[Seven]

Growing up, as the youngest, my a good margin in a large family, I was often regaled with tales of the great QB's of the past. Stories of Tarkenton, Staubach, Bradshaw, Unitas, Marino, Montana, etc. Shown grainy film and VHS tapes of games recorded some time ago, and also shown statistics.

Now I think pure numbers are emphasized a little less in Football, but I remember marveling over the passing numbers of all of these players, especially seeing Montana's career passer rating, as I couldn't believe how high it was.

Nowadays I feel like the NFL might as well be playing two hand touch football with these offensive statistics. We've blown past any sort of rationality, especially within the passing game. I think worst of all is that people are looking at the game strictly in the context of numbers. Uninformed fans claiming that "X player is better than Unitas because look at the passing numbers, Unitas threw over 250 Interceptions." it's quite frankly ridiculous.

I hear all this talk about the modern receivers and breaking records and it just blows my mind. We went from a game that only the bravest would attempt to cross the middle of the field, to now if you even touch a guy too hard it's a penalty. There has to be some sort of happy medium.

At least rushing records are safe. We can still happily talk about the likes of Jim Brown, and Walter Payton.