A word to the children at Fox Sports who will be contributing graphics and information about the Green Bay Packers to their divisional round playoff game Saturday night against the San Francisco 49ers — two words, actually — Bart Starr.
Last week during the Packers’ upset of the Dallas Cowboys in their wild-card playoff contest, Fox made a point of detailing the great succession of quarterbacks for the Packers since 1992 — Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and now Jordan Love.
Favre is a Hall of Famer with one Super Bowl win on his resume. Rodgers also has one Super Bowl victory and will be a Hall of Famer and Love had a hall-of-fame performance in the team’s 48-24 win over Dallas. It’s a remarkable run of great quarterback play, considering the Washington Commanders have spent that entire time looking for one great quarterback.
But it would seem worth noting that none of them are the greatest quarterback in Green Bay franchise history. All those great quarterbacks and none of them are the best that has ever worn a Packers uniform.
That would be No. 15, Hall of Famer Bart Starr, kiddies. Yes, this is going to be a get-off-my-lawn column, except I would appreciate it if you would mow the lawn before you leave. I know you could use the money so maybe your parents don’t have to keep paying your cellphone bills.
Starr won five NFL championships at quarterback for Green Bay. Three of them came in 1961, ’62 and ’65. Of course, there is the line of demarcation that children have drawn called the Super Bowl era — as if nothing that happened before the first NFL and AFL championship game in 1967 counts.
Well, Starr led the Packers to a win in that first one, and the second Super Bowl in 1968 as well. Oh, and he was named most valuable player in both of those games.
Here’s another game all the kids like to play — who gets the credit, the coach or the quarterback? They’ve used it to try to denigrate Bill Belichick’s accomplishments, since he struggled as the New England Patriots coach without Tom Brady. But nearly all great coaches — unless your name is Joe Gibbs — have had a great quarterback deliver their championships. Bill Walsh didn’t win one without Joe Montana. Chuck Noll had a losing record without Terry Bradshaw..
Vince Lombardi — whom the Super Bowl trophy is named after — didn’t win an NFL championship without Starr as his quarterback.
They could have named the Super Bowl MVP trophy after Starr, since he won it in both games he played (he won the NFL MVP award in 1966 and was a four-time All-Pro). Instead, they named an award after Starr for the NFL player who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership on the field and off.
You can’t write about, speak of or put on display the history of great Green Bay quarterbacks without talking about Starr.
The children will look at his career numbers — 152 touchdowns, 138 interceptions, 24,718 yards passing — and wonder how could anyone compare him to Favre (508 touchdowns, 336 interceptions, 71,838 yards) or Rodgers (475 touchdowns, 105 interceptions, 59,055 yards)? But that speaks to the dwindling ability to apply historical context — a problem for the generation of media that now presents what happened yesterday as the greatest thing ever seen.
Starr didn’t play in an era where the rules are drawn up to inflate offensive numbers. He didn’t play in an era where quarterbacks were protected from glancing blows. Twice a season, Starr had to face the likes of Dick Butkus, Carl Eller, Alex Karras, Deacon Jones and other Hall of Fame defensive monsters in his division. Yet when he retired in 1972, Starr had the best career completion percentage (57.4%) in league history.
And, in language that even children may be able to understand: When the games counted the most, Starr delivered for his coach and his teammates. He has the second-highest postseason passer rating (104.8) in NFL history, behind Patrick Mahomes. His playoff record against the best teams in the league — not wild card teams with .500 records — was 9-1.
This was from Starr’s 2019 New York Times obituary:
“‘The dirty little secret of those days,’ said Steve Wright, an offensive tackle for the Packers, as quoted in ‘America’s Quarterback: Bart Starr and the Rise of the National Football League’ by Keith Dunnavant, ‘was that during the week it was Lombardi’s team, but on Sunday it was really Starr’s team.’”
That should be worth a mention in 2024.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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