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.