The Best NFL Player From Every Decade (1960s to 2000s)

Take a look into NFL history, and you'll find some names that are synonymous with greatness. Whether it's Red Grange, Tom Brady or Otto Graham, there are some players who need almost no introduction for anyone who understands football to know how talented they were.

These players fit the bill, as they starred in their era of football and dominated their decade on the gridiron. From the 1960s to the 2000s, these names were truly the personification of excellence on the football field!

1960s: Jim Brown

How do you compete with averaging 100 yards per game as a running back? Had Brown kept playing past nine seasons, he might still hold the record for career rushing yards. As it is, his 12,312 yards ranks 11th in NFL history. How dominant was Brown? Out of nine seasons, he led the NFL in rushing eight times, including each of his final three seasons.

1970s: Walter Payton

Here's how: you become a pass-catcher as well as a great runner. Payton did both for the Bears, gaining 16,726 rushing yards and catching 492 passes, both records for running backs when he retired. As the decade came to a close, Payton proved his nose for the end zone, scoring 52 touchdowns in the final four seasons of the 1970s and earning the MVP in 1977.

1980s: Joe Montana

Four Super Bowls, two MVPs, 32 fourth-quarter comebacks, and keeping fellow Hall of Famer Steve Young anchored to the bench says a lot. When the game was on the line, nobody proved better at handling the situation, but Montana's accuracy made him deadly at any point in the game. In an era where completing 50 percent of your passes was considered strong, Montana topped 60 percent 10 times and led the league in completion percentage five times.

1990s: Jerry Rice

Part of what made Montana so dominant was his top target. Rice rewrote the record book during his career, eventually owning the top mark for touchdown catches, receptions, yards, and points by a non-kicker. He did his best work in the 1990s with Steve Young in San Francisco, topping 1,000 yards in seven of his first eight seasons in the decade (and the one exception was because of injury) and catching 67 touchdowns from 1991 to 1995.

2000s: Peyton Manning

Winning five MVPs and two Super Bowls is an impressive feat. After his fourth year in the league, Manning never again failed to reach double-digit wins in a season, and he's one of just four quarterbacks to break 70,000 passing yards. Not only did Manning put up gaudy numbers throwing the football, but he made the Colts into consistent winners: from 2003 until 2009, Manning's teams never lost more than four games in a season.