Aikman

watching the triplets go into the cowboys "ring of honor" last night got me thinking about how good aikman is perceived to be. madden said that aikman was the "most accurate passer ever" last night. i know you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt, but when you look at aikman's numbers they really aren't that impressive. he had a career completion percentage of 61.5% with 165 TD and 141 INT and 81.6 rating. those numbers are hardly overwhelming. ok, so he did have a tough start, getting thrown in as a rookie on a horrible team and he did have a terrible finish after his brain was turned into pudding from the concussions, but even if we only look at his peak seasons (1992-1999) his numbers aren't that great 62.5% with 127 TD, 81 INT, and approximately an 87 QB rating.

mcnabb's career numbers (even including his not so great first season) are 58.4% with 124 TD, 58 INT, and 84.7 QB rating. ok so, aikman's accuracy appears to be better... however, when you factor in the fact that aikman was playing behind an all-world o-line, playing with the all-time leading rusher in the nfl, and his receivers were michael irvin and jay novacek for most of his career, i'm not sure that the completion percentage difference between the two is significant... especially when you factor in mcnabb's receivers during most of his career (small/johnson/lewis, thrash/pinkston/lewis)?

i recognize that numbers aren't everything and that troy did in fact bring some intangibles to the table, but i think you have to at least wonder if mcnabb would have won more superbowls playing on that team than the three that aikman won. that team proved it could win without aikman or irvin for the short term. they were never able to win without emmitt. it's possible donnie wouldn't have won as many as aikman, but i doubt it.