Coming in the league with 40% of the Top 10 Ever is simply a case of born in the wrong era. If he was born in 93 instead of 88 he'd be priming/peaking as those guys are retired or declining.Eli getting in soon, is gonna lower the bar for guys like Padford to get in, and it's gonna be a mistake...
Padford's prime overlapped with truly Top 10 of All-Time QBs: Brady, Brees, Manning, Rodgers. He wasn't even in the same stratosphere as the peaks of those guys...
Padford's late career with the Rams, is overlapping with the primes of Allen, Burrow, Jackson, and Mahomes. The very best version of Padford was not at the level of the best of any of these guys, and the current, still very good version of Padford, is still a notch or two below those guys...
His prime also overlapped with Eli, Luck, Newton, Palmer, Roethlisberger, Rivers, Ryan, Romo, Wilson. He fits somewhere in this class, sure. But how many guys in this group, would you, without hesitation, take over Padford? 5? 4?
So when you get past the 4 All-Time QBs of his early career, that he was never on their level. And the 4 All-Time QBs of his late career, who he isn't on their level. That's 8 guys right there. You easily get beyond 10 guys in his career, who were better players at their position than Stat Padford...
Hall Of Fame is an easy call to me. We're you an elite, Top 5 guy at your position. Ever? Were you a Top 5 guy during your career in totality? If the answer is no, that means there's too much wiggle room in your candidacy, you're not a Hall Of Famer!
You could extend the generosity and say Top 10 instead of Top 5, and he STILL isn't a definitive Top 10 player at his position, during his career...
Hall Of Very Good. He doesn't deserve a bust in Canton though. There were too many quarterbacks we've seen during his career who were just flat out better!
Of the 9 you have him with, there isn't really 5 I'd take without hesitation...there's some sort of debate for most of them. And at least 3 of them are getting in the Hall at some point anyway so this doesn't slam the door shut on him.
The current Big 4 priming and peaking while he's closer to 40 than 30 is natural order, that's not really a knock.
He likely won't get in, but his case study is interesting because people brush off the polarization between the franchise he gave 12 years to versus the respect he has among his peers. It's also a microcosm of the HOF outlook because the '00-10s group of QBs outside of the 4 GOATs challenges previous markers.
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