he was a vital contributor to two other title winners. In 1988-89, he appeared in 9 games where he threw at least 10 passes. He was 7-2 in those games, and one was a meaningless blowout where Montana rested for the playoffs

And think it's not that simple. He was the best QB for 3 years and a top 3-4 QB for 4 years after that. That's 7 years. He played 15. What about the other 8? And the very fact that his record as a backup QB is used to justify 1st ballot status is very telling. Accolades as a backup, in my opinion, don't add to his "first-ballot" case. The fact you had to look up that there were "9 games where he threw at least 10 passes" weakens a first-ballot case. It means there were 7 he threw less than 10. It means he was a backup QB.

I'm sorry he was regulated to be a backup behind the GOAT of the time, but the fact remains that he WAS a backup, for a long time—more than what a first-ballot player should be. The speculation of what Elway or Marino did never make much of an impression on me because it is endless. If Young had played in Denver would he bet out Elway. In Montana were taken by a team that ran a Coryell offense, with more deep passing and spot throws would he have been as good? I am sure some could concoct scenarios where the 49ers won more than one Super Bowl with Young as starter with this kind of thing.

It's fine that people think 7 years of greatness is enough for a first-ballot. I think there should be equal respect for those who think the 8 bad years of no production detract from a fair look at the total career in terms of first ballot. Certainly, in my view, Young is a Hall of Famer, based on the positive things, which are the 2 MVPs and 1 ring and the passing titles. But the negatives, i.e. on his resume, the bad seasons, the fact that he kept losing in the playoffs on teams built for the Super Bowl. He never got BACK to Super Bowl after 1994.

So, as I posted in the other section, I have my opinion about what is or isn't first ballot. Others have their criteria which will be different. If people like 7 great seasons in 15 is enough, that's fine, but I think the 7 great seasons is enough for HOF but the other seasons detract enough from his total career production to question his first-ballot status. I think 49ers of his era should have won more. Just my opinion. Young was great in 1994 playoffs. What about other years? Since you did the "what if" on Montana and Elway and Marino, here is MY what if. What was Young's passer rating in the playoffs without the gaudy 1994 post-season? It's not that sharp in all the playoffs in other years and is something less than an 80 passer rating in all other years combined. So he was dominant in 1994, not dominant in any other postseason. So, is one great post-season and a bunch of others that were so-so, maybe above average, but certainly not great, not even very good mean first-ballot?

And he's not only one I question, I mentioned others, Slater, Allen, Taylor, etc. and yes, even other QBs. But I don't think my view come from a place of ignorance of any aspect of Steve's career. I am not a 49er hater, I think they are a great franchise and had a great run from 1981-98. I had Montana as the best ever QB until recently when I have Brady edging ahead. So there is no bias against 49ers coming from me. I just have an opinion that is against conventional wisdom. He will always be first-ballot, my opinion cannot change that but I can view him like I view Jason Taylor or Jackie Slater, which is he got the award but really didn't earn it.

[conace21]

I'm not using his record as a backup quarterback to justify his first-ballot status as a HOF player. His 1991-1998 record alone does that. I'm just using that as reasoning for why I don't hold it against him. There's no sayong how long a 1st ballot HOF player "should be" a backup. Montana was the greatest QB of his generation. Young could have been the second best QB of his generation (I don't think he was) but that still wouldn't have been enough to beat out Montana. And what could he do about it? Hold out in hopes that he get traded?

15 seasons.
3 as #1 QB
4 as top 3-4.
1 as top 10. (1991, where he only went 5-5, but was much improved down the stretch and led the league in passer rating.)
1 as incomplete. (1999: started 3 games. 1 bad loss. 1 nice comeback win. 1 final half game where he staked SF to a 17-0 lead.
4 as a backup. It could be argued he was a top 10 QB at this time, but since he was behind #1, he didn't have much of a chance to showcase it. (This is debatable as he had a lot of talent around him.)
2 as a bad QB in TB.

As far as the postseason goes, what was Johnny U's statline in the postseason outside of the 1958 Championship Game. Young was not as dominant in the postseason as he was the regular season. That keeps him off of QB- Mount Rushmore. It doesn't keep him off being 1st ballot worthy. IMO.

[JohnTurney]

I'm not using his record as a backup quarterback to justify his first-ballot status as a HOF player. His 1991-1998 record alone does that. I'm just using that as reasoning for why I don't hold it against him. There's ni sayi mg how long a 1st ballot HOF player "should be" a backup. Montana was the greatest QB of his generation. Young could have been the second best QB of his generation (I don't think he was) but that still wouldn't have been enough to beat out Montana. And what could he do about it? Hold out in hopes that he get traded?

15 seasons.
3 as #1 QB
4 as top 3-4.
1 as top 10. (1991, where he only went 5-5, but was much improved down the stretch and led the league in passer rating.)
1 as incomplete. (1999: started 3 games. 1 bad loss. 1 nice comeback win. 1 final half game where he staked SF to a 17-0 lead.
4 as a backup. It could be argued he was a top 10 QB at this time, but since he was behind #1, he didn't have much of a chance to showcase it. (This is debatable as he had a lot of talent around him.)
2 as a bad QB in TB.

As far as the postseason goes, what was Johnny U's statline in the postseason outside of the 1958 Championship Game. Young was not as dominant in the postseason as he was the regular season. That keeps him off of QB- Mount Rushmore. It doesn't keep him off being 1st ballot worthy. IMO.

Again, Unitas is not part of this, I have to keep saying it, but it's a red herring. Focus on Young.


No matter how you slice it, it's 8 seasons of being a great player and 7 that are not first-ballot material. I don't care if he's rated the #1 QB in NFL from 1987-90, he didn't play much and if you ride the pine it is not a season that should count towards your 1st ballot resume. Sitting the bench so for long is the stuff of non-first ballot HOFers. If you do really great when you get your shot, which he did, then he's worthy of HOF. But anyone who has this many non-productive seasons is not among the best of the best, the upper-echelon of players. In my view. It's similar to what some say, if you have to make the argument, he's not worthy. All the points you bring up are fairly well-known. It's just that you have a lower standard for first-ballot that I do. And that's fine, it's your choice.

The playoff performances I just threw in there because it's something that is never talked about.

Young gets tons of pub for his near-perfect post-season, but no on ever talks about his more INTs than TDs and 78.7 passer rating in all the other seasons. His 1994 playoff performance was so good it drives his TD to pick ratio from 11-13 to 20-13. If high passer ratings are reason for his greatness, then it has to be asked why didn't he play better in playoffs.

Besides the 1st ballot thing, which reasonable people can disagree, I think it could be argued that Young is one of the most overrated QBs in HOF, in the doing less with more sense, which is a separate debate. With how much 49ers spent and having Rice, Taylor, a good defense every year you'd think 49ers would have won more than one SB, maybe even gotten to more than one. I think they underachieved.

[conace21]

I think it's acceptable to use other players as examples, especially when they set the baseline for greatness. But
With VERY few exceptions (Otto Graham, Jim Brown) every player has seasons where he is not first ballot material. Most players need a year or two to acculmate themselves when they come in the league. Many players stay on after their physical skills have declined, to the point of becoming average (or worse.) Sometimes injuries reduce their effectiveness prematurely. Someone may not be a great player anymore due to age or injury, but that doesn't detract from their earlier greatness.

That's why I look at the circumstances. Young wasn't playing much before 1991. It's not because he wasn't a good/great player... he just wasn't the best quarterback of his generation. Most 1st ballot HOFers do not sit on the bench for so long, it's true. But most 1st ballot HOF players do not find themselves stuck behind a Mt. Rushmore player, and if they do, it's not for very long. The better player retires or declined, or the backup moves on to a place where he can play...especially nowadays with free agency. This is also unique for the position of QB. Terrell Owens could have a 1,000 season playing with Jerry Rice. He may not have had an All Pro season, but he got to play and play well. At QB, there's one guy.
The closest examples I can think of to Young are Sonny Jurgensen and Aaron Rodgers. Each backed up a HOF player for 3 or 4 years at the beginning of his career. Sonny was not a first ballot HOF player, partially due to circumstances, and Rodgers probably will be.

Now, I can see the position that could be taken. Young wasn't really the best QB in the 1990's; he just had a great system, a great organization, and Jerry Rice, to make him look much better than he really was. If he was so great, he would have started his whole career.
Young did have all those advantages, but again, I can't look at his time as a backup as a negative. I'll look at his 1991-1998 seasons as counting towards his 1st ballot HOF career. 1999 receives an incomplete. 1987-1990 don't have to be included to make the case that he's 1st ballot... but I won't use them to detract from his later work.
1985-86, I'll just write off as a young player in a bad organization who hadn't learned the game yet...like Elway in 1983 or Manning in 1998. He certainly wasn't good in TB, but I don't think that it's evidence that he wasn't a great player.
Anyway, I'm debated out for the evening. This sure took my mind off tax returns.

[Reaser]

This sort of reminds me of a discussion we once had on the forums where I pointed out that the thing people kept bringing up against Mick Tingelhoff was that he played 17 seasons and was 'only' -depending on what honors they were using- 'good' for a 5-7 season stretch. So the mark against him was how many seasons he played. If he had retired after 10 seasons people would have been doing backflips screaming to get him in the HOF. And on the other side, you can be good/great in 5 seasons of a 7 season career but people say "short career" (it's not but people suck at math, logic and common sense) while if you tack 2-3 seasons of bad football onto that career somehow it's made better because seasons played is 10 instead of 7. Somehow 5 in 10 is better than 5 in 7 to people that think that way. There's inexplicably a sweet-spot of seasons-played for some reason.

All that is a part of the reason I've never viewed seasons-played as anything more than chances. Chances to do something. Win a championship, be MVP, whatever. Seasons played are merely how many chances one had to accomplish something. I don't use that as a negative, e.g. if someone says Tingelhoff had 5 HOF seasons and 12 not HOF seasons he's not a negative-7, he's a plus-5. Doesn't mean you don't look at everything but you definitely don't subtract from the accumulated accomplishments. I also don't use seasons-played as a positive (see: accumulated statistics for skill position players.) Seasons-played is nothing more than how many chances a player had to accomplish something. Makes even more sense when you consider nearly -other than career stats and flawed all-decade teams- every accomplishment/honor is single-season. For example you don't get a MVP for being the best player over a 8-season span (e.g. there's no "AP NFL MVP of the 1995-2002 seasons" award), you get MVP for how good you were in one season. Same with all-pro, OPOY, DPOY, and so on.

Before getting to Young I'll point out that he was my least favorite player when he played. I knew he was good but something about him made him incredibly annoying, to me. I didn't really appreciate his career until it was over and started to think that even though I could put aside my bias of disliking him and had him rated highly, I didn't have him rated highly enough.

Now on my seasons-played stance, his being a backup doesn't take away his MVP's, or his 3 rings (I get why "1 ring" keeps getting repeated but the guy has 3-rings), they're just years he didn't have HOF type seasons. He had 15 seasons to accomplish something and he was on 3 SB winning teams, MVP's, arguably the best QB in the league multiple seasons and so on -- think his accomplishments have been repeated enough, ha! Number is debatable but looks like people are going with he had 8 seasons of being a great player and 7 of not. 7 of not doesn't mean he was then only a great player for one-season. It means he was a great-player for 8 seasons. That makes the debate how many seasons does one have to be great for them to be first-ballot (for those that care about first-ballot). If 8 isn't enough then it's not enough but if you say he has 8 then he has 8, you don't lose any of those 8 great seasons being a backup to Joe F. Montana. You just lost "chances" to have more than 8.

Note: 8-seasons is what I read others post, used for example. I would have a different #.

[Bryan]

I don't understand the caveat of Young spending a major portion of his career as a backup is fine because he was backing up Montana...what if Young was forced to sit on the bench behind some terrible QB, like Scott Brunner or Frank Seuer? Would that somehow change reality of Young's accomplishments? Should we reconsider John Unitas' HOF worthiness because he was cut in favor of Jack Scarbath?

Its not that complicated. If you are having to use conjecture to justify a first-ballot HOFer, then that should be evidence enough.

Now on my seasons-played stance, his being a backup doesn't take away his MVP's, or his 3 rings (

I'm not sure I am understanding the logic being applied here. Young being a backup QB in 1988 and 1989 does take some of the luster off his 1st-ballot HOF argument in regards to the 3 rings, considering he was only a starter for one of those rings. I would say Young was more important in the Niners' 1994 ring than the 1988 & 1989 rings, right? Cliff Stoudt won two rings...and he was a backup QB for a long time but it was to Terry Bradshaw...and part of his career was spent in the USFL...you don't think...maybe??

To try to steer the conversation back to the topic of 1st ballot HOF QBs, here is the current list:

Aikman
Baugh (charter)
Blanda (asterisk needed)
Bradshaw
Elway
Favre
Fouts
Kelly
Marino
Montana
Moon
Starr
Staubach
Unitas
Young

Bobby Layne wasn't listed as a 1st ballot guy, but the eligibility math doesn't add up to me so perhaps that's in error.

Some interesting names left off the list...Graham & Luckman were left off the charter member class, so technically not first ballot. Tarkenton had to wait a few years to get in because of supposed politicking about Joe Namath's induction. Benny Friedman waited forever to get in.

I would rate Young behind Graham, Luckman & Tarkenton of the non-first ballot QBs. By the same token, I would rate Young above Aikman, Blanda (!), Bradshaw, Fouts, Kelly, Moon, Starr, and perhaps Staubach. So Young definitely belongs in the current definition of 1st ballot HOFer, IMO. The standard simply isn't there.

[JohnTurney]

I think it's acceptable to use other players as examples, especially when they set the baseline for greatness. But
With VERY few exceptions (Otto Graham, Jim Brown) every player has seasons where he is not first ballot material. Most players need a year or two to acculmate themselves when they come in the league. Many players stay on after their physical skills have declined, to the point of becoming average (or worse.) Sometimes injuries reduce their effectiveness prematurely. Someone may not be a great player anymore due to age or injury, but that doesn't detract from their earlier greatness.

That's why I look at the circumstances. Young wasn't playing much before 1991. It's not because he wasn't a good/great player... he just wasn't the best quarterback of his generation. Most 1st ballot HOFers do not sit on the bench for so long, it's true. But most 1st ballot HOF players do not find themselves stuck behind a Mt. Rushmore player, and if they do, it's not for very long. The better player retires or declined, or the backup moves on to a place where he can play...especially nowadays with free agency. This is also unique for the position of QB. Terrell Owens could have a 1,000 season playing with Jerry Rice. He may not have had an All Pro season, but he got to play and play well. At QB, there's one guy.
The closest examples I can think of to Young are Sonny Jurgensen and Aaron Rodgers. Each backed up a HOF player for 3 or 4 years at the beginning of his career. Sonny was not a first ballot HOF player, partially due to circumstances, and Rodgers probably will be.

Now, I can see the position that could be taken. Young wasn't really the best QB in the 1990's; he just had a great system, a great organization, and Jerry Rice, to make him look much better than he really was. If he was so great, he would have started his whole career.
Young did have all those advantages, but again, I can't look at his time as a backup as a negative. I'll look at his 1991-1998 seasons as counting towards his 1st ballot HOF career. 1999 receives an incomplete. 1987-1990 don't have to be included to make the case that he's 1st ballot... but I won't use them to detract from his later work.
1985-86, I'll just write off as a young player in a bad organization who hadn't learned the game yet...like Elway in 1983 or Manning in 1998. He certainly wasn't good in TB, but I don't think that it's evidence that he wasn't a great player.
Anyway, I'm debated out for the evening. This sure took my mind off tax returns.

I am sorry you are debated out. But this whole post is nothing more than excuse making for non-productive seasons.

My view the HOF is about being great and being great is having productive seasons, one after another. Your views are different. Sitting the bench behind anyone still results in goose eggs in production. Is it his fault? No. But it happened and those were a bunch of years he wasn't making plays, the very thing HOFers do.

As far as comparisons, Jurgensen is close, but he didn't ride the pine as long a Young. Nor did Rodgers.

A fairer comparison is Kurt Warner, who had the "donut hole" in middle of his career and was 2 time MVP and 1 title and should have won more titles. At least one. Young had his donut hole at the beginning and it was a pretty big hole of non-productive years. Warner and Jurgerson not 1st ballot.

Side-note
As for Young's "3 rings" please. By that twisted logic, Steve Beuerlein, Bernie Kosar and Wade Wilson all have a ring apiece. Same with Matt Cavanaugh, Guy Benjamin (2), and Elvis Grbac.

Maybe giving him credit for three rings is how Young got his first-ballot election in the first place.

[conace21]

"My view the HOF is about being great and being great is having productive seasons, one after another. Your views are different."

Actually, they are not. Young had seven or eight great seasons, one after another. I havent heard the argument that seven or eight great seasons were not enough. As Reaser said, his being a backup to Joe doesn't take away from those seven or eight great years. It just stopped him from having 11 or 12 great years.
Now, if Young had been sitting behind Scott Brunner for 6 years, then I'd listen to the argument that his greatness as a 49er was overrated...it was the organization and Jerry Rice, etc...(that would knock him not out of the HOF, but off the 1st ballot.) But he wasn't. He was sitting behind the best QB of the decade, which kept him from adding to his # of great seasons.

Actually, Jurgensen played for 18 years, and started 11. He was a backup to NVB for the first four, and he played about 25% of the time his last three seasons, mostly due to injuries.

[JohnTurney]

Bobby Layne wasn't listed as a 1st ballot guy, but the eligibility math doesn't add up to me so perhaps that's in error.

.

At first, it was a 3-year wait, not 5. In fact, here were guys voted down in their 3rd year and then rule changed to five and they waited a year or, then got in in their 5th year, the first year of the new rule, and got in. Layne and Bednarik got in on the 2nd try, they was eligble for class of 1966 but got in in 1967. Same with Leo Nomellini, Joe Perry, Ernie Stautner, I am pretty sure. All were eligble in 1967, voted down, then rule changed, sat out a year and got in on new "first ballot"

Jim Brown is first "true" first ballot guy

[JohnTurney]

at seasons.

Actually, Jurgensen played for 18 years, and started 11. He was a backup to NVB for the first four, and he played about 25% of the time his last three seasons, mostly due to injuries.

And he was not first-ballot. And that was just. Had be been first-ballot I'd raise same questions about him.