He wore black high-tops, ran stiff-legged, sported a crew cut, threw at least one touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games and was the hero of the “Greatest Game Ever Played.”
His name was Johnny Unitas, he wore No. 19 for the Baltimore Colts and he was the greatest quarterback in pro football history.
This according to the men who decide who enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Based on voting by 34 of the 39 Hall of Fame electors who selected the Class of 2004, Johnny U edged Joe Montana for No. 1.
Unitas had 130 points and 13 first-place votes, to 128 points and 11 first-place votes for Montana.
John Elway, who Sunday will become the first Denver Bronco inducted into the Hall of Fame, ranked No. 4, behind Unitas, Montana and Cleveland Browns legend Otto Graham.
“Unitas, to me, was the consummate quarterback,” said Hall of Fame selector Len Shapiro, a longtime football writer and sports columnist for the Washington Post. “Great arm, great leader and a perfect sense of what was happening on the field. Not to mention that he called all of his own plays.”
Gino Marchetti, the Colts Hall of Famer named the top defensive end of the NFL’s first 50 years, said the selectors made a wise choice.
“It’s kind of hard to say who is the best ever, but because of John’s leadership and ability to throw the long ball, I think he would have to be ranked right up there as No. 1,” said Marchetti, who teamed with Unitas for 10 seasons.
Sam Huff, the Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants and Washington Redskins in the 1950s and ’60s, also said the writers and broadcasters who picked Unitas got it right. When asked which quarterback he would choose to have on his team to win one big game, Huff didn’t hesitate: “Unitas. I mean, he did win the greatest game ever played.”
Huff is referring to the 1958 NFL championship game at New York’s Yankee Stadium between the Colts and the Giants. Unitas’ Colts beat Huff’s Giants 23-17 in overtime.
“Unitas moved the ball against one of the best defenses ever put together–that was us,” Huff said. “He did it in a short amount of time to tie the game, and then he did it in overtime too. He was amazing.”
Huff knows a little something about great quarterbacks. During his career Huff played against nine Hall of Fame signal-callers, including Sonny Jurgensen, Y.A. Tittle, Norm Van Brocklin and Bart Starr. But Unitas stood tallest in Huff’s mind.
Picking the best quarterback is a mix of facts and opinion. Unitas’ record of 47 consecutive games throwing a touchdown pass often is compared to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak for the New York Yankees.
But is Unitas’ feat more impressive than Montana winning four Super Bowls and never throwing an interception in those four games? Or are Unitas’ heroics–including 40,239 career passing yards–overshadowed by Montana’s magic? Some say yes. And let the record book show that Montana had a record six 300-yard postseason passing performances and a 92.3 career passer rating.
“Joe Cool was so flawless when it mattered most,” USA Today’s Jarrett Bell said. “You might say that Montana played in a great system with an outstanding coach (Bill Walsh) and awesome talent surrounding him. But it’s also true that Montana brought the West Coast offense to life. He had deft touch, fluid footwork, superb vision and the uncanny knack to stay composed.”
No. 3 on the selectors’ list is Graham, who was the prototypical winner. He took the Browns to a championship game 10 times. His Browns won all four titles of the All-America Football Conference in 1946-49. When the Browns joined the NFL in 1950, experts predicted the Browns would fail. They were wrong. Graham threw four touchdown passes in the Browns’ 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the 1950 NFL title game. He also led the Browns to titles in 1954 and 1955.
“The test of a quarterback is where his team finishes,” Paul Brown, a Hall of Fame coach and owner of the Browns, once said. “By that standard, Otto was the best of them all.”
That’s exactly why Hall of Fame selector Peter King picked “Automatic Otto” as his top quarterback.
“I’m very big on winning and on a quarterback being more than a passer,” said King, Sports Illustrated’s NFL writer. “Graham took his team to the championship game of his league in every one of his 10 seasons as a pro, winning seven times.”
Graham received three first-place votes, the same number as Sammy Baugh, who tied Dan Marino for fifth place in the overall rankings.
Elway got zero votes as the best quarterback of all time but received high marks for his athleticism and his NFL-record 148 regular-season victories as a starting quarterback.
“As an athlete, that’s where John Elway is practically in a class by himself,” said Hall of Fame wide receiver Raymond Berry, who played with Unitas in Baltimore for 12 seasons and saw Elway up close when Berry was an assistant coach with the Broncos in 1992.
“John Elway and (Pittsburgh’s) Terry Bradshaw were the most physically gifted of any quarterbacks who ever played in the league,” Berry said. “It was a combination of many things. They both had size, great speed, rocket arms and tremendous competitive spirit. They leap out in terms of being superior as far as the physical game goes.”
Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy, who led Buffalo to four consecutive Super Bowls in the 1990s and coached Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, said Elway was an amazing player to watch.
“You’ll never have a discussion about the great quarterbacks in the game without his name being in the mix,” Levy said. “Nobody combined all of his qualities: the ability to run, the size, the ability to perform under pressure and the numbers in the win column. Montana was the coolest I’ve seen, but John may have been the most exciting.”
Elway has said he isn’t sure where he ranks all time, but he knows what made him special.
“I look at Joe Montana, and physically, I wouldn’t have traded me for Joe Montana. I never would,” Elway said just before his election into the Hall of Fame in January. “But I know one thing I really respect about Joe Montana is he did play really well in big games.”
But so did Graham, Baugh, Starr, Roger Staubach, Joe Namath, Van Brocklin and a host of others. So why does Unitas, who quarterbacked his final game in 1973, still hold the top spot in the pantheon of quarterbacks?
“He had the intangibles–things you can’t see unless you see a guy’s career up close,” Berry said. “He had this toughness, this competitiveness, a focus on winning and an instinctive understanding about football. And the era in which we played gave him the ability to use his strengths.
“And one of the things about our era was that he was able to use his instinctive play calling. That allowed John Unitas, in my opinion, to really perform to his ultimate. He was in charge of directing the flow of the game. He was a complete leader.”
The fact that Unitas called his own plays helped set him apart from more recent great quarterbacks.
“The amount of work John put in was amazing,” Marchetti said. “He would take home films and plays to study every night. He did the work that an offensive coordinator does today.”
But perhaps the best reason Unitas edged Montana for the No. 1 spot on the selectors’ list is summed up by Baltimore Sun columnist and Hall of Fame voter Mike Preston.
“When you become the standard for greatness,” Preston said. “Then you were, and are, simply the best.”
