I miss football already.

Football-wise, I came of age in the early 1970s. It was probably 1969 when I started caring about pro football, back in 7th grade. And in the next few years, I became a huge fan.

The first team I really cared about was the Minnesota Vikings, a team that would go on to dash my hopes repeatedly, including this year. I loved the way Fran Tarkenton played.

Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about putting Drew Brees in the “elite quarterback” category, whose rarefied atmosphere also includes Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Three elite quarterbacks.

Today’s elites toil amongst a whole bunch of forgettable QBs. But I can still remember the quarterback for nearly every NFL team from the early 1970s, and there were a lot of really good ones. Here they are, off the top of my head:

Baltimore: Johnny Unitas
NY Jets: Joe Namath
Minnesota: Fran Tarkenton
Kansas City: Len Dawson
Pittsburgh: Terry Bradshaw
New Orleans: Archie Manning
Detroit: Greg Landry
Dallas: Robert Staubach and Craig Morton
Washington: Bill Kilmer and Sonny Jurgenson
Miami: Bob Griese
Oakland: Daryl Lamonica and George Blanda
LA Rams: Roman Gabriel
San Francisco: John Brodie
Cincinnati: Ken Anderson
New England: Steve Grogan
Buffalo: Joe Ferguson
St. Louis Cardinals: Jim Harte
San Diego: John Hadl
Houston: Charley Johnson and Dan Pastorini
Chicago: Bobby Douglas

That’s a pretty impressive group. They make up one-third of the modern-era QBsin the Hall of Fame. A number of them were amazing scramblers–Tarkenton, Manning, Landry, Grogan, Staubach, Griese, Bradshaw. You don’t see much of that today, because coaches and GMs don’t want QBs to risk getting hurt. Wimps.

The only teams whose QB I can’t recall are: Atlanta, NY Giants, Cleveland, Green Bay, and Philly. I couldn’t come close to naming as many quarterbacks in the 1980s, 1990s, or the 2000s.