Quick, name the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Surely his list would include names like Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning and John Elway, among others. None of those names seem out of place, but would you think differently if I put Rex Grossman on that list? Turns out Grossman deserves to be on that list just as much as Joe Namath. Heck, his career QB rating is 5 points higher than Namath’s. So why was Namath an infallible hall of famer while Grossman swam in the overcrowded pool of mediocrity?
One cannot ignore the fact that most of Joe Namath’s career stats are average at best. Nothing in his career says “superstar.” Sure, he was a big figure in New York, wearing a fur coat and wearing white heels when all the other Jet players were wearing black, but does that really make Average Joe a Broadway Joe? Turns out he absolutely does. Joe Namath was a terribly inaccurate quarterback. His 50.1 career completion percentage is below average, as is his 173 touchdown passes to his 220 career interceptions.
The one thing Joe Namath did that no other quarterback on the all-time list did was promise his team would win the Super Bowl against a heavy favorite and deliver on that promise. Some would say that game alone should give Namath his hall of fame credibility, but it’s important not to take things at face value. Namath made that promise and played for the Jets team that won the game, but he hardly “led” the team to victory. The Jets followed their game plan of passing the ball through the Baltimore Colts defense and it worked perfectly. Joe Namath didn’t even throw a touchdown pass in the game. Basically, the Jets won by keeping the ball out of Joe Namath’s hands.
Joe Namath also didn’t help with his team’s running game. Unlike other quarterbacks of the era, Joe Namath almost never ran the ball. He finished with 140 career rushing yards from him. He played in 140 career games. In case you haven’t done your grade school math, that’s 1 yard per game rushing for Namath. Opponent defenses knew that when Joe Namath held the ball, he was going to pass it. That’s probably why his teams were .500 in the games he started. He also didn’t win another playoff game after his famous Super Bowl win.
If anyone wants an example of a quarterback who was better than Namath but isn’t credited as an “all-time great,” how about Doug Williams? He changed the game as much as Namath, being the first black person to become an NFL quarterback, and also had a big win in the Super Bowl. The difference between the two is that Williams’ Super Bowl performance was one of the best by a quarterback in Super Bowl history, while Namath’s can only be generously described as average.
There is nothing against Namath, but the statistics clearly show that he was not only No among the greatest quarterbacks of all time, but he really doesn’t even deserve to be enshrined in the hall of fame.