Foxxy, I'm really surprised you said you didn't know that much about Stabler. Your knowledge of the NFL seems to go back that far, a while back you posted detailed evaluations of two of his contemporaries, Namath and Bradshaw. And btw, Namath and Stabler both went to Alabama, their time there overlapped, though just one year and Stabler was redshirted at the time.
Here's an article I think you'd be interested in. An interview with Bjoern Werner, the first German to be drafted into the NFL in the first round. He talks about how he learned about football growing up in Germany:
http://mmqb.si.com/2015/07/10/nfl-football-in-europe-bjoern-werner-germany/
Definitely think the Snake should be in the HOF, but I think there are two reasons he isn't: 1) he started late, didn't become a starter till his late 20s. Though in those days, that wasn't so unusual, in fact until recently it was thought QBs needed several years to learn after coming out of college. 2) he was traded to Houston in the late 70s, and didn't enjoy the success there that he did in Oakland. In fact, his first year there, the Raiders steamrolled the Oilers in the playoffs on the way to their second SB, with Lester the Molester Hayes picking off Stabler twice, the second time for the TD that wrapped it up. If Stabler had stayed in Oakland, maybe he could have led the team to the two additional SBs they won. If he had, I think three SBs, with all those other playoff appearances (something like six title games they lost) would have done it.
He was part of some of the most memorable moments of the era, though. Not just that miracle pass against Miami. I hadn't realized he played in an even more famous playoff game, the Immaculate Reception. He came in for Lamonica in the fourth quarter, and actually scored the go-ahead TD on a long scramble. If not for that crazy Steeler TD at the end, Stabler would have been the hero of that game. Also, he played in the game that Madden once said he personally thought was one of the greatest of all time, the OT win vs. Baltimore in the playoffs the year after the Raiders won their first SB, where he made the famous ghost post pass.
For his career, he threw nearly 200 TD passes, with a nearly 60% completion rate that in those days was really good. I remember one year he completed 67% of his passes, which was the highest % in about 40 years at the time. He threw even more interceptions, about 220, but for comparison, Namath threw 20 fewer TD passes, about the same number of interceptions as Stabler, and had only a 50% career completion rate. Bradshaw threw about 210/210 TD/picks, with a 52% rate. Staubach, another HOFer from that era, threw about 150 TD passes with a 57% completion rate. So for the era, Stabler's numbers look very good.