No. He was never elite at any point in his career.
Pick ANY set of metrics you want, and no matter how hard you try to cherry-pick those metrics, there is no way to do the mental gymnastics necessary to establish elite status for RW. The only way to argue that RW was elite is to lower the bar for "elite". If you want to define elite as a top-10 quarterback of a generation, then yes RW was elite. That is an incredibly WEAK bar for elite.
If you want to argue that RW was very good for several seasons, I'll concede, yes he was very good. The talking heads and RW's PR team manufactured the narrative that he was elite. However, there was no time in RW's career that the football minds (true analysts, coaches, and GMs) viewed RW as elite. There is a reason that he never received an MVP vote, even in his best year.
I think I agree with this but the reason it's so divisive an issue is that his skill and his ability to actually play qb are two vastly different things.
If a player can't read complex defenses, struggles to see the field, and routinely misses protection adjustments, it's hard to define them as elite.
However if that player has an elite skillset that allows him to overcome those basic qb'ing deficiencies, he can play at a high level... and sometimes, by virtue of the effort it takes in overcoming those deficiencies, seem elite.
But the 'elite' tag has a * next to it.
It's like K Warner said. 'Playing QB does t have to be this hard'
Shoot it's like Payton said this year after the Commanders game ... to basically stop talking to him about a PI non call... the play was supposed to go to the other wr and he was open...
There's not a single bona-fide 'elite' qb who's game can so easily, systematically and consistently be broken down to show multiple failures to play the position well. Russ provides literally hours of that sort of experience every season.
RW had an ELITE ability at the position that allowed him to succeed at a high level.
But Elite QB? He managed to assemble 'elite' stats. But his stats last year were pretty good to, but was he playing the position well? Nope. If he had, the Broncos brass would be breathing a sigh of relief right now at knowing their ELITE money wasn't wasted.
