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Matt Rourke/Associated Press

We don't like to think about what the NFL will look like without Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or even Drew Brees, but it will happen.

My generation didn't want to think about an NFL without Joe Montana, but along came Brady. We didn't want the game without Dan Marino, but along came Peyton. No more John Elway? Here's Aaron Rodgers. The game moves on, and legends walk away. Looking ahead to the next generation, who will be the best quarterbacks in the year 2020?

That's what this signature series aims to answer—our "20 for '20" covers who the top 20 quarterbacks will be five seasons from now. And if you're looking for guys like Philip Rivers—who will be 38 years old in 2020—we have to project a few retirements. So even though Tom Brady said he wants to play until he's 45, assume for these purposes that Brady, Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning have retired at this point.

Naturally, there were some ties, and in that case we picked the young quarterback we'd take to build a team around. It's very subjective, but it works.