Steve Cook kicks off his Top 5 NFL Quarterbacks for each NFL team with a look at the Arizona Cardinals!

Is there anything more fun than debating who’s the Greatest Of All Time?

Doesn’t matter what the subject is. There’s nothing that gets people more worked up than a discussion of who did something better than anybody else ever did it. Everybody has an opinion.

These days, public opinion is focusing on the idea that Tom Brady is the Greatest NFL Quarterback of All Time. Which is all well and good, but that singular question gets a little tired. I’d like to make it more fun by breaking things down franchise by franchise.

That’s right. For the next thirty-two weeks, we’re going to decide the Greatest Quarterback Of All Time for each NFL franchise. Some of these will be easy. Some of these will be hard. We’re also going to see a pretty big range in the quality of choices for each franchise.

The Arizona Cardinals come first in the alphabet.

Let’s be honest. Few would argue that they’re known for stellar quarterback play. With all due respect, the Cardinals don’t exactly have the storied tradition one would expect from a franchise founded in 1920. They haven’t won an NFL Championship since 1947. That’s nearly two decades before the first Super Bowl was held!

For the first twenty years or so of my lifetime, these Cardinals were an afterthought to me. For most of their first couple of decades in Arizona, it seemed like there were more Dallas Cowboys fans in the team’s geographic area. That’s begun to change…thanks in part to improved quarterback play. And Larry Fitzgerald, who helped some of those guys out a bit. While the Cardinals’ history might not be the greatest, there’s reason to have hope for their future.

Let’s take a look at the 5 Greatest Chicago/St. Louis/Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals Quarterbacks of All Time.

(shoutout to Pro Football Reference, who I will be stealing copious amounts of information from for this project.)

5. Charley Johnson

Only two quarterbacks that have started at last sixty games for the Cardinals have a winning quarterback record. One is Carson Palmer, the other is Johnson, who was the St. Louis Cardinals’ starting quarterback for most of the 1960s. Johnson’s peak came in 1963 &1964. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1963, and led the league in passing yards in 1964, with the Cardinals winning nine games both seasons. Johnson was phased out in favor of youngster Jim Hart, and went on to have brief stints with Houston & Denver before moving into the chemical engineering field.

4. Neil Lomax

Lomax established himself in the college ranks in the late 1970s as part of Portland State coach Mouse Davis’s run and shoot offense that multiple NFL teams would run in the 1980s. He was drafted in the second round of the 1981 NFL Draft and groomed to be longtime QB Jim Hart’s replacement. Lomax would QB the Cardinals through most of the 1980s, including their first season in Phoenix.

It wasn’t one of the Cardinals’ most successful decades, but had some highlights on the field. Lomax had two standout seasons, one in 1984 & the other in 1987. Lomax’s 4671 passing yards in 1984 would stand as a franchise record until 2015, and his 28 touchdowns tied Charly Johnson’s total in 1963 & would stand as a record until 2008. Lomax’s career was cut short by hip issues and he had to retire after missing the entire 1989 season.

3. Jim Hart

Hart was one of those “local boy does right” stories for the St. Louis Cardinals back in the late 1960s. He went undrafted in the 1966 NFL Draft after playing at Southern Illinois, then got invited to a tryout for the Cardinals. He had a good showing, got signed, then spent the next eighteen seasons with the franchise. Hart still holds the franchise records for most passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions & quarterback wins & losses by pretty wide margins.

Hart’s peak came in the mid-1970s, when he made the Pro Bowl four years in a row. This was largely due to the coaching of Don Coryell, whose genius-level strategy on the offensive side of the ball got the most out of Hart. Coryell would move on to the San Diego Chargers after 1977 and take things to another level with Dan Fouts as his quarterback. Hart & the Cardinals would struggle after Coryell’s departure, and the offense wouldn’t really recover until the 2000s.

Hart still holds a ton of Cardinals passing records, but I can’t put him ahead of the top two. They were more skilled, had better overall careers, and their teams were more successful.

2. Carson Palmer

Palmer was the overall #1 pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, going to the Cincinnati Bengals. Like most people that spent eight years employed by the organization, he grew frustrated. Things came to a head & Palmer was sent to Oakland, at the time possibly the only NFL organization more disorganized than Cincinnati. After two years of that, Carson finally wound up in a situation he felt good about: Arizona with Bruce Arians.

When Palmer was healthy, he was exactly what people hoped he would be when he was drafted. 2015 saw him set franchise records for most passing yards & passing touchdowns in a single season. 2015 was the year where it looked like the Cardinals could finally get over the hump and win a championship, with Carson’s performance a key part of it. That didn’t happen…if it had, Palmer would be on top of this list.

Honorable Mention: Jake Plummer

Plummer had played for Arizona State University, who at the time shared Sun Devil Stadium with the Cardinals. It made all the sense in the world for the Cardinals to draft him in the 1997 NFL Draft as a local hero if nothing else. Plummer started off on the bench, but would wind up starting nine games in his rookie season. Plummer had an up & down tenure during his time with the Cardinals. The team didn’t find much success, but did have some exciting moments. Plummer saw through twenty game winning drives while QBing the Cardinals, which ranks as second in franchise history.

Honorable Mention: Paddy Driscoll

The 1920s version of the National Football League is worlds different from the game we know today, especially when it comes to the quarterback position. Most teams back then had multiple people playing the position, and those players would play multiple positions as well. Driscoll was all over the field, regularly playing hafback & quarterback & utilizing the drop kick in the Cardinals’ kicking game. He also coached the team for a couple of seasons. Driscoll was the first All-Pro quarterback in NFL history, and led the Cardinals to the NFL Championship in 1925.

Honorable Mention: Kyler Murray

Murray’s first two seasons were among the best by a QB in team history. There’s a real good chance he’ll top this list in 10-15 years. I’m not putting him in the top 5 right now, and Cardinals fans should thank me for it. I don’t want to jinx this for him or them. Just keep what you’re doing, young man.

1. Kurt Warner

Warner was considered to be past his prime when he arrived in Arizona in 2005. He had flamed out of St. Louis after two MVP seasons, then spent a season in New York grooming Eli Manning for future success. A similar role was what Arizona had in mind for Warner, hoping he could bridge the gap to a younger quarterback, who ended up being USC Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart. Leinart got chance after chance to take the job from Warner, but could never quite cement himself in the position.

Warner kept coming back. There was another Super Bowl run left in him, which we saw in 2008. Unfortunately, Warner & the Cardinals came up short, but it still ranks as the franchise’s greatest moment since their days in Chicago. It was a second act that put Warner in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and established him as the greatest quarterback in at least one franchise’s history.

Thanks for reading! Next time we’ll be looking at the Atlanta Falcons. Hit me up on Twitter with any thoughts, concerns, suggestions or real estate deals.