I have issues with Big Ben's first SB "victory". This guy says it better than me, so rather than pull a Sicarius, I'll provide the link, and deflect the credit...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=bayless/060205

Oh, and those Big Ben Steeler squads DIDN'T have great defenses?

Big Ben is Trent Dilfer. Period.

Double checkmate.

This is more or less my point exactly. The Redskins went to 4 Super Bowls and won 3 during the same period and you don't even mention them. The popular memory is of the 49ers as the GREAT Offense, when in point of fact they were dominated statistically by the Redskins during the 80s. The Redskins were the Offense of the 80s not the 49ers. Plus the Redskins had a much better playoff winning percentage. Would any reasonable person use that to argue for the greatness of Joe Theisman? Or even his superiority over Joe Montana? If Joe Montana had some how won the 84 NFC Championship game he would have gotten killed by the Marcus Allen Raiders in their last hurrah Super Bowl and people's memories would be different. The Steelers beat the Oakland Raiders and the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys consistently to win their Championships. The 49ers did not beat the Giants or the Redskins to win their Championships. When the 49ers faced the Giants' pass rush, they got destroyed on the road and narrowly beaten at home. If Joe Montana had face LT and gang twice a year, he would have had a shorter career and would have had a lower winning percentage putting them on the road in the playoffs. Not to mention two meeting a year with Reggie White and even the Redskins or Cowboys Defense.

Also the Steel Curtain did not win a Super Bowl. The Steel Curtain Defense is actually the Defense of the inter-Super Bowl years and was neutralized by the rule changes that allowed Bradshaw and Swann to win the last two. Bradshaw and I think Franco Harris got hurt after the second Super Bowl and that was when the phrase Steel Curtain was coined for the complete shutdown D that they implemented to try to win with absolutely no Offense. The modern era Offensive rules of the NFL were created to handicap that D, but that D is not the D from the Steelers Championship years, but the Raiders and Broncos years.

Inter-generational comparisons are nearly impossible. Hamm and Lambert are smallish modern Safeties. My father had the proportions of a late 80s to early 90s OT and was sidelined as a college player at an elite program because he grew after arriving, and at 6'6", he outweighed the starting O-Line by over 60 pounds and was considered too immobile to pull to the opposite side as Guards and Tackles were expected to in the Yeoman-Ballard era of college football. 15-20 years later he would have been on the fast track to the NFL.

Ben won the second Super Bowl though. The Steelers D and running game have declined dramatically in the last 4 years.

im a bronscos fan and i was suprised to see tebow go to denver as well. i was happy about our WR pick though and i think tebow will become a great part of our offense.

i also disagree with placing elway at #3. the only thing that made elway even that low on many peoples list is the lost of the first 3 super bowls but the difference between him and montana is that montana was surrounded by HoF talent where elway wasnt. he took a bunch of guys to the super bowl and truely was the leader on that team. hes also definitely better than favre. i think if elway had HoF talent surrounding him like the 9ers did then he would have won the first 3 super bowls as well.

"They (49ers) never won on the road in the 80s "

Most Consecutive Road Games Won Ever - 18 | San Francisco 49ers 1988-1990
:D not quite.

oops, didn't see that point had already been debunked. :)

"However, I put Tarkenton over Manning. Manning still has to complete his career.Then we may be able to put him on top."

I have Manning as top 5 in my list, already. He calls all of his own plays, and is basically an Offensive Coordinator on the field. Losing a SB hurts him a bit though. He is the next Brett Favre 'Iron Man' type player, except with a lot better decision making abilities. He is one of the few players (and probably the only active one) that I would consider a football genius.

Comparing stats from different eras is tricky because of the rule changes, but if you look instead of how dominant they are that is a good indicator. Peyton Manning is head and shoulders above any other active QB. Last year Brees played comparably and Brady a few years before, but no one is able to go stride for stride with him year in and year out.

Hahaha Acomist... that made me laugh, I like that one. ;) (But I still think he was good overall.)

You place WAY too much emphasis on STATS, gopher27, I can't say it anybetter than Herm Edwards here...

YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!

And, more specifically, the BIG games.

The 49ers and 'skins of that era:

1980: Neither.

1981: 49ers with a young Montana, Clark, and no one else, really, win SB XVI, thank's to Montana and Walsh's genius and that great goal-line stand... "The Catch" is STILL regarded as one of the most spectacular, important plays in NFL history, not just the play, but who it came AGAINST, that it beat Landry's Cowboys, who'd following the next year fall while the Niner Empire would rise

1982: Redskins win in a STRIKE-SHORTENED season; its futile to wonder what might have been, but I don't think SF would have folded or missed the playoffs if their regulars had been able to paly more than half the year; all that said, granted, good win over the Killer B's Defense and John Riggin's on 4 and 1 still is vivid for football fans

1983: I call this one a tie because the Redskins beat the Niners, but did so in part because of a controversial penalty that hurt the Niners in the final minutes; take away that penalty and the field position that ensued from it and the 49ers hold on to win and we have a Bay Area Super Bowl... and as the Redskins, such a great offensive team, got KILLED by the Raiders... what might have been if not for that call...

1984: 49ers win with one of their best teams and beat a young Marino and the Killer B's

1985: That's just the BEARS YEAR, both the 'skins and Niners did great but nothing was stopping that team.

1986: SF had a first-round by but got killed by the Giants, but seeing as the Giants also killed the Redskins, seems to me they fell to the same enemy.

1987: Yep, the Redskins had this one; we saw our first glimpses of Steve Young, but this is the Redskins year.

1988: The Niners have a rocky start but rebound and win the West, beat the Vikings team that defeated them a yar ago, beat the Bears at Soldier Field in -26 degree weather (seems to ME they could play and win on the road and in the cold...) and then the classic SB XXIII where Montana leads the famous drive to win the game in the closing seconds... and... the Redskins didn't even MAKE the playoffs

1989: The 49ers, with one of the greatest teams EVER in NFL history. When the NFL did their "America's Game" series looking at the 42 Super Bowl winners, each for an hour and interviewing the palyers and coaches of the teams and dynasties (and everyone should check this series out, great to see the old footage from all the way back to the 1966 Packers to the 2007 Giants, and the interviews... if you love the NFL you MUST see it, go to hulu and they have all the episodes their for free to watch) ranked the Top 20 Super Bowl winners ever, the 1989 49ers came in at #4. Ahead of them: 1972 Dolphins, 1985 Bears, 1978 Steelers, so #4 behind THAT is pretty darn good. Montana. Young. Craig. Rathman. Rice. Taylor. Brent Jones. Ronnie Lott. Eric Wright. Charles Hayley. On and on... and they beat the Vikings 41-13, the Rams 30-3, and John Elway's Broncos 55-10 in the SB, STILL the biggest blowout ever. An d the Redskins... didn't even make the playoffs.

1990: The 49ers have a great season, roar out, BEAT THE REDSKINS IN THE PLAYOFFS... and fall short of their third consecutive SB (and a likely 3-peat, they WOULD have beaten those Bills) due to Montana getting knocked out of the game and a last-second FG, they lose to the Giants 15-13.

1991: The 49ers, without Montana for the year, step back a bit as Steve Young finds his ground as the new Niners starter, and the Redskins win the SB... beating the fearsome Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions on the way (and then getting the Bills... right there that's almost a gimme SB, playing the BILLS.) ;)

1992: The end of the 1980s Era as after this year Montana leaves and the "Team of the 1990s," the Cowboys (or so they styled themselves... eh, they deserved it) take over. To cap the era: Steve Young's 49ers BEAT the last Joe Gibbs Redskins Team (of his first tenure) in the playoffs, and go on to the 1992 NFC Championship Game, one of the Greatest Games Ever, and... well, just as the 49ers beat the Cowboys to rise to their SB glory, Aikman outduels Young to lead the Team of the 90s to their first SB.

After all this: The 49ers win a 5th SB in 1994 under Young against the Chargers in SB XXIX, Young breaking Montana's single-game TD record in a SB by throwing for 6, and stay great until 1999, when Young suffers a concussion, and the Niner Empire falls; it briefly comes back in the early 2000s, and Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens lead the 49ers back from 24 down to win 39-38 against the Giants, second only to the Bills' 32 point playoff comeback as the biggest postseason comeback. Currently the team is 8-8, and on the fringe of retaking the division. And the Redkins... signed Donovan McNabb and have done nothing too great since 1991.


To leave out that last bit, the final tally:

SB appearances in the 1980-1991 era:
SF: 4, winning all 4
WSH: 4, winning 3

Against each other in the playoffs:
SF: 1-1
WSH: 1-1
Both beat each other once, the Redksins doing it en route to being routed by the Raiders in SB XVIII, the 49ers doing it en route to a last-second loss in the NFC Championship Game (and given the Bills were the opponent waiting, that basically WAS the SB, and it took knocking out Montana AND a last-second miracle of a kick for the Giants to beat the Niners.)

It seems to me, then, against each other they both played well, both won once...

But the most important number, 4 rings to 3, points to SF.

The Team of the 80s.

Not to bash the Redskins, they were great in that era, too- just not the "Team of the Decade." Another thing that's odd about the Redskins- it seems that in large part their 3 wins came with 3 different TEAMS... Theismann winning one, Doug Williams winning one, and Mark Rypien winning one, John Riggins to Timmy Smith to... someone... the most consistent part of the team to me looks like The Hogs and The Smurfs (plus the ageless Darrell Green) but STILL... a lot of changes.

The 49ers had basically the same team win SBs XXIII and XXIV, the XIX team was not too dissimilar from those teams, its missing Jerry and a few other key components, and has Dwight Clark and Dwight Hicks which the later teams didn't have, but its similar... really the only "hugely different" winner for SF in that era is the first winner, the XVI team, and that was the first team and the start of it all, so its natural that players will be added and the team get better...

The Redskins were always changing, but nevertheless one of the best teams of the 80s.

The 49ers were, in essence, the same, went 4-for-4, and are the Team of the 80s.



@Tru Ninja:

Elway, Favre... yeah, I can see that, either way, #2/#3, they can go either way, if you want Elway at #2 I have no problem with that, he WOULD have won many more SBs if he'd had the teams the NFC big boys like the Giants and Redskins and Rams and Vikings and 49ers of that era had...

Still, as he played Montana in SB XXIV and lost THAT BIG, and Montana was... Montana, and could do it even without the 49ers (he BEAT THEM when he played young and his old team in the 1994 season when he was with the Chiefs, and the year before had the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game and fighting before he was knocked out of the game) so Montana IS #1 for me, and I think for most people.

Granted if you were playing backyard football and you took Montana and I had to "settle" by picking Elway, that wouldn't be a pick to cry about... ;)

(But you'd better let me have that little kid named Jerry R. in the corner... only fair!)

:p

@ Obi- The Niners also had the more memorable players.
Montana - Best QB ever
Rice- Best WR ever, by far. Maybe the best player, not just WR.
Lott- One of the best safeties ever. CUT OFF his finger to keep playing in a game.
Walsh - created the west coast offense, which is still used today.

Redskins had Darrel Greene, who was an amazing player too, but they didn't have as much star power as the Niners had.


Montana is the best ever in my opinion, but he is also a system QB. He was built for the west coast offense, and I think if you put him in a different system, he wouldn't have done as well.

OK since people do not seem to read, I'll actually resort to the Internet and make my point explicitly. 49er in the 80s vs. the NFC East in the playoffs:
Did they win at Candlestick Park? Usually. Almost always.
Did they win away from Candlestick? Never.
At Candlestick:
'82 vs. Giants 28-24
'82 vs. Cowboys 28-27
'85 vs. Giants 21-10
'91 vs. Redskins 28-10
'91 vs. Giants 13-15

On the Road:
'84 at Redskins 21-24
'86 at Giants 3-17
'87 at Giants 3-49

My point was clearly an explicit point about the NFC East.

And just to give some love to the 49ers.....one of my greatest regrets as a football fan is that the San Diego Chargers won the '95 AFC Championship Game because I really wanted to watch Siefert and Young against the early zone blitz Defense of the Steelers. I happen to think the Steeler might have beaten them based on the fact that Dom Capers later demonstrated that his defensive approach would work against the 49ers Offense.

I never questioned the 49ers "greatness"; I merely said I thought they were overrated. I happen to think that the Redskins are underrated. That does not imply that the 49ers were crap or that people think the Redskins were crap. I simply judge that popular estimation of the 49ers is too high and of the Redskins too low.

It is a personal pet peeve of mine that people state that the 49ers were the Offense of the 80s, which they were not by any statistical measure. The Redskins led the league in most Offensive categories most years in the 80s, while playing in the best Defensive division.

And no, I am not now nor have I even been a Redskins fan. I'm an AFC guy.

I lied. My personal pet peeve in football is the 10,000 obnoxious Steelers fans who think that the Immaculate Reception won them a Super Bowl. It was two years earlier and Miami came into Three Rivers a week later and crushed them in route to their second of three consecutive Super Bowls.

Your argument has a big flaw:

The 49ers of the 1980s lost those times on the road on the playoffs, and won usually at Candlestick because...

They usually had HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE.

They played so well they got those first round byes and so got to play at Candlestick.

And then, when they DID play away from home, 1988-1990, the last two SBs...

18 straight.

So on the one hand they didn't have to play on the road because they were so great to earn the right to stay home at The Stick, and on the other hand... 18 straight wins.

The Redskins ARE likely underrated. I honestly didn't know that they were that good in the 80's. :)

But the 49ers were the first team to win 5 SB's and they did it really, really quickly when compared to the Steelers and Cowgirls.

So read the end of THAT stement and try and make your point, because it seems to me that that's a pretty logical reason for their not beating the NFC East on the road often, that being:

THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO... HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE.

And when they did play them during the regular season to GET that home field advantage... they won. 18 straight.

Which goes back to my point that the 49ers were not playing in the NFC East. If they had been, they would not have had home field advantage. I don't mean it just as a point against the 49ers. The Bears weren't in the NFC East either. My point was that the 49ers' competition was the entire NFC East. The Chicago Bears in the '86 playoffs are the only non-49ers, non-NFC East team to win the NFC from 1981-1996. 49ers 5, NFC East 10. Two Raiders teams that I am not sure the 49ers would have had much success against beat the Eagles and the Redskins giving the NFC East an 8-2 record in SBs. As I stated before, I'm not sure the 49ers could have beaten the Steelers team that the Cowboys beat at the end. The Steelers Defense of the 90s was almost explicitly designed to contain a 49ers style Offense, as demonstrated by the Carolina Panthers.

But imagine a different scenario. Imagine that we had a playoff in College Football with home field advantage decided by record. Imagine Ohio State playing some SEC team every year. In all likelihood those SEC teams would have to go to Columbus every year and I'm betting they would not do nearly as well as they do in Miami and New Orleans and Phoenix. I'm saying that the NFC East in the 80s was the SEC. Who ever won was more likely than not the best team in the country, but the number of great teams meant that a different team won every year and came out with a worse record than other very good teams that did not play that competition. If LSU and Florida had played the Buckeyes in Columbus, which affords a home field advantage against Southern teams, people would overestimate how good OSU is.

Random question: the 49er ended the Redskins win streak at Candlestick in Gibbs' last Super Bowl year, right?

And just for the record, NFL regular seasons mean about as much as NCAA Basketball regular seasons. I couldn't care less. I think there are at least two NCAA finals where one team had beaten the other 3 times during the regular season and lost the final. That wasn't the point and is immaterial to the discussion. Besides winning streaks speak more to the weakness of the NFC West than anything. No one in the NFC East was going to post winning streak records of any kind.

As for home field advantage being a signal of ability, in several of those game there was only a one position difference in seeding......1 vs. 2 or 4 vs. 5.....so the differences in records were not that big. Certainly not 49-3 big.

But I do notice that no one has challenged my central point that Candlestick was a fucked up Stadium that tended to negate a vertical passing game and favored a dink and dunk passing game. Walsh's great brainstorm was that he could successfully run such an offense there to his advantage. The 49ers less successful coaches had always tried to run very rushing heavy Offenses and lost. My impression has always been that no one had successfully run that kind of Offense since Dutch Meyer in the 30s and 40s.

If you honestly see no merit in what I've said that the 49ers vs. the NFC East, in general, is a more interesting measurement and that the 49ers had a significant home field advantage against them, plus the annual record advantage of being in the NFC West, then I do not know what more I can say. I do not think what I have said is nearly as extreme as I infer your responses to imply. I have never said the 49ers were crap. I merely think that people in general credit them with being better than they actually were. The Steelers made the playoffs every year and played other great teams in the Dolphins, the Raiders and the Cowboys and won, without as big of a home field advantage or the divisional advantage. If the Kurt Warner Rams had maintained their excellence for many year, I would make the same point. Weak division and an Offense uniquely advantaged to their home field. They still made it to two Super Bowls and nearly won the second one. However, I would hesitate to rank them above the early 80s Raiders even if they had won both. Or even the more recent Steelers.

I would like to pose one plausible thesis though. I think it is reasonable to view "the Steelers team" as three separate teams: a balanced team that lost to Miami and Oakland before winning twice; possibly the greatest Defensive team of all-time that lost to Denver and then Oakland; an explosive Offensive team that won twice.

As for how long the Cowboys took to win x number of Super Bowls, I've never know what to think of Tom Landy. I think he made the playoffs 20 times in like 30 years. Made 10 NFC Championship games and went 5-5. So 5 Super Bowls and won only 2. So should one view him as a guys who lost a lot of big games or a guy who consistently got to the big games? Was he a great coach who always got his teams to a competitive position or a guy who had great teams that he could never win with? Does he get a pass for losing all of those close games to Lombardi and Noll?

In case you don't remember, Landry's two Super Bowls were won against Shula's first Miami team and the Orange Crush Denver Broncos, while he lost twice to the Steelers and once to the Colts, I think.

I STILL don't understand, all the same, why you think the NFC East was this mystical place that produced teams so great that if the Niners played their they'd have lost over and over.

The Cowboys of that era- nope.
The Cardinals- nope.

The Eagles- A decent team, but the Niners beat them plenty...

That leaves the Redkins and Giants.

The Redkins, when the Niners DID play them, were about .500, in the regular season and in the playoffs.

So the only team that the Niners in that division really had trouble getting over the hump with time and again was the Giants.

And one team a dynasty-killing-division for the 80s Niners doesn't make.

The fact is if the Niners played in the NFC East...

The Niners would have thrashed the Cardinals, the Cowboys over and over, the Eagles they beat when they played as it is so I think they'd have still beat them up, and the Redkins would have been a 50-50 shot.

So Giants/Niners would have been the game of the year the way Patriots/Colts is now.

The Patriots, as much as I hate them, still became a dynasty; maybe the Giants hurt the Niners postseason performance, or maybe more exposure leads to the Niners figuring them out and beating them more, as often happens within a division.

So long story short, the Niners might have had a harder time, but I see nothing from that which would have stopped them from becoming the Team of the 80s.


As for Landry, he made so many postseasons and was so consistent, so great in the postseason, I place him with Walsh and Lombardi and one other coach in an NFL Coach Rushmore. The fact he lost to the Steelers twice in the SB doesn't hurt him, they were such tight games and lost to such a great team it doesn't reflect badly on the losers of those games, just adds to the mystique of the winners, same with the 1981 NFC Championship Game- he lsot to another great coach in Walsh and a to-be great QB in Montana, so he doesn't get poits taken away.

I say Walsh, Shula, Landry, and Lombardi as the best (though I'm sure you're ready to disagree...)

Paul Brown? Chuck Noll? Madden (best winning percentage of all time)? Not so much a disagreement as a question. I'm not sure I'd put Landry up there. Some of his former players have said that Landry choked. That he was great at preparation but that he froze and had something approaching anxiety attacks in the close pressure situations at the end of games. He just never seemed to win those big games against other great coaches and teams. I'll also say that Lombardi's time with the Redskins is sometime forgotten. One he played a completely different style than people remember him for and two he was not that successful. I will also ask what role innovation plays in your metric. Landry invented the 4-3 Defense and most of what was played in the NFL for 30 years. He then created all sorts of Offenses to counter the 4-3. But Sid Gillman and a couple of others are kind of the architects of modern football. Coryell had Joe Gibbs and John Madden as his coordinators at San Diego State. Did Shula really change the game? Or is it just the Bum Phillips assessment? "He could take his'n and beat your'n or he could take your'n and beat his'n."

Again I think you've missed my point. The NFC East was very good.....comparable to the SEC in college. I was just saying that it was very tough to win the NFC East. They collectively won 10 NFC titles, but no team could claim the NFC East title every year as the 49ers pretty much did claim the West. I never said the 49ers would lose over and over again to them. But when what you rank as the #2 team in the division had a .500 record against the "Team of the Decade" you are admitting that there might just be something to what I'm saying. I just said that all of the NFC East teams played similar Offenses which were uniquely disadvantaged at Candlestick. The 49ers had a playoff advantage at home similar to the Buffalo Bills or the Bud Grant era Vikings. In that regard, perhaps Don Shula would have had a better playoff record if he had not been in Miami.

But I will say that had the 49er been in the NFC East Joe Montana would not have lasted as long. He would have been hit a lot harder and more often. Notice how disposable the Redskins QBs were. I'll also note that Ron Jawarski is a Super Bowl QB and LT ended his career too.

I still think you are interpreting what I'm saying to be far more extreme than it is. What I am saying is the equivalent of talking about OSU vs. the SEC. The Buckeyes have had very good teams the last few years and have posted better regular season records than the various winners of the SEC. Playing on "neutral" sights in warm weather cities they have not done well. Had those games been played in Columbus as they would under an NFL system, I think the Buckeyes would have done better than they have done. I think that if the '82 game had been played in Texas Stadium, that neutralizing a very real home field advantage could have been worth more than a 1 point difference.

But while we're on the subject of football in the 80s, WTF was up with the adulation over minority coaches winning Super Bowls over the last few years. Art Flores, hello, first two Super Bowl wins by a minority coach.....30 years ago. Where's the PC monument with his name on it?

Why don't we move on to a different fight? I propose that Sam Bradford has been overdrafted and is not a #1 pick caliber QB. I point out that he was sacked only 25 times in college playing behind the best line in college football and 2 of those 25 hits knocked him out of games. He also had better skill position players than is generally realized, because they were collectively better than they are as individuals.....greater than the sum of their parts. I contend as a lifelong college football fan that the 2008 OU team had the most versatile skill player that I have ever seen. I'm not saying the best....precisely the opposite. Their WRs could block; TEs could run; RBs could catch. They were above average at everything without being truly great at anything. But it's easier to neutralize a player who is fantastic at one particular thing than one who is above average at three things. I think that people look at that team and see no great pass catching WR or rushing RB they massively underestimate the team's Offensive weapons.

I've long viewed Tony Dungy as a Landry like figure.

"Why don't we move on to a different fight? I propose that Sam Bradford has been overdrafted and is not a #1 pick caliber QB."

Agreed. :) They should have drafted the best player available rather then trying to fill the need at QB. We've seen what happens to teams that pick a QB first overall without building up a better O-line. (Alex Smith/David Carr)

If we are getting back to the draft, what do you think of Taylor Mays in the second? I don't watch much college football, but I've heard he is a liability in coverage. But at the same time, if he would have declared last year he was projected to go early in the first round.I'm hoping he can develop into a good starter, but I didn't want him at this pick.

Oh, and the Raiders surprised me by having a really good draft this year. Is Al Davis less senile then before, od did they get someone else to make the picks? :P

I'll admit my loyalties......I was a Houston Oilers fan as a child before they ceased to exist. As much as I fuckin' hate Bud Adams, he did it right. Steve McNair never saw the field until his third season. Rookie QBs thrown to the wolves do not develop as well. Holmgren has stated that Colt McCoy will not see playing time this year and that rookie QBs are traumatized by facing NFL pass rushes too soon.

You'd think the Rams would have some institutional memory. Their last run of good performance began with them drafting Orlando Pace.

Hey I'll trade you Tim Tebow for Sergio Kindle and two decent TEs.

Are Ngato and Terrance Cody the new Sam Adams and Tony Seragusa? I'm kind of excited to see the Ravens next year.

Ravens already had a great defense, so it seems unfair that they picked some of the players they did. :D
Both Sergio Kindle and Cody have a chance of doing really well, especially considering that they will be surrounded by an already great team. :)

@mapleleaf:
"I have issues with Big Ben's first SB "victory"... Big Ben is Trent Dilfer. Period."

You are right. The Superbowl XL was on of Big Ben's worst game. Look at the game before that one. AFC championship game vs the Bronco's. Big Ben torched Champ Bailey the whole game. Look at the last SuperBowl. The Steelers were down, the defense wasn't on the field, the first play was a hold (1st and 20), and Ben led the team down the field and won the game.
Trent Dilfer couldn't do that. Big Ben can. Dilfer isn't even in the same league as Ben.

Again.......

Terry Bradshaw CALLED HIS OWN PLAYS.

I await the inane comments. Tell me that it makes no difference.