Touchy, Touchy

In the very real chance that you missed it yesterday, I'd like to direct you to the uproar that yesterday's list caused over at the Carnival. For those of you who would rather not click, it was my list of cursed NFL positions, including such luminaries as Chicago QB, Eagles Coach and Cardinals Owner. For the most part, fans from the tweaked fan bases look it in stride, added fuel to the fire (I did not know that the last time Lion QB made a Pro Bowl was in 1972), or pointed out my occasional mistakes (I should have said Eagles outside linebacker, rather than slight reasonable players like Jeremiah Trotter, and, um, Jeremiah Trotter).

Like any good list piece, it was a reasonable bar argument kind of piece, and it got some fairly significant Web attention, thanks to a link from Sports Illustrated.

And then J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS Fan saw it, and then all hell broke loose.

And yes, it upset me, and the other Carnival writers, all the way to the bank.

You see, it turns out that taking a comedic dump on Joe Willie Namath's Legacy is roughly akin to telling a Catholic that the Pope was a Hitler Youth. Or telling a Packer Fan that they might not have lost all of those playoff games in this millennium with a different, less interception-happy, quarterback. Or telling a Yankees Fan that Derek Jeter gives women communicable diseases while being the second-best shortstop on his team. Or finding a Packer/Yankee Catholic and telling him all of these things at once, possibly with a side order of how their mom fares between the sheets when she's working the night shift.

Because oh, my, J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS Fan does not like it even one little bit when you tweak Joe Willie.

Frankly, I don't get it, but maybe it's just a generational thing. If someone wanted to crack on my franchise's beloved quarterback from before I was born, I'd entertain the argument that Norm Van Brocklin might not have been all that great. The numbers really don't measure up against that argument, in that the 1960 Eagles really didn't run the ball all that well, but what the hey. It was 48 years ago. Have at it.

But you see, what we have to really assess Namath isn't terribly compelling. You've got a less than .500 record, with a 50.1% completion percentage, 47 more picks than touchdowns, who threw a lot when he was young and healthy and the Jets were mediocre, threw less when they were good, and then couldn't stay on the field. He made the Pro Bowl five times in twelve years, and didn't do it again after age 29. He was a first-team All-Pro just once. He won, as far as I can tell from the research, two playoff games in his entire career. (The Raiders and Colts, in the Super Bowl III year.)

As good as his leadership might have been in Super Bowl III, the Jets won that game on their defense and ground game. I get that winning the big game as a big underdog set him up for life in New York, but if that's all you have to do to cement your legacy, he should have retired at age 25 and been the football equivalent of James Dean. The '70s counted as well, and for the most part, those weren't very kind to him on the field.

This isn't meant to denigrate his importance as a cultural icon... but, um, isn't the game played between the lines? J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS Fan felt compelled to tell me about Namath's womanizing, his media impact, his swagger. Um, great.

In the modern game, this makes him Matt Leinart.

A better argument would have been to point out that he was well regarded as a player by his contemporaries, that he struggled with injuries that would have been dealt with much better with today's knee surgeons, and that he must have been one hell of a leader, given the way that his teams seem to perform better when he was in the lineup. There's a case to be made. The Sporting News, after all, named him 96th in their Top 100 Players Ever list in 1999, and he made the Hall of Fame very soon after retirement.

Football statistics are heavily dependent on context; for all we know, Sammy Baugh might have been the best guy to ever play the position. It's like comparing apples to venison. When you look at the film, Namath does throw a beautiful ball with a quick release. It's just what happens to it in the air that's the problem.

And if you want to limit to just his contemporaries... I'm sorry, but I'm going with Kenny Stabler. And Len Dawson. Aesthetics aside, Bob Griese won a ton of games and committed very few mistakes. Sonny Jurgenson put up huge numbers in an impossible era for quarterbacks, and also did it with terrible teams. Bart Starr might have been the best of the '60s. Roger Staubach won more Super Bowls, Fran Tarkenton more playoff games, and Johnny Unitas is Johnny Unitas. People can make a case for Terry Bradshaw, not that I would be thrilled to do so. I think I'm taking Namath over Bert Jones. And that's just from his era.

And, moving beyond Namath, not that J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS Fan was really very interested in doing that... um, guys? Richard Todd threw 30 picks in a year. Pat Ryan still gives me Kotite-esque nightmares. Glenn Foley was your Bobby Hoying. Kellen Clemens made them give Brad Smith snaps. Chad Pennington longs for Koy Detmer's arm strength. And so on, and so on.

Now, is Jets Quarterback really the most cursed position in pro football? No, of course not. Namath gave them an identity. Vinny Testaverde gave them a forgotten great year, and Pennington was a decent game manager and leader before injuries robbed him of, well, the ability to throw a football.

I could have gone with other picks, like Buccaneer QB or Offensive Lineman, or maybe smacked another coach or owner around. But, well, I didn't... and now we know just how touchy you are about your history. Enjoy your delusions.