Ryan Clark is no stranger to controversy. Talking heads like him, Stephen A Smith, and Skip Bayless have been the conduits for clickbait that the worldwide leader in entertainment uses to fuel their empire. Some of the statements made by the various hosts of their shows on television or through podcasts are so absurd that they have to be scripted for the sake of selling outrage and confusion. Clark’s most recent scripted nonsense is about the sport he played for a living.
While speaking on First Take, Clark and his cohosts, Smith and former UConn quarterback Dan Orlovsky, were discussing Arch Manning. The topic in question was whether the Texas signal-caller, and potential first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, was a generational talent. The jury is out among the fans after a poor showing against Ohio State, and the hosts of the show weren’t sold either. It became perplexing when Clark tried to educate his colleagues and the viewers on the definition of generational.
“I think John Elway was a generational talent,” Clark explained. “I think Patrick Mahomes is a generational talent. I don’t think Tom Brady, I don’t think Drew Brees, I don’t think Peyton Manning are generational talents. I think Andrew Luck ended up being a generational talent. I don’t think there’s a ton of them out there.”
When pushed by Smith and Orlovsky for a definition of generational, Clark said, “Production.”
It’s an irrefutable fact that no quarterback in the history of the NFL has been more productive than Brady. He is the league’s all-time leader in passing yards (89,214), touchdowns (649), and Super Bowl wins (7). It is debatable whether or not he is the greatest of all time, even though the percentage of people who say “nay” is significantly fewer than those who say “yay”, but his production has never been in question.
Brees and Manning join Brady in the top three all-time for yards and touchdowns. Essentially, Clark is saying that the three most productive quarterbacks in NFL history were not productive enough to be considered generational. Since he clearly can not be talking about professional production, he must be talking about college production, and whether or not someone is a generational prospect. That would rule out Brees, who was a second-round pick, and Brady, who wasn’t taken until round 6.
It does not explain why he says Manning was not generational. The former Tennessee Volunteer would have been the first pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, but chose to return to college for his senior year, where he threw for the third most yards in college football (3,819) and the third most touchdowns (36). He won the Maxwell Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, the Davey O’Brien Award, and finished second in Heisman voting. He was the most sure thing in the draft since Elway. How was he not generational?
Clark says Mahomes was generational, and the case could be made about his production. He led the nation in passing yards (5,052) and touchdowns (41) in his final year at Texas Tech, but his team finished 5-7. If he were truly generational, this may be the worst team ever helmed by a generational QB. He was also the tenth pick in the 2017 draft, and the second quarterback taken. How could someone considered generational have nine players selected ahead of him, unless they were also generational? That would make 2017 the best draft ever.
We all know Clark doesn’t mean anything he reads off the script he’s provided. He’s a puppet, and his only purpose is to have his name and his company’s name appear in headlines by every other outlet. His job is to create free advertising for ESPN. Every argument on the planet falls to pieces once the inconsistency in it is found. You don’t have to dig too deep to find it in Clark’s statements. Here is the math equation that Clark just laid out to explain whether or not a quarterback is a generational talent.\
If he were productive in college statistically, unless he won every award a quarterback can win in college, then goes to the NFL and isn’t in the top five for career production, that is the definition of generational. Confused? So is the rest of America, but he doesn’t need to make sense; he just needs to get clicks.
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