With QBs that have retired in the last 5 years, there are some interesting HOF debates that I see coming up. Right now the sure-fire HOF guys are Brady, Brees, and Rodgers when he retires. The next tier, however, is a lot more interesting. You have Matt Ryan, Big Ben, and Rivers who are all very close. What’s interesting is that according to Pro Football Reference’s HOF Monitor, they all have fairly similar scores even though they have different resumes. Ryan has the MVP/All-Pro 1 season which is pretty much required unless you have 2 Super Bowls. Ben doesn’t have a crazy MVP season, but he does have those 2 Super Bowls and 17 good years. Then Rivers has some crazy counting stats. I think that Ryan and Roethlisberger have a slight edge over Rivers but it is very hard to separate the 3. So my question is do we think any of them make it? If they do it opens up the debate for a lot of players in the future. Also, how do we think the HOF committee weighs Rings/MVPS/All-Pro teams? The media is always so focused on the rings but looking at the resumes of HOF QBs there are a lot more without rings than there are without All-Pro seasons.
Edit: Here is the PFR Monitor. The average HOF QB has a score of 108. Ryan has a score of 106, Ben has a score of 100, and Rivers is at 98.
Ben’s almost certainly gonna make it in
Honestly if the QBs from right now don’t step it up it’ll be harder to argue Rivers and Ryan don’t deserve to be in. When the longest tenured QB in the league has only been with his teams for 8 years and the few older QBs that have stuck around are starting to break down in their mid-30s someone like Rivers being consistently very good or great until he was nearly 40 is going to look more impressive.
Like imagine if in 2033 Joe Burrow was still the Bengals QB and was still Pro Bowler.
What I think is going to give a huge boost to young QBs HOF resumes is Brady retiring; guy was a straight up outlier, and now that he’s out of making SB appearances that opens up a huge window for the guys like Hurts, Burrow, Allen that don’t have one. If those guys go about their same pace and get a ring hard to argue them out of the Hall. Brady left just a massive chasm for winners if these young guys can capitalize it will bring in this era of QBs. Unless Mahomes does the same which I have a hard time seeing happen because it is just absurd what Brady did
Burrow right now is better than Rivers was at any point in his career. He’s universally agreed to be the second best in the league, behind only the (maybe) best player in the history of the sport