re: I just learned that Archie Manning played for two other teams besides the Saints

Archie Manning is quite possibly the most overrated player of all time. They like to blame all his faults on the team around him, but reality is that he just wasn’t that good of an NFL QB.

My last memory of Archie, if I’m not misremembering, is him running for his life with the Vikings and throwing a desperation, underhanded pass about 15 yards for a completion (I believe).

As a player, I should’ve said.

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As was his time with the Saints.

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Archie’s career is a study in martyr syndrome, and Archie has been content to sit back and let others perpetuate that. True, he had no offensive live and not much talent around him. But to act like he would have been a Hall of Famer with a better team around his is disingenuous. As a Saints fan, I’m guilty of this having grown up when he was playing for the Saints.

But you can dig up full Saints games from his era on YouTube and you can watch some of the old This Week in Pro Football (and its successors) shows from his era. And if you watch them (as I have watched some of them), you’ll see a quarterback who was good on his best day and pretty bad on his worst days.

But New Orleans was so desperate for a winner that they held him up for years as their diamond in a rubble of crap. And to act like he didn’t deserve his share of blame for all of the losing Saints football of that era is disingenuous.

His career is similar to that of Dan Pastorini. They were drafted 2-3 in ‘71 and Pastorini played for some awful Oilers teams in the early ‘70s. They put some defense and a running back around him in the late ‘70s and got one game away from the Super Bowl. Pastorini was not why that team succeeded. Manning needed a defense around him but even with that, I’m not sure he would have gotten the Saints as far as the Oilers.

I have never been a Saints fan at all and knew that.

Archie is probably the best QB to come out of college and play pro. UNFORTUNATELY for Archie, a QB can not throw the ball accurately while laying on his back.....and he was drafted by the SAINTS during their forming years.

I have always said this even though I hate Ole Miss.

A few years ago I saw an interview with a pretty good QB himself, Fran Tarkenton, who said the same thing.

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Except for 1 Monday night game with the Vikes. I remember watching it though I can't remember who they were playing. He came off the bench in the 2ed half, and the vikes were down big. They lost, but he damn near got the win for them.

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That was actually a Thursday Night game on ABC(hence why you remembered it as a Monday Night)against the Redskins. Minnesota was awful, and Washington had been to two straight Super Bowls. Archie brought them back, but if I remember it right they still lost by like 10 or so.