Joe Montana is a former American football player who used to play quarterback in the National Football League for 16 years, spending most of his time with the San Fransisco 49ers, and his remaining last two years with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Throughout his career, he won 4 Super Bowls, 3 Super Bowl MVPS, 2 NFL MVPs, and a whole hoist of other awards.
When ranking QB’s, it is common to see Joe Montana ranked highly; in fact, the default answer for many people often sees him ranked first in these lists, ahead of Brady. And when given justification for his ranking, you tend to hear the same old arguments repeated ad nauseum.
“He has 4 rings”. “He’s a perfect 4-0 in Super Bowls”. “He’s clutch”. “He’s the most clutch QB, he’s Joe Cool, after all.”
If you are lucky, someone who actually knows a little more can expand on this by bringing up more specific facts, such as how Montana was able to lead the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC title game in 1993, proving that he was not just a system QB for Bill Walsh. And then bring up how that was the Chiefs last playoff win for another 22 years.
But most people won’t bring that up. And that’s the issue.
Most people bring up the Super Bowl arguments because they get recycled constantly by most media members, and most media consumers. So they just blindly accept it. They don’t ask questions like, say, “How good were Montana’s teammates?” and “Who was in Montana’s division?” and “How skilled was Montana? How were his measurables?” and “What were the flaws in his game?”. They don’t ask these questions. They hear an analyst trying to criticize Brady by claiming that “Montana is a perfect 4-0 in Super Bowls, so he’s still better than Brady in my book”, and just leave it at that. Pitiful.
Now, this isn’t an article that’s meant to critique Montana. Or prop up Tom Brady. Heck, I’m not saying that if you think highly of Montana, you are wrong to do so. There’s nothing wrong with thinking Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback ever. There’s a very strong case for it. This article is meant simply to try and get certain people to change the way they think about sports. Because these types of lazy, recycled arguments that were shown above have become pervasive enough that they have begun to create false narratives and revisionist history, and have also provided a low impetus for people to do their own research.
Joe Montana is excellent, but the lack of information given to justify his greatness is staggering, and it actually does a disservice to him. When people prop up Joe Montana, they don’t mention enough about his actual greatness; his elusiveness, his accuracy, his ability to look throughout his progressions, and his craftiness.
Although the West Coast offense is designed to be QB friendly, not everyone really masters it that well because it still does rely on timing, poise, and the right level of aggressiveness – something Joe Montana excelled at. But when you only bring up rings, you actually undersell Montana’s gifts.
It’s almost similar to the arguments people use for Michael Jordan as the greatest ever. If you’re trying to praise a player, you should still include their actual skills in addition to their rings. Reducing them to rings actually hurts them, because it gives naysayers the chance to prop up lesser players by bringing up their skills. There’s people who will try to denigrate Montana by bringing up his team, and think that he as a QB isn’t special. When in reality, two things can be true at once – you can have a great defense, but still be a great QB.
Joe Montana isn’t THAT much better than any other quarterback to explain why he is the de facto “GOAT” quarterback among people. He’s not Wayne Gretzky or anything like that at all.
His greatest strengths are common in a lot of quarterbacks. We’ve seen QB’s like Steve Young after him, and Aaron Rodgers now (well, at least when he tries) who are better at being elusive and extending plays and being mobile. Rodgers has quite possibly the best arm in NFL history. Do I need to show you footage? I don’t need to. I will though.
Speaking purely in terms of skill, Rodgers is probably the best ever.
Mentally, Montana isn’t any better than Peyton or Brady. Peyton Manning is known for his mental gifts as a QB so I don’t need to bother going in-depth with that. Tom Brady doesn’t get enough respect for it as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_KWBldxNn8
And lastly, Montana had teams and coaches that were just as great as any of Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, and Brees’s best teams – and more importantly. Ronnie Lott is one of the best secondary players ever. Hall of Famer. Was on the 49ers from 1981-1990. Eric Wright was a fantastic cover corner (at least in his prime). Roger Craig was a thousand yard rusher, and perhaps most importantly, Bill Walsh was one of the best coaches ever. He was a real offensive mastermind, and created the West Coast offense.
So yeah. Joe Montana won 2 rings without Bill Walsh. He also had a successful stint in Kansas City. What? I never said Montana wasn’t great. Or one of the greatest.
The goal is to get people to think more. Don’t just blindly call Montana the GOAT; actually have backup. Because if you just say he’s great, and then get asked to explain why, and say a bunch of intangible nonsense, that opens the door for more stupid opinions that lead to the degradation of football talk.
