Considering what's happened over the past 10 days or so, optimism is pretty hard to come by. It's undeniable that horrible things are happening, and will most likely continue to happen for years. All good people will continue to fight against these terrible things, but the harsh reality is that the Trump administration will be able to do most of what he promised his followers he'd do. The power of the presidency, Congress, and perhaps soon, the Supreme Court are going to be very difficult for the progressive Left to overcome.
So, where's the optimism? Well, I started to feel a little bit of optimism after reading this.
The gist of article I linked to is that Kentucky is going to be replacing Obamacare with a state-run system which will be very much like Obamacare. I can't read the minds of the members of the Kentucky state government, but I'm pretty sure the state government of Kentucky is taking this action because lot of potential voters would be upset with the government if they lost their healthcare.
So, ultimately a lot of people in Kentucky who gained health coverage through the ACA will still have health coverage in Kentucky's new system. Sure, a lot of those people will no longer associate President Obama with that health coverage, but they'll still have that health coverage - coverage they never would have had if President Obama's administration had not worked so hard to get the ACA passed.
I could see this happening in states across the nation, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Republican Congress created their own "Trumpcare" which included many of the positive features of the ACA. I'm sure a Trumpcare" program wouldn't responsibly fund those positive features with taxes the way the ACA did, but at least a lot of people would still have health coverage as the Trump administration ran up the national debt.
I'm not a complete Pollyanna about this; I know a lot of people will still lose their healthcare, but in the end, a lot more people will have healthcare in 2020 than would have had healthcare if the ACA had never been passed. Trump can take the "Obama" out Obamacare, but he'll never be able to take away most of the "care".
The phenomenon of Obama's good works living on even as Trump works to erase Obama's legacy is not limited to the ACA. While it is clear the that Trump is hostile to the LGBTQ rights and will do nothing over the next four years to expand or protect LGCTQ rights, it's also extremely unlikely that his administration will make any real effort the overturn marriage equality. Trump himself said that he believed marriage equality was settled law.
LESLEY STAHL: Do you support marriage equality?
TRUMP: It — it’s irrelevant because it was already settled. It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean it’s done.
STAHL: So even if you appoint a judge that —
TRUMP: It’s done. It — you have — these cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They’ve been settled. And, I’m fine with that.
Now, I'm the last person who is going to trust anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth, but it is worth noting the he made the statements above after the election. He had no reason to lie to appeal to swing voters after the election was over, and as we've learned from the first 10 days of his administration, President Trump hasn't been shy about what his intentions are. I for one, believe that he has no intention of overturning marriage equality. He knows that a majority of Americans have grown comfortable with the concept of marriage equality, and that he would take a huge political hit if he made an effort to overturn it. Barack Obama ( with a huge assist for Joe Biden, and the gay couples and lawyers who fought so hard in the courts ) is the reason why a lot of American are now comfortable with the idea of marriage equality. Sure, Obama was real late to the party, and needed Biden's help to display the political courage we always hoped he would show, but having a U.S. president come out in favor of marriage equality was ( to steal a phrase from Biden ) a big fucking deal. When Obama made it clear that he supported the right of all Americans to marry the person they loved, he normalized the idea of marriage equality. He changed hearts and minds that will never be changed back. Marriage equality is here to stay, and we have President Obama to thank for that.
Sure, Trump might try his best to erase Obama's name from the history books and even take credit many of Obama's accomplishments, but we should never forget what President Harry S. Truman had to say ...
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
I've gone as long as I could without writing about him, but considering all he's achieved and the significance of this weekend, I really had no choice but to give him credit for his accomplishments and write a post about him.
That's right, I'm going to write about Tom Brady.
Well, not just Tom Brady, but great quarterbacks in general. I was inspired to write about quarterbacks ( which I'll abbreviate as QBs from this point forward ) this week when I considered just how good a quartet of QBs will be playing in the AFC and NFC championship games this Sunday. Considering that Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, and Aaron Rodgers have 7 Super Bowl rings and 4 MVP trophies between them and Matt Ryan is the favorite to win the MVP this year, some might say they belong on the Mount Rushmore of QBs for this season by virtue of being the best 4 QBs in the league this year ( although I imagine that fans of the Saints, Cowboys, Seahawks, Redskins, Raiders, and Colts might want to dispute that assertion ).
However, a place on the Mount Rushmore of QBs ( which I'll call Mount Passmore from this point forward ) shouldn't be reserved for the best QBs of a given season. Mount Passmore should be reserved for the four best QBs of all time.
So, assuming we would actually waste the precious time and resources to create a Mount Passmore monument somewhere, which 4 QBs are most deserving of the honor? Well, any Mount Passmore, should probably include Johnny Unitas, and consideration should also be given to other great QB's of the 40s, 50s and 60s like Otto Graham, Y. A. Tittle, Sammy Baugh, and Bart Starr. However, I've never seen any of those QBs play, and as much as I like statistical analysis, I don't want to pass judgement on QBs based on stats that I might not be equipped to assess in the proper historical context. So, while I acknowledge that many of the QBs of the 40s, 50s, and 60s the may have been just as good as the QBs of the last few decades, I'm going to limit my own personal Mount Passmore to guys I have seen play. More specifically, my Mount Passmore will only include a QB if I've watched the majority of his prime. So, even though I once considered Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw to be the two best QBs in football, I'm not going to consider them for Mount Password because I didn't watch my first football game until January 1978 ( Stauback's Super Bowl XXII victory ). Still 39 years of football watching gives me a lot of QBs to consider, so let's get started.
Let me get the hardest part out of the way first. Tom Brady is definitely on my Mount Passmore. I still hate the guy as much as you can "hate" a sports figure who has no real impact on real life, but nobody can deny Brady's greatness. Not only does he have 4 Super Bowl rings, but the numbers he's put up since 2007 are insane. He's had a season with 50 touchdowns, a season with 5235 yards passing, a season with 36 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions, and a season with 28 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions ( this year ). Plus, he may be only 2 weeks away from winning his 5th Super Bowl ring. Beyond the numbers, no opposing QB has ever scared me as much on a big 3rd or 4th down as Tom Brady. Crap, I don't want to talk about this any more. Let's move on.
With the possible exception of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, I don't know if any two athletic rivals in a team sport have been linked together as much as Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. If Brady is on Mount Passmore, then Manning has to be as well. If that's not enough of a justification for you, just take a look at Manning's numbers. Manning is the career leader and single season leader in both passing yards and passing touchdowns. Sure, changes in the rules have made it a lot easier to accumulate passing stats these days, but Manning was consistently at or near the top the QB leader boards for than 15 years. He would have put up incredible numbers in any era he played in. Plus no QB in the last 35 years has been better at calling the right audible on the field. My wife sometimes asks me what make a QB great, and I always tell her that thousands of guys have a good enough arm be an NFL quarterback, but very few have what it takes between the ears. Nobody was better between the ears than Manning.
The third face on Mount Passmore is the guy I still consider to be the greatest QB of all time. I might be forced to change my mind if Brady wins his 5th ring two weeks from now, but until then, Joe Montana is still at the top of my list. I could give you all sort of stats ( My favorite: 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions in 4 Super Bowls ) or tell stories about things like the John Candy drive or the Chicken Soup Game, but I shouldn't need to because he's Joe freakin' Montana. Joe Montana is the George Washington of Mount Password; if he's not going to be on it, it might as well not exist.
So, that leaves one more spot on Mount Passmore and a whole bunch of candidates to fill it. I'll list all the candidates below, and then start to eliminate them Survivor-style.
Dan Fouts
Dan Marino
John Elway
Warren Moon
Steve Young
Randal Cunningham
Jim Kelly
Troy Aikman
Brett Farve
Kurt Warner
Drew Brees
Ben Roethlisberger
Aaron Rodgers
I'm going to start by eliminating a bunch of guys who didn't have good enough careers to be seriously considered for Mount Password, but who have earned enough respect to at least be mentioned in a post like this about great QBs.
Dan Fouts - There was about a 5 year period in the late 70s and early 80s when Dan Fouts was my favorite football player. I loved watching him run that "Air Coryell" offense, and I was bitterly disappointed when Fouts' Chargers could not overcome the -37 degree F wind chill and the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1981 AFC Championship Game. As much as I hate to eliminate him this early, Fouts' peak season came a few years before Dan Marino emerged, and it was clear from the start that Marino was better than Fouts ever was. Considering Fouts isn't as good as Marino, he certainly can't beat out Marino and the rest of the QBs for the last spot on Mount Passmore.
Warren Moon - Warren Moon wasn't given a chance to play in the NFL until he was two months shy of his 28th birthday, and yet he still is 7th in all-time passing yards. If not for the NFL's institutional racism, Moon probably would have played 5 more years and passed for about 20,000 more yards, and that would have put his career passing totals in the rarified air of Favre and Manning. However, at least some of the credit for Moon's gaudy numbers has to be attributed to the pass-happy "Run and Shoot" offenses he played in with the Houston Oilers. Moon was a high-volume passer, but he wasn't very efficient. His TD/INT ratio was only 291/233 and career passer rating was 80.9 ( both good for the era he played in, but far from spectacular ). He also wasn't particular successful in the playoffs, despite having ample opportunities ( he was 3-7 in the playoffs ). He's a well-deserving Hall-of-Famer who is tremendously underrated by most fans, but he didn't have a good enough career to be considered for Mount Passmore.
Steve Young - Out of all the guys I'm voting off the island in this first round of Mount Passmore Survivor, I think Steve Young is the one I would most want starting in a must-win game for my team. He didn't have the best career out of this group of QBs, but if I had one game I needed to win, I'd take Steve Young in his prime over any of these other guys. Steve Young was the total package. He was an extremely accurate and efficient passer ( his 96.8 career passer rating was best all time when he retired and was absolutely incredible for the era he played in ) and had the legs to do this ...
... and this ...
Unfortunately, Steve Young's career was abbreviated both at the beginning and the end of his career. He spent much of the early part of his football career playing in the USFL and sitting behind Joe Montana, and his career ended early due to concussions. However, the middle of his career was quite a sight to behold.
Randal Cunningham - Like Steve Young, Randal Cunningham's prime was brief but spectacular. His ability to be a dual passing/running threat re-defined what a QB could be. He peaked in 1990 with 30/13 TD/INT ratio and 942 rushing yards. After retiring following the 1995 season, he came out of retirement and had his best passing season as a 35-year old in 1998 by recording a 34/10 TD/INT ratio with a 106 passer rating ( he led the league in both touchdowns and passer rating that year ).
Jim Kelly - After spending a few years in the USFL, Jim Kelly joined a Bills team coming off a 2-14 season and helped turn them into a perennial Super Bowl participant within a few years. The fact that the Bills lost all those Super Bowls Kelly shouldn't overshadow Kelly's greatness. His career passing numbers are not spectacular, but anyone who ever saw him run the Bills no-huddle offense knows that Kelly's value went far beyond his passing stats ( and his stats were good - he led the NFL is passer rating in one year and touchdown passes the next ).
Troy Aikman - 3 Super Bowls for a QB is 3 Super Bowls no matter how great your running back was ( in my opinion, Emmitt Smith was the best ever ) or how great your offensive line was. Aikman's Cowboys won 3 out of 4 SuperBowls and probably would have won 4 straight if Jerry Jones had not fired Jimmy Johnson in the middle of their run. All that said, Aikman's numbers were far from gaudy. He only threw more than 20 touchdowns in a season once ( 23 in 1992 ), only passed for more than 3000 yards in a season 3 times, had a 164/141 TD/INT ratio for his career, and is currently only 34th in career passing yards. Of course, when you play with Emmitt Smith for your entire career, you are not going to put up huge passing numbers. I'm sure Aikman could have out up bigger numbers with another team, but he didn't do a enough in his career to win a spot on Mount Passmore.
Kurt Warner - Like Young and Moon, Warren was another guy who got off to a late start but had many brilliant seasons. Warner will best be remembered for leading the "Greatest Show on Turf" to two SuperBowls ( winning one ), but what pushed his career over the top to get him mentioned in this post ( and probably voted into the Hall of Fame soon ) was his late-career resurgence that brought the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl. Nobody will even think of Kurt Warner as an all-time great worthy of Mount Passmore, but that doesn't mean he was not great.
Ben Roethlisberger - Ben Roethlisberger's NFL story is still being written, and perhaps if he adds a few more Super Bowl rings to the 2 he's already won, he might make a case for Mount Passmore someday. However, nobody outside of Pittsburgh considers him to be better than his contemporary Aaron Rodgers. For that reason, Rodgers moves on to the next round, while Roethlisberger doesn't. That said, I don't want to move on without mentioning what makes Roethlisberger so great. I don't think I've ever seen a QB so good at making a play after the defense makes contact with him. Ben is a hard man to bring down and is great at turning broken plays into big plays. For that reason, he might be the most fun QB to watch in the game today.
OK, so now that we've culled the herd a bit, we are left with ...
Dan Marino
John Elway
Brett Farve
Drew Brees
Aaron Rodgers
Let's continue by considering Marino, Farve, and Brees as a group. By the time Marino's career ended, he held both the career and single season record for passing yards and touchdown passes. In 1984 Marino threw 48 TDs in a season. Previously, nobody else has thrown more than 36. After he threw for 5084 yards in 1984, no other QB passed for more than 5000 yards until 2008, by which point rules had been changed to protect QBs and wide receivers so much that seasons of close to 5000 passing yards became an almost annual occurrence. Take a look at this link of the all-time single season passing leaders and look at the top 20 entries on the list. Which the exception of Marino's 1984 season, all the top 20 seasons are from this century. All of the players in the top 20 aside from Marino are still active, with the exception of Peyton Manning ( retired after last season ) and Kurt Warner ( retired after the 2009 season ).
Farve eventually surpassed Marino's career touchdown and yardage records, and Brees broke Marino's single season passing yardage record, but they played in a era far more conducive to putting up huge passing numbers. Farve and Brees each have a Super Bowl ring to go along with their statistical brilliance ( BTW, while Manning now holds the career TD/yardage record Farve once held, and Brees has a pretty good shot at holding those records someday ), but I still find Marino's career more impressive, despite his lack of Super Bowl ring. Just in case any Packers or Saints fans accuse me of being pro-Marino, I can tell you as a person who bleeds Jets green that I have never hated ( "hated" in the sports sense - I only wish the best for Dan and his family in real life ) a football player as much as I hate Dan Marino ( yes, even more than Brady ). To paraphrase Wes Mantooth in Anchorman: "I pure straight hate Dan Marino, but goddammit do I respect him!"
So, Farve and Brees are out, and we are down to Marino, Elway, and Rodgers.
I'm going to start this final elimination round by comparing Marino and Elway, because I've been trying to figure out who was better for almost 20 years now.
Marino has the stats, but Elway has the Super Bowl rings.
Marino has the impossibly quick release, but Elway had the impossible athletic ability. I've never seen anybody throw as hard as Elway, and Randal Cunningham was only QB in Elway's day who had more foot speed.
Marino never won a Super Bowl, but Marino never played with a running back even half as good as Terrell Davis. Elway was 0-3 in Super Bowls ( all three games blowouts ) before he lucked into a teammate like Terrell Davis at the end of his career. Terrell Davis was a bigger reason the Broncos won those two Super Bowls than John Elway.
Then, again Elway threw for 336 yards in his last Super Bowl ( and last NFL game ), and was named the Super Bowl MVP. He also dragged 3 teams of nobodies to 3 Super Bowls in the 1980s. Sure those teams got blown out, but they never would have gotten to the Super Bowl without Elway ( particularly the Super Bowl they reached because of "The Drive" ).
Still, If you told somebody in 1990 that you thought Elway was better than Marino, they would have looked at you as if you had two heads. Marion was far more prolific than Elway in their respective primes. Even as late as the Bronco's January 1997 playoff loss to the Jaguars, a lot of people thought of Elway as an overrated loser who would never win the big game. Is it fair that the two Super Bowls hew won at the end of his career ( on the strength of a fantastic running game ) changed that perception so much?
I just can't decide between Marino and Elway, but it doesn't matter in the context of Mount Passmore, because I think Rodgers is better than both of them.
Sure, Rodgers might never put up the career stats that Marino or Elway did, but that's because Rodgers was forced to spend three years on the bench waiting for Favre to retire. Rodgers has already won a Super Bowl, more than either Marino or Elway had won at the same point in their careers. Rodgers was also the best player on a Super Bowl champion, while Elway was at best the 2nd-best player on his championship teams. Rodgers has also already won 2 MVP awards, which is one more than either Elway or Marino won in their long careers.
However, all of that isn't the biggest reason why I think Rodgers is better than Marino or Elway. The biggest reason is that I've seen Aaron Rodgers play.
Aaron has Marino's quick release and Elway's arm strength. He finds the open man as quickly as Brady does, and can scramble that way Young could. If you could design the perfect QB in the lab, he'd play a lot like Aaron Rodgers. I'm aware that this could be recency bias talking, but I don't think I've ever seen a QB be quite as good for a 7-season stretch as Rodgers as been for the last 7 years. This doesn't mean Rodgers' Packers are going to win on Sunday ( 3 of his wide receivers are injured ), but I don't think there is any other quarterback I'd want playing for my team in a big game.
Of course, as a Jets fan, I would have loved to have any of the QBs mentioned in this post play for my team.
In any case, I hope this post has given some of you a break from what has been going on in the real world lately. Happy Sunday everybody! Let's hope we get to watch some great QBs make history today!
