Bart Starr
Bart Starr has won more championships than any other quarterback in history, winning two Super Bowls and 3 NFL Championships before that, and is the only QB to win the championship in 3 consecutive seasons since the playoff system was instituted, yet somehow he finds himself outside the top 20 quarterbacks of all time.
The biggest reason that Starr finds himself this low in the rankings is that despite his long (16 year) career, he was only among the top quarterbacks for five seasons, and those happen to be the seasons that the Packers won.
He started out as a 17th round pick in 1956, and spent his first 5 seasons splitting time at quarterback with lower-caliber players. He then spent 10 seasons as a full-time starter, but the most touchdowns he ever threw in a season was 16. During that same timespan, at total of 10 other quarterbacks passed for at least 30 touchdowns in a season, so it wasn't the run-happy era many assume it was, it was just that Starr was an average quarterback.
What makes him one of the greats was his ability to win when it mattered. He won his first title in 1961, when he threw 164 yards and 3 touchdowns as the Packers trounced the Giants 37-0. It was easily his best performance in a title game, and he threw only 4 total touchdowns in his other 4 championships, with 684 yards total. He was named the MVP of the first two Super Bowls, but it was due more to the lack of other decent choices than his level of performance.
He was also a league MVP in 1966, a season in which he passed for 2257 yards and 14 touchdowns, but threw only 3 picks. The team's 12-2 record was the bigger reason for his MVP, since there were players with twice as many touchdowns and 1000 more passing yards who were overlooked, including Len Dawson and Sonny Jurgensen.
Bart Starr was a very good quarterback who played for the greatest coach in history, and that enabled him to become a 5-time champion. That has allowed him to be remembered as one of the all-time greats, but we shouldn't exaggerate his greatness based solely on his playoff success.
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