The Monday Night Countdown Idiot Brigade

All those hits to the head have affected more than just Troy Aikman -- Steve Young is getting progressively dumber, too. Of course, Young has to sit between Chris Berman and Michael Irvin for hours on end every week so maybe that's part of his brain leakage.

Tonight on Monday Night Countdown, a thoroughly awful pre-game orgy on ESPN, Steve Young ranked his top five QBs. You might ask what he based his rankings on and you'd be within your rights as a thinking human being to ask such a question. Did Steve explain his rankings? Nope. He just put them up on the screen and made some accompanying nonsensical comments while Irvin made typical Irvin-like grunting noises about Tony Romo, whom apparently is so good that Terrell Owens must whisper sweet nothings about him while TO and Irvin make sweet, sweet love.

Anyway, Young's list of "Top 2006 QBs" went thusly:

1) Peyton Manning (Because he's tall, I guess?)
2) Tom Brady (Because he's hunky, I imagine.)
3) Carson Palmer (Because he hurt himself but is still pretty good.)
4) Drew Brees (Because he's been so good he cannot be ignored, despite ESPN trying to.)
5) Steve McNair (Who is hurt and not playing.)

So let's apply some, you know, logic to Steve Young's rankings.

Maybe he's talking about yardage in 2006. No, wait, he can't be talking about that because Brees leads this group with over 4200 yards passing so far in 2006. In fact, he leads by a lot. The rankings of those five in yardage are as follows:

1) Brees
2) Manning
3) Palmer
4) Brady
5) McNair

Yeah, I know, Drew has played 14 games and Peyton and Carson are only playing their 14th as I write this. So if Peyton throws for 600 yards tonight and moves past Brees, I'll apologize.

So what is it? Is it QB rating? Noooo, can't be that, either, because if you ranked them by QB rating -- generally agreed to be a good measure of a QB's success -- the rankings of those five would look like this:

1) Palmer
2) Brees
3) Manning
4) Brady
5) McNair

Hmmm. What could it be? TD passes, you say? How would those five look when ranked by TD passes?

1) Brees
2) Palmer
3) Manning (tie)
3) Brady (tie)
5) McNair

Gosh. I'm stumped. Passing yards per game? Peyton must lead in that category, right?

1) Brees
2) Manning
3) Palmer
4) Brady
5) McNair

Oh. I see. Well, maybe Young was talking about team wins, even though that's not exactly the best scientific way to rank quarterbacks but let's look at that. Ranked in order of team victories:

1) McNair
2) Manning (tie)
2) Brady (tie)
4) Brees
5) Palmer

Jeez, we're all over the place here. Two things are certain, though -- one, Steve McNair shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence with these guys unless that sentence is "Steve McNair couldn't carry Brees/Manning's/Brady's/Palmer's jock in 2006." And the second thing? Steve Young just made this list up for kicks while he was coloring this morning. Because it makes about that much sense.

Oh, and this was mere minutes after Young compared Jay Cutler to John Freakin' Elway because Cutler threw a nice TD pass.... against the Arizona Cardinals. Yeah, just Cutler just needs a car dealership and we won't be able to tell his career from Elway's.