re: Andy Daltons Career Numbers v. Troy Aikman

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You can just go look at passing stats league-wide for the years they played and see that Aikman was far more often in the top 5 of league QB stats than Dalton was in their primes. Dalton had just 1 year (2015) where he was ever top 5 in anything (rating, TD%, and Y/A). And Aikman has hardware to go with it while Dalton is winless in the postseason

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This is an overstatement. No one considered Dalton a top 10 guy of his era much less a top 5 guy and absolutely not a HOFer.

From his own era, the following guys are undisputedly better than Aikman:

Young
Favre
Elway
Marino
Kelly
Moon

Aikman was closer to guys like Cunningham (who played 25-30 years too early), Gannon, and Esiasion than he was the elite guys of his era. He was never voted first or second team All-Pro and he only received MVP votes in one season: 1993 when he got 3 total votes and finished behind two other better QBs (Young and Elway), the GOAT receiver, and his own RB.

This statement is about to piss a lot of people off, but it’s true:

Aikman was the Dak of his era, he just had a better supporting cast and a less passing dependent time.

1,000% agree. Put Troy on the giants of 90’s and they would not have been much better than they were. There are a lot of QBs during that time that could have been just as good as Troy on those Cowboy teams.

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Kinda crazy to think Aikman only played 12 seasons.

Different era. He played during a time when the mantra was knock the QB out.

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Brett Favre played 20 years in the exact same era.

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Those number are completely meaningless. Modern NFL is barely the same game that Aikman played.

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This is hyperbole and revisionist history.

What changed is technology and pace. It became easier for coaches to communicate with players and call plays and that enabled offenses to call more plays in general. Passing schemes became more complex and diverse as a result.

Defensive backs actually have to have coverage skills these days and can’t just play grab arse all game an receivers can’t push off all damn game either (oh yeah that went both ways back in the 80s and 90s).

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He was the ultimate game manager. It just so happens he was a great game manager

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Game manager is the most overused and nauseated term when talking about QBs in history. Outside of a few guys like Favre or Winston, most great QBs were “game managers.” Cover 2s and more zone coverages is what causes that. The air raid QBs don’t have as much success nowadays.