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Best black QB?

bigtex77

Waterboy
OK, I had a disagreement a few years ago with a co-worker over who was the best black QB of all time. I stated that I thought it was Warren Moon, but he disagreed, saying it was Doug Williams, beacuse he had won a Super Bowl. My counter point was "So is Trent Dilfer a better QB than Dan Marino?" He said yes! Just wanted to get your takes on it.
 

bigtex77

Waterboy
Vinny said:
What does black have to do with anything?
At the time, Vick, Culpepper and McNabb weren't even in the league, we were just stting around having a conversation about black QB's because there weren't many starting, and that question came up. It wasn't a black vs white thing, I just made the statemant, and he disagreed.
 
swtbound07 said:
eh, i aint offended...will throw my 2 cents in for randall cunningham though
no way in hell would randall cunningham be the best african american qb...thats just absurd...especially with the likes of Moon, Culpepper, Vick

and no winning a SB doesnt automatically make you a better qb...just that you have played on a "better/together" team.
 

AcresHomesTexan

No Longer Arlington: Escaped From Jerry's World
Staff member
Moon had the best career...williams did more for getting of rid the notion that a Black Qb could not win...Cunningham probably the more exciting player...McNair should be in the conversasion.

I think when it is all said done with thier careers McNabb and Culpepper will rank ahead of all of these guys. Until Vick learns how to pass better, he will be the most exciting player in the NFL, but far from a really good QB.

There will a next generation coming into the NFL, Omar Jacobs, Vince Young, Reggie McNeil, Chris Leak..They come with different abilities and styles...the best thing is that each generation of Black QBs can worry more about being the QB part of the equation and not the other part.
 

texasguy346

Mod Squad
I really like what I've seen of Chris Leak. He looks like he'll be a great QB, and I'll certainly be following his career when he jumps to the NFL.
 
sprtsfanatic said:
no way in hell would randall cunningham be the best african american qb...thats just absurd...especially with the likes of Moon, Culpepper, Vick

and no winning a SB doesnt automatically make you a better qb...just that you have played on a "better/together" team.
dude vick is hardly a QB......
 

nunusguy

Hall of Fame
Warren Moon was one of the greatest QBs of our time. Period. Kinda work
I've done, it's taken me around the country the last 12-14 years or so and I've run across so many NFL fans of Moon and the Oilers Run N' Shoot from the glory days of both.
And being from the KC area, people up there still to this
day talk about the day Warren and the Run N' Shoot blew away a really
tremendous Chiefs D at Arrowhead stadium back in the early 90s. Can remember yet Schottenheimer (the Chiefs HC at the time), saying he would have bet anything that nobody could waste that great secondary the Chiefs had at that time. And one of the most special things of the day - Moon left the game early in the 4th Q after the Oilers and Moon had put the game out of reach - knowing how easy it would be for him to set a new single game passing record but passing up that opportunity. A more glory hungry QB (for reference see Peyton Manning/Indy Colts in 2004 season), would have been flinging passed until
the very end of the game - regardless of the lead his team had.
I never realized how much people throughout the country enjoyed watching
the Oilers Run N' Shoot and I don't think anybody could have run it as well as
Warren. He was a great QB and a Hall-of-Famer for sure !
 

Tedc

Hardheaded
Vinny said:
Doug Williamson was a great QB.
Who is that?

I agree. There shouldn't be a color put on the QB.

That is like saying at work that there is a black employee of the month and a white one. Then we would need one for Hispanic, Asian, etc.

We have to get out of that way of thinking.

Of course, if you are talking about the best QB ever, you would not be talking about Moon or Williams either.
 
TopTexanFan16 said:
dude vick is hardly a QB......
If not...then what position does he play? and on top of that...he's still better than cunningham ever was.


On another note....point well taken by the person who mentioned Steve Mcnair...he is a great one, and so is D. Mcnabb. And yes there seem to be more very talented qb's that will be entering the NFL here soon.
 

bigtex77

Waterboy
Amazing Race said:
The original question, I think, was does winning a SB automatically make you a better QB.

Yes, this was supposed to be the point of the thread, i think the way I worded the question kind of threw things off a bit.
 

Hervoyel

BUENO!
Winning a single Super Bowl does make you a little bit better QB than you would be if you had not won it and winning four of them makes you Terry Bradshaw and a member of the NFL Hall of Fame.

Some guys are great QB's regardless of their trips to and record in the Super Bowl. Dan Marino was a great QB. Peyton Manning is a great QB and will be one if he continues at this pace but never gets his team to a Super Bowl. Guys like that (and Warren Moon for instance) are great because they're great. They'd be considered "greater" though if they had a ring or two. Fran Tarkenton is a great QB and he doesn't have a single ring. Doesn't matter, he was IMO a great QB.

Then there are guys who are good QB's but they reach greatness by getting a ring. I think of Bradshaw as being one of these. but of course anyone gets 4 Super Bowl rings and he's in. No two ways about that.

I also consider a guy like Jim Plunkett to be in this catagory. Doug Williams was here (towards the bottom I think) and so was Phil Simms (again, towards the bottom). Without the rings these QB's do not get to be widely considered "great".

For the record I have Joe Montana and Tom Brady right between the top of this group and the bottom of the previous one.

Finally you've got QB's who are not great, ring or no ring. Maybe they had a great season, or maybe they had a great game (and got a ring) but they aren't "great" in my book. These guys need multiple rings to move any higher. One ring alone doesn't elevate them like it would a better QB from the next group up.

Trent Dilfer has a ring, he is not a "great QB" IMO.

Kurt Warner has a ring, he is also not a "great QB" IMO.

Jim McMahon has a ring and I do not believe he is a great QB.

As for the whole black QB angle I don't see the point. Asking who "the best black QB is" is just like asking who "the best QB is" except your tossing out a bunch of the candidates because they're white before you even get started. You have all the same problems. Comparing guys with drastically different games who played for different coaches/teams in different eras and in different systems.

Statistically it's Moon I think. If you go by rings it's Williams because he's the only one who has one (I think?). If you talk about raw athleticism then isn't it Vick with a young Cunningham coming in second? Winning percentage might be someone else (McNabb or Culpepper? I don't know) but it's all just speculation.
 

DRIFTAWAY

Rookie
Rohan Davies has a ring so is he better then Marino? Exactly. A QB with a ring doesnt show that he was great, it could have been a record- breaking historical defense. He might have had like a Torry Holt and Terrel Owens and Randy Moss at his recieving spots. Although leading your team to a super bowl is good, it could have been the defense that really led the team to a superbowl. IMHO i think Dilfer is out of the league right now if it wasn't for that ring.
 

Hervoyel

BUENO!
DRIFTAWAY said:
Rohan Davies has a ring so is he better then Marino? Exactly. A QB with a ring doesnt show that he was great, it could have been a record- breaking historical defense. He might have had like a Torry Holt and Terrel Owens and Randy Moss at his recieving spots. Although leading your team to a super bowl is good, it could have been the defense that really led the team to a superbowl. IMHO i think Dilfer is out of the league right now if it wasn't for that ring.

The ring only matters in cases where the QB played in the Super Bowl that the ring was won in. Steve Young for instance does not benefit from rings he has that he got from standing on the sidelines watching Joe Montana work. He does however gain "greatness points" for the ring he won while starting. Rings earned while doing clip board duty are meaningless.
 
sprtsfanatic said:
If not...then what position does he play? and on top of that...he's still better than cunningham ever was.


On another note....point well taken by the person who mentioned Steve Mcnair...he is a great one, and so is D. Mcnabb. And yes there seem to be more very talented qb's that will be entering the NFL here soon.
hey i never said he wasnt a QB i said he was hardly one. read what i write before you criticize.
 

swtbound07

Jackass of Day!
its too early in vicks career to call him the greatest.....but i'll put randall cunningham up against warren moon...he was the first of his kind, a true running quarterback, and had an entire league gameplanning around him for almost his entire career
 
Personally, I don't consider Vick a great QB. He just can't throw well enough yet. Moon, Culpepper, McNabb, and Doug Williams. They all played the position well. Cunningham was overrated in my opinion. He was exciting at times, but never won the SB and didn't break records. Had Moon played his entire career in the NFL then Dan Marino may not have so many records right now. IMHO
 

AcresHomesTexan

No Longer Arlington: Escaped From Jerry's World
Staff member
to answer question of whether the Supeerbowl matters, one way or another. It matters if you are comparing to QBs of similiar stature and trying to decside if one is better than the other. If you want to argue Fouts or Marino versus Montana, then the rings matter, but a Superbowl ring does not take a mediocore QB say Dilfer or Brad Johnson and turn them into Bret Favre because they all have 1 Superbowl ring.
 
Hervoyel said:
Winning a single Super Bowl does make you a little bit better QB than you would be if you had not won it and winning four of them makes you Terry Bradshaw and a member of the NFL Hall of Fame.

Some guys are great QB's regardless of their trips to and record in the Super Bowl. Dan Marino was a great QB. Peyton Manning is a great QB and will be one if he continues at this pace but never gets his team to a Super Bowl. Guys like that (and Warren Moon for instance) are great because they're great. They'd be considered "greater" though if they had a ring or two. Fran Tarkenton is a great QB and he doesn't have a single ring. Doesn't matter, he was IMO a great QB.

Then there are guys who are good QB's but they reach greatness by getting a ring. I think of Bradshaw as being one of these. but of course anyone gets 4 Super Bowl rings and he's in. No two ways about that.

I also consider a guy like Jim Plunkett to be in this catagory. Doug Williams was here (towards the bottom I think) and so was Phil Simms (again, towards the bottom). Without the rings these QB's do not get to be widely considered "great".

For the record I have Joe Montana and Tom Brady right between the top of this group and the bottom of the previous one.

Finally you've got QB's who are not great, ring or no ring. Maybe they had a great season, or maybe they had a great game (and got a ring) but they aren't "great" in my book. These guys need multiple rings to move any higher. One ring alone doesn't elevate them like it would a better QB from the next group up.

Trent Dilfer has a ring, he is not a "great QB" IMO.

Kurt Warner has a ring, he is also not a "great QB" IMO.

Jim McMahon has a ring and I do not believe he is a great QB.

As for the whole black QB angle I don't see the point. Asking who "the best black QB is" is just like asking who "the best QB is" except your tossing out a bunch of the candidates because they're white before you even get started. You have all the same problems. Comparing guys with drastically different games who played for different coaches/teams in different eras and in different systems.

Statistically it's Moon I think. If you go by rings it's Williams because he's the only one who has one (I think?). If you talk about raw athleticism then isn't it Vick with a young Cunningham coming in second? Winning percentage might be someone else (McNabb or Culpepper? I don't know) but it's all just speculation.
Now thats a hell of a breakdown and I dont think anyone could state it anybetter. Nice post Hervoyel
 

Grid

All Pro
people put too much weight in this color thing.. meaning.. there is nothing wrong with this question. its no different than asking who is the best QB under 6 feet tall.. or who is the best left handed QB.. or anything like that.


Present day.. im gonna say its McNabb. I think hes better than Moon was.. though moon was a great QB.
 

Huge

All Pro
Based on what they accomplished for their careers, there's no question in my mind that Warren Moon is the best black QB ever.

Back in the late 70's when the black QB had to fight the racial sterotype, Moon was lighting up the Canadian league for 5 consecutive Grey Cups.

His All-Time NFL ranks:

Pass attempts: 4
Completions: 4
Passing yards: 4
Passing TDs: 5

QB record 8 straight Pro Bowls.

That's pretty good for somebody that had to wait 5 years before he came in the NFL.

nunusguy said:
And being from the KC area, people up there still to this
day talk about the day Warren and the Run N' Shoot blew away a really
tremendous Chiefs D at Arrowhead stadium back in the early 90s. Can remember yet Schottenheimer (the Chiefs HC at the time), saying he would have bet anything that nobody could waste that great secondary the Chiefs had at that time. And one of the most special things of the day - Moon left the game early in the 4th Q after the Oilers and Moon had put the game out of reach - knowing how easy it would be for him to set a new single game passing record but passing up that opportunity.
I remember that game because the Wednesday before, Chris Collingsworth was on HBO's Inside the NFL and his comments were (almost word for word)...

(Collingsworth doing his Oilers/Chiefs preview): "Finally the game I've been waiting for. This game will be the beginning of the end for the Run 'N Shoot offense. The Chiefs will prove that this offense cannot work outdoors in the elements"

Or something to that effect.

Moon passes for 527 yards on the day...2nd most in league history. Oilers win 27-10.
 
I'd take Randall Cunningham (a.k.a. QB EAGLES) there any day.........with a fast QB the other team could pick your play and you could still move out of the way and get a completion.........A beginner could win games with that guy.

Warren Moon had a better arm in the game, and three of the top four receivers in the whole AFC, so he dominated just as well, even though he wasn't as fast as Cunningham.

Tecmo Superbowl really got me into FOOTBALL, when I was a young kid (9 or 10).......so when the Oilers lost Warren Moon, I really wanted them to get Randall Cunningham, because I figured that he was the only Quarterback that was better than Warren Moon.
 

swtbound07

Jackass of Day!
yes, but if you played with the giants, then had jeff hostetler replace simms, you could use lawrence taylor, the biggest beast ever on that game
 
Cunningham was damn good in his time, but Moon was able to sustain his excellence for a longer period of time. Cunningham fell apart in his later years and had to be put out to pasture by Jon Gruden.

To me, the best black QB of all time remains to be seen. I'dve said McNabb, but after that Superbowl fiasco, he's moved back down the charts leaving Culpepper the best around today and Moon the best of yesteryear. Moon put up a hell of a lot of yards in his career.
 

duece

Practice Squad
look at it like this...people of color ask those questions...who is the best black qb ever because traditionally blacks weren't allowed to be qb's. when people say who is the best rb ever....jim brown, walter payton, emmitt smith, barry sanders..these guys usually are the ones mentioned. notice they are all black...i know a lot of white people that will ask the question...who is the best white running back ever? they do this because it makes you think...there weren't alot of GREAT white running backs(when compared to the ones we already mentioned).

yes it would be great if we could be color blind and just say who is the greatest qb ever, but what you have to understand is that there were so many black qb's that never got a shot at playing qb BECAUSE they were black that some guys that might have been as good as the marino's and montana's were overlooked.

also when growing up you want to be like some one who you look like. i didn't want to be larry bird, babe ruth, or dan marino...they're white, they don't look like me. i want to root for someone who looks like me, someone that i can identify with. i went into the yard and i was pretending to be barry sanders, mike jordan, jerry rice, ken houston, deion sanders, hank aaron...people who look like me. people want to know about people who look like them so when people talk about great players they can talk about someone who looks like them..ie one of my good friends was a hispanic ol(6-2 290), and was one hell of a linemen at that. he favorite player....yup you guessed it munoz from the bengals. when we talked about great players he always threw up munoz...he wanted to stand behind a guy that came from his heritage...THAT is why people have the conversations of who is the best asian, black, white, hispanic, somoan, etc player.
 

B.Diddy

Waterboy
I have to agree 100% with you Duece Growing up as a kid I Idolized Warren Moon and Randell because i could identify with them and they were the only black qb's. I also loved to watch Joe Montana, John Elway, and Jim Kelly
but being a black kid and a die hard oliers fan Warren Moon was my favorite.
 

B.Diddy

Waterboy
Bull Rush said:
Cunningham was damn good in his time, but Moon was able to sustain his excellence for a longer period of time. Cunningham fell apart in his later years and had to be put out to pasture by Jon Gruden.

To me, the best black QB of all time remains to be seen. I'dve said McNabb, but after that Superbowl fiasco, he's moved back down the charts leaving Culpepper the best around today and Moon the best of yesteryear. Moon put up a hell of a lot of yards in his career.
People are so quick to jump on McNabb after the superbowl but Payton
has been destroyed two years in a row by the same patriots defense that beat McNabb and people still consider him the best QB in the leauge
 
but, I just hate Peyton Manning

Maybe its the whole, I don't want my brother to get drafted by the Chargers.....( his dad too)..........nah..........I hated Peyton before that too, come to think of it ?

Just something about him, something about all three of them, if I was in the NFL, I'd be putting a little extra hurt on em', everytime I tackled them. I'd probably take a couple penalties trying to knock them out with helmet hits after the whistle. Was I the only one that was outraged, when the Manning's tried to impose their "godliness" on the NFL and pick what team Eli went too ?

Sorry, I know this has nothing to do with this post, but, I just saw someone dogging peyton and I couldn't resist joining in.

:highfive:
 

Theoridic

Waterboy
Statistically the four best Quaterbacks ever are
Dan Marino (no ring)
Brett Farve
John Elway (I still don't like him)
Warren Moon (no ring)

Ring or no ring these four are the Elite QB's

Look it up and try and argue those facts
 

Texas_Thrill

Veteran
I don't think Race matters anymore as far as football PLAYERS are concerned but I do think there are some race issues that the NFL and other major sports definitely need to address.

Though even worse than the pro's is the college level especially college football when it comes to head coaching positions for minority candidates.

But all sports are at times is a reflection of the society we live in. Whether you believe there is a problem or not just depends on what side you are actually on.
 
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