You are the general manager of a football team about to play in a championship game. You have three spots left to fill on the roster and you need a quarterback, running back and wide receiver. Former and current players are available. Who do you choose at each position?

Here are my selections.

Quarterback — My pick was Joe Montana. No, I never considered myself a fan of him as a player, but you can’t deny the man was money in the biggest of games.

In four Super Bowl appearances, he threw for 1,142 yards, 11 touchdowns and no interceptions. That’s no interceptions in 122 pass attempts.

Sure, Montana had Jerry Rice to throw to in the second half of his career with the 49ers, but he led the team to wins in Super Bowls XVI and XIX while throwing passes to Mike Wilson, Dwight Clark and Freddie Solomon — all good receivers, but certainly not great.

Montana also outplayed future Hall of Famers Dan Marino and John Elway in two of those Super Bowl victories.

Running back — I went with “Sweetness.” Not exactly a typical nickname for a fierce competitor who looked to dish out as much punishment as he took, but that’s what Walter Payton was known as.

Many football fans remember Payton as the veteran who helped the Chicago Bears get to and win Super Bowl XX over New England, but in the mid-to-late 1970s, he was outstanding for an otherwise sub-par offense.

Case in point, the 1977 season. That year, Chicago quarterback Bob Avellini completed less than 53 percent of his passes for 11 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. Against defenses that were not especially concerned with the pass, all Payton did was rush for 1,852 yards, 14 touchdowns and 5.5 yards-per-carry. He led the NFL in all three categories and carried the Bears into the playoffs.

Wide receiver — It would be very easy for me to take Jerry Rice, the NFL’s all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns. But I’m going a bit outside the box and taking Larry Fitzgerald.

Aside from a five-year stint when Kurt Warner was the quarterback in Arizona, Fitzgerald has had a bunch of mediocre quarterbacks throwing him passes. Hopefully, Carson Palmer still has some gas left in the tank this season.

To date, Fitzgerald has played in one Super Bowl (XLIII against Pittsburgh). If it wasn’t for Ben Roethlisberger’s game-winning drive in that game, Fitzgerald could have been named MVP after catching seven passes for 127 yards and two touchdowns.

The former University of Pittsburgh star has 10,526 yards and 79 touchdowns in his nine-plus season career. He has an incredible set of hands, good size (6-foot-3, 225 pounds) and doesn’t possess the ego that other receivers of his era like Chad Johnson, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss brought to the table.

Derek Pyda is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.