Welcome… I'm Matt Privett... 33 years old, in Louisville, KY, a slave of Christ, husband of a wife, father of children, pastor of a church, student of the Scriptures. Welcome to my blog. Feel free to offer feedback through comments, the Contact Me page, or follow me at twitter.com/mattprivett.
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Here’s the list with scattered comments. My personal opinion. Feel free to add yours.
- Peyton Manning – Remove him from the Colts and put an average QB in his place and Indianapolis would be drafting in the top ten pretty much every year. Should he stay healthy he will own every significant career passing record.
- Johnny Unitas
- John Elway – Why put him before Montana? Because he made it to more Super Bowls and the first three teams he took were absolutely ridiculous. To think they were actually favored in Super Bowl XXII just because of Elway.
- Otto Graham – Ten seasons. Ten championship games. Seven titles (three NFL, four AAFC). While he quarterbacked the Browns they were 105-17-4. That’s just sick.
- Joe Montana
- Tom Brady
- Sammy Baugh
- Dan Marino – Why Don Shula never gave him a reliable 1,000-yard rusher is beyond me.
- Bart Starr
- Steve Young – I actually think he was a more gifted QB than Montana, but four Super Bowl wins and three MVPs was too much to supplant.
- Terry Bradshaw
- Roger Staubach
- Dan Fouts – Incredible numbers for this era, much less an era which made it much tougher on the passing game.
- Ken Anderson – Most underrated QB in NFL history.
- Brett Favre – You can’t deny his passing ability, his stats, or his durability, but after the ’90s ended it became hard to trust him not to make the big mistake.
- Kurt Warner – When he was “on” there was no one better, except perhaps Manning. Took two “nothing” franchises to three Super Bowls overall, and won one.
- Jim Kelly
- Fran Tarkenton
- Sonny Jurgensen
- Norm Van Brocklin
- Sid Luckman
- Len Dawson
- Bob Griese
- Y.A. Tittle
- Drew Brees – Based on his incredible numbers, including deadly accuracy, and the fact that his signing with the Saints completely turned that franchise around and made them a serious contender immediately and for years to come.
 There is a good case to be made that, after last night’s loss in the NFC Championship Game, the Minnesota Vikings propelled their own fan base into the pole position for the most tortured fans in sports. Examine the evidence and judge for yourselves.
The franchise was borne from expansion in the NFL in 1960. This was a day and age when expansion teams took several years to even be competitive. In that respect, the Vikings were a little behind the Dallas Cowboys, also borne in 1960. The Cowboys made it to the ‘66 and ‘67 NFL title games but lost to the Packers. However, Minnesota fans finally had cause to rejoice in 1968, the first year of the post-Lombardi Packers.
Minnesota won the Central Division title but lost in the first round to the superior Baltimore Colts. It set them up, however, for bigger and better things in 1969. They lost a close game on the road to the New York Giants in the opening week, but then racked up a 12-game win streak, the longest such streak in 35 years. Behind the “Purple People Eaters” defense of Carl Eller, Alan Page, Gary Larsen, and Jim Marshall, the Vikings imposed their will on opponents. Quarterback Joe Kapp’s ability to run and throw kept opponents off balance.
The Vikings beat the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs and then won the NFL Championship against the Cleveland Browns, setting them up for Super Bowl IV, the last game played before the NFL-AFL merger. Minnesota was fully expected to atone for the Colts’ embarrassing loss to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III the year before. They were installed as 13-point favorites against Kansas City. However, Hank Stram’s Chiefs matriculated the ball down the field, over and over again, and embarrassed the Vikings 23-7.
Continue reading Are the Minnesota Vikings’ fans the most tortured in sports?
I’m hoping to get through the Old Testament at least twice this year. Today I finished Exodus. Here are some quick hits from my reading:
- The continuity between Genesis and Exodus is so striking that you could just call the first chapter of Exodus “Genesis 51.”
- The Hebrew midwives are in no way criticized for lying to Pharaoh about not casting the newborn males in the Nile River. On the contrary, they “feared God” and He blessed them (Exod 1:21).
- God uses His enemies to preserve His people. The daughter of the Pharaoh raises the one God would raise up to lead His people out of Egypt.
- People under the protection of the blood of the lamb were spared the wrath of God, just as those under the protection of the Lamb are spared the wrath of God.
- Read 34:14-17. All too often we don’t obey God’s command: “Watch yourself.” We don’t take seriously the idea that we are to tear down and smash sin. All too often, because we live in and around sin, we choose to dangle our feet as close to the pool of boiling water without getting burned, but before we know it, we’re scalded. We ought to tear down and smash our personal sins as if they were idols to false gods, because they are.
I’m trying to read one chapter of Proverbs a day. As a Christian, I have no doubt that the wisdom of God continued therein will contribute to my sanctification, my growing in the grace and knowledge of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As a pastor, the Proverbs are a veritable treasure trove of wisdom with which I can shepherd the flock God has given me. So that said, I was reading through Proverbs 17 and came across this passage:
Proverbs 17:12-14 12 Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, Rather than a fool in his folly. 13 He who returns evil for good, Evil will not depart from his house. 14 The beginning of strife is like letting out water, So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out.
There was a situation a while back where I was involved in a conflict with others. I was in the right, but hurt and very angry at the behavior of the other party and the position it was putting me in. Some others attempted to get me to engage the other party, but I resisted because I knew it would result in a big blowup that would leave debris, potentially for months and years to come. The other party was a fool well into their folly and I did not want any part of it.
Continue reading Don’t wrestle a mad momma bear
This morning I had the honor of preaching from Mark 6:33-44, which tells of when Jesus fed 5,000 men (plus women and children, which probably had the human mass totaling over 20,000). Lost in the fact that the miracle was so spectacular, even moreso than His many healings and exorcisms earlier in the book, are some glorious truths from what I believe to be the key verse of the passage, 34, which says, “When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.”
New Testament usage of our English word compassion is, in reality, something more intense than what we usually think. The word, in the Greek, is derived from a root which refers to the inward parts of a man – his stomach, intestines, or bowels. So when the word is used to describe Jesus’ feeling upon seeing the crowd, Mark is telling us that the sight of them impacted Jesus to the very core of His being. It was a gut-wrenching thing, but why?
Continue reading Where little becomes leftovers (Mark 6:33-44)
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