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The modern NFL is dominated by passing endeavors, a league where having a sustainable, high-profile franchise quarterback is a necessity to remain relevant.
There is nothing more that needs to be said about the all-time champions of the game — Brady, Montana, your choice of Manning — but there are some legendary throwers who deserve a better legacy than the one written by amateur and expert observers alike. We take a look...
Ken Anderson
On nearly every list concerning the records of NFL quarterbacks who aren't in the Hall of Fame, Anderson is at or near the top. Anderson spent 16 years (1971-86) as the Cincinnati Bengals' franchise man, leading the team to one of the most lucrative stretches in franchise history, one that included their first Super Bowl appearance at the end of the 1981-82 season, a campaign that also saw him earn the NFL's MVP honor.
Under future 49ers head coach Bill Walsh, Anderson became one of the first practitioners of the West Coast offense. In an era where passing records fall like dominoes, one of Anderson's best marks (his completion rate of 70.6 percent in 1982) stood for 29 years before it was broken by Drew Brees.
Though Canton has yet to call, Anderson earned a Super Bowl ring as a quarterbacks coach with his former divisional rivals from Pittsburgh.
Drew Bledsoe
Bledsoe, unfortunately, is better known as a footnote in NFL history, his 2001 injury forever altering the timeline of the sport after it gave way to the rise of Tom Brady. It's a bit of a shame, as Bledsoe began to give the then-downtrodden New England Patriots franchise a true taste of glory, guiding them to Super Bowl 31, an eventual loss to the Green Bay Packers.
Overwork might've contributed to Bledsoe's eventual downfall. He topped 600 pass attempts (at a time when that was a rarity) three times over his first four seasons and did so on one final occasion in 2002 with the Buffalo Bills.
Nonetheless, a rather incomplete career had some strong moments of glory, not least of which was relieving an injured Brady during the first AFC title game of the new century Patriots dynasty in January 2002.
Chad Pennington
Sinatra once sang that if one could "make it" in New York, they'd make it anywhere. Few knew that feeling better than Pennington, who achieved the NFL's relative impossible: creating a lasting mark as a New York Jets franchise quarterback.
Injuries unfortunately ate away at a good portion of Pennington's career, but he maintained a relatively consistent prescience in green.
Between 2001 and 2019, Pennington was the only non-Tom Brady outlier as the quarterback of AFC East championship teams, doing so with the Jets in 2002 and the Miami Dolphins in 2008. Pennington's rise from said injuries allowed him to become the only player in NFL history to win the Comeback Player of the Year Award twice.
To date, Pennington is the last man to quarterback a Jets playoff home game, doing so when they demolished the Indianapolis Colts in the 2002-03 Wild Card round.
One of his most famous moments, however, came in the colors of the Jets' rivals. The latter division title was earned when Pennington, scorned by the Jets in favor of Brett Favre, returned to East Rutherford as a Dolphins and stole the divisional crown with a Week 17 triumph.
At the time of his retirement after the 2010 season, Pennington held the NFL record for best completion rate, which has since been topped by the aforementioned Brees.
Tony Romo
The common trope was that Romo failed to show up in the fourth quarter, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Often done in by deadly Dallas Cowboys defenses that forced him to win shootouts, Romo is the current holder of the NFL's all-time best passer rating in the fourth quarter, and he led the team to 24 fourth-quarter comebacks during his decade-long tenure as the Cowboys' franchise man. Had Romo played anywhere but in Dallas — a place where accomplishments vault to the the top of the NFL's headlines but where shortcomings are equally, if not more, amplified — his rise from undrafted, Division I-AA-based free agent to NFL superstar would have gone down as one of the most inspirational stories in league history.
If anything, it's good to see that Romo's current endeavors as a color analyst for CBS Sports' most valuable NFL contests (brought upon by late injuries in Dallas) have won him a new legion of fans through his energetic commentary and uncanny ability to predict plays as they unfold.
Alex Smith
At the end of the day, Alex Smith's ultimate sin might've been that he was too "boring". Sure, his rep takes a bit of a hit when one realizes that the San Francisco 49ers chose Smith ahead of one Aaron Rodgers at the 2005 NFL Draft. But Smith, cursed with endless turnovers on the 49ers' coaching staff during his early years, recovered to push the team in the right direction, eventually situating them one knee away from the Super Bowl in 2012.
Despite Smith setting San Francisco on a path toward postseason success, an injury led to him losing the starting role to the multi-talented Colin Kaepernick the following season.
Smith moved on to Kansas City, where he helped break the Chiefs' two-plus decade playoff win drought in 2015. Two years later, he was the NFL's top-rated passer. Alas! A similar fate awaited his Kansas City career, as he was usurped in the franchise role by first-round choice Patrick Mahomes in 2018 (though Smith was said to have played an instrumental role in the latter's NFL development).
Smith spent the final years of his career with Washington, where his luck took a nearly deadly turn in a November 2018 meeting with Houston. After suffering a devastating leg injury during the game, Smith's life was threatened by an infection during surgery that seemed to annihilate the already-remote possibility of continuing his NFL career.
Instead, Smith fought his way back onto the field and spent the majority of the 2020 season as Washington's quarterback en route to their NFC East title run. For his efforts, Smith, who retired after the season, was awarded the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year honor.
