Favre Vs. Warner

Simmons mailbag addresses the topic I stayed up late drunkenly talking about (again) last night.

Q: Why is Brett Favre's career better than Kurt Warner's again? Every single statistic that is a "rate" favors Warner as well as career QB rating. Favre playoff record: 12-10. Warner playoff record: 8-3. Why do we stalk Favre's land manor every winter and we're going to let Warner go in peace?
--Dan, New York

SG: Because people care about Brett Favre. Did you see the rating for that Vikes-Saints game? Fifty-seven million people! Highest rated non-Super Bowl since the "Seinfeld" finale. You can call him an attention hog, say he's overrated, claim he's a wishy-washy narcissist, even play the "if Desmond Howard doesn't annihilate the 1996 Patriots, he's ring-less right now" card. But ultimately, everyone else in the room will care about your opinion. He's polarizing, he's fascinating, he's fun to complain about, he's fun to watch, he's predictable and unpredictable ... there's just a lot going on. You couldn't say the same about Kurt Warner. He was just a good guy who played football really well.

As for your Warner/Favre debate, that's a fun one. I never thought about that before. In my book, I spent a lot of time figuring out specific ways to measure careers against each other, eventually coming to this conclusion: I'd rather have 4-5 phenomenal years from Player A than 15 very good years from Player B. Well, I'd take 1999-2001 Warner over any three-year incarnation of Favre in his prime, and I'd take 2008-2009 Warner over any two-year incarnation of Favre after his prime. No contest. But let's say you could start a team with either of them. If I offered you nearly two full decades of Favre (a top-five QB from 1993-2002, and a better-than-average QB from 2003 through 2009) or 11 up and down years from Warner (better peaks from 1999-2001 and 2007-2009, a higher playoff ceiling, but nothing else) ...you'd take Favre. You would. Warner wins the "higher ceiling" and "better teammate" arguments and that's it.

Forgot about the Desmond Howard card...gonna toss that into my future anti-Favre arguments.

My theory on football - in the post West Coast offense game - the difference between good and bad teams are on the offensive and defensive line. 85% of the time, the team with better overall line play wins the game. The other major contributing factor is turnovers. A superior team will lose to an inferior team if they turn the ball over too much. The third most important factor after turnovers and line play is the quarterback...because the quarterback actually influences the first two factors on the margins. A quarterback who holds onto the ball too long in the pocket (Shaun Hill) can negate good line play. Likewise, a quarterback who tosses crazy interceptions (Rex Grossman) also negates good line play. But consider this - even with Rex Grossman - the Bears did make it to the Superbowl.

Now here is the important point - the quarterback - generally - influences the first two factors in a negative fashion. A great quarterback cannot make up for inferior line play. If a quarterback doesn't have time in the pocket, he will be rendered ineffective. Quarterbacks like Dan Marino and Peyton Manning who have exceptionally quick releases and decision making help their line play on the margin by needing less time. But they still need some time and at least a minimal threat of a running game. The almost perfect example of this is John Elway. Elway was a great quarterback, but could never beat top NFC teams because they got beat - badly - on the offense and defensive line. It was only when Elway was clearly in the twilight of his career that he finally won two Superbowls - and when he had the best offensive line in the league. They won as a running team, not Elway at his tip top.

Basically, the most important trait for a quarterback on a superior team is to not render his team's line play ineffective. On an inferior team, the quarterback needs to do more. Kurt Warner's Arizona team last year was a good example of this. While Arizona was an underdog and generally inferior team to their playoff opponents, they had one element of their game that was far superior - the passing game - and got streaky and were able to win despite inferior line play. But examples like this are very rare, and ultimately they still lost the Super Bowl.

Brett Favre is the worst of both worlds. He has never been good enough to win consistently with an inferior team. Sure, he's won a few games, but that simply falls into the 15% or maybe gets bumped to 20% with Favre. Not significant, in my eyes. But what's worse - is that because of his turnovers - he actually causes SUPERIOR teams to lose. Last game was a perfect example - the Vikings were a superior team and they lost to an inferior team because of turnovers. Last year, he contributed to the Jets collapse as a SUPERIOR team on paper.