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ShareThisHow many Super Bowl winning quarterbacks are there?
On Monday Night Football this week, one of the announcers noted that there are six Super Bowl quarterbacks currently playing in the league. Is that a lot or a little?
A couple of years ago, I noted all the quarterbacks to ever win a Super Bowl in this post. No surprises there, although I split up Super Bowl V between Unitas and Morrall, assigning them each half a win. [Note: Teams win games, not quarterbacks. This goes double for Super Bowls. Disclaimer out of the way.] Once you add in Brees' championship from last season, it's easy enough to see how many quarterbacks in any given season have won the Super Bowl. As it turns out, 2007 and 2008 represents the high-water mark for active bling in the NFL:
The least impressive year was probably 1981. After Griese retired, you had just three QBs that had won a Super Bowl playing that year: a 32-year-old Terry Bradshaw, one year away from retirement; a 36-year-old Ken Stabler playing for the Oilers; and Jim Plunkett, and career underachieving Jim Plunkett, owner of a 43-55 record at that time. Although 1991 is pretty close: only three active quarterbacks with rings, and two played for the same team.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2010 at 7:40 am and is filed under Quarterbacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Other than Elway and McMahon, are there any other QBs whose last career game was in a Super Bowl win?
@Da Hook: I looked through all the Super Bowl winning teams and checked the QBs on their roster on pfr and then looked in Wikipedia to see if it said anything that contradicted that being the end of the player's career. Hopefully that means that all of these are right, though maybe not.
Jared Lorenzen (2007 NYG), Anthony Wright (2007 NYG), Tommy Maddox (2005 Pit), Rohan Davey (2004 NE), Joe Gilliam (1975 Pit), Jacky Lee (1969 KC), Tom Flores (1969 KC)
These television analysts are really poor. Gruden is angling for the Cowboys job. Ron Jaworski is a blonde. And Tirico says there are only, only 6 QBs in the league that have one a Superbowl and it turns out that is actually a rather high number.
All games should be called by Gus Johnson and Chris Collinsworth.
One and Won.
Can Bledsoe get a quarter for his touchdown pass against Pittsburgh int he AFC championship
What about if you include the QB before they won a SB (ex: Peyton Manning counts as a SB winning QB in 2000 even though he didn't have a SB). What is the record if you go by that method?
Gus Johnson is now officially overrated.
You think that after working for Al Davis, Gruden wants to work for Jerry Jones? I think it's been there, done that for him.
Chase-I find your DISCLAIMER to be rather peculiar. Can you name 1 game in the history of the NFL where it didn't take a total team effort to produce a win? In our S.B. win over Dallas in '78, the Steelers Defense gave up the most points ever by a winning S.B. team, but it was still a great team effort. But....could we have possibly won that game if Bradshaw and Kruczek would have been injured and out of the game before the 1st qtr. was over? Franco Harris was the only other player to throw a pass that year (0 for 1), so let's say we would have hiked the ball to him on every 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down the rest of that game. Do you really think we still win that game? I say no way-he couldn't have possibly made up for the 4 TD passes that our QUARTERBACK threw. That's how important the QB is to a team.
@dahook & Shattenjager:
--I really think you can only count Elway. McMahon played for years after his team's victory in the SB, and I doubt that any of the QB's Shattenjager listed played in their SB "win."
@Bob S.:
Look, in a number of SB's, the QB has played a big role. In the Ravens win, the Bucs win, the Steelers wins over the Vikes & Seahawks, the Raiders win over the Eagles, and prob. others that I'm forgetting off the top of my head, the QB didn't do too much at all. Too many people tend to give all the credit for a win to a QB and most, if not all, of the blame in a loss. For example, in the SB you mention, Staubach played very good. If it weren't for a TE with butterfingers, though, . . .
I find your disclaimer a little ridiculous. Shouldn't Kurt Warner get extra credit, then, for playing lights out in all three of his SB's, only winning one? Should Ben Roethlisberger only get half credit for "winning" SB 40? Does Peyton Manning get full credit for triumphing over Rex Grossman? Why does Trent Dilfer get credit at all?
A win is a win. Also, in 1991 you don't include Joe Montana, and while he was injured and didn't throw a pass all season, he wasn't retired or anything.
Here we go again....
Bob S, your implication is that the QB deserves all the credit for a Super Bowl win, which also implies that the Super Bowl winning QB is the best QB in the league. Tom Brady won the 2001 Super Bowl. Why didn't he win the Super Bowl in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2009? He still should have been the best QB in the league those years.
Richie-I didn't imply anything even remotely close to that. IMO, Chase implied that a QB really isn't that important in helping to determine the outcome of any NFL game, and I completely disagree with that. I can see exactly why the NFL chooses to give 1 player and only 1 player an official stat of wins and losses. And that 1 and only player is the starting QB. By the way, how do you answer my question that was posed? Is there any way Pitts. wins that game with NO QUARTERBACK? Or try this scenario: instead of throwing 1 or 2 of his TD passes, Bradshaw throws 1 or 2 Int's instead. Do the Steelers still win that game? I say no-way. The QB has a big hand in helping to determine the outcome of a good majority of all NFL games, IMO.
In 1976, with what people in the organization consider their best team, the Steelers lost the AFC Championship with only one healthy (backup) running back. Getting down to the emergency level at many positions would be enough to lose to another good team. Think a team that was down to an emergency center would do well?
Bob, that Super Bowl was a couple years before my time. But there are definitely specific games that specific players have a huge role in winning. Would the Redskins have beaten the Bears without DeAngelo Hall last week? Would the Steelers have won that Super Bowl if Franco Harris got hurt early on? I think everybody agrees that QB generally has more impact on a game than any other single position. But I don't think the QB has more impact than the other 10 guys on offense combined - nor more than the 11 guys on defense.
But don't lose sight of my original point-a team can sub for any other position player and still have a chance to win. If you have to sub for your QB with a running back or a receiver for a whole game and that sub didn't play QB in college, then you are not going to win. That is how important the QB position is. That is why the NFL gives QB's a won and loss record. I guess you're answer to my question was no, Pgh. could not have won that game without a QB. Neither could any other team.
On first glance, the number through the years seems to correlate well with the number of active Indianapolis 500 winning drivers.
@16: If you subbed a Center for a running back or a receiver for a whole game and that sub didn't play Center in college, you aren't going to win either. That doesn't make the Center the most important player in the game.
how many players from gb/kc first sb still alive?
@Joseph
Right. Elway would be the only one who played in the win. Since Da HOOK had mentioned McMahon, who also did not play in the 1996 Super Bowl, I did not restrict my list, trying to answer his question.
Thomas-#18, think about what you are saying-why would you sub in a center-a running back can be subbed for by anybody who can run, and yes a center can run, but couldn't a team find somebody that could run even better than a center. When you sub for a QB, you need a player who can both run AND throw the ball effectively enough to make the defense respect him enough to not put 11 men in the box. If a team wouldn't have anybody like that, they would lose that game. Any player playing QB is capable of playing and losing a game, but how many do you think would be capable of playing and winning a game? Very, very, very few if any, IMO.
Thomas-sorry, I guess I interpreted your post wrong. But, as long as they can hike the ball, the QB can still run a play. The plays might be changed to require less time to execute, or the blocking schemes might be changed, but I think a team would still be able to overcome that. If a sub for QB can't pass effectively, a team would not be able to overcome that.
I live in the Philadelphia area (but am not an Eagles fan) and watched the Eagles offensive line completely fall apart when their backup Center came in to play last year at the end of the season. And that's not even a player playing out of position as you suggested in @16.
I do slightly agree with you though because a QB can 'win' a game simply by not making mistakes (see Trent Dilfer). And that's not a win as much as it is Not Losing, which really isn't the same thing. Here's a good example of a game where the QB didn't deserve the win but got it (http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200612240atl.htm).
Either way you look at it, I don't believe this post is off base or 'crazy' or anything. It's a given that the QB gets too much credit in a win, and in a loss. Chase's post didn't seem like he was advocating that being correct or incorrect.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. However, in the days before the forward pass was invented or used I would agree with you. Anybody could have played QB then.
Bob,
do you get a discount on straw for all those strawmen you're tossing around?
At no point did Chase imply that a QB wasn't important to winning a game, or even very important. He said the game is won or lost by a team, not a QB. And that is true.
Then you go on some crazy rant about how you can replace another player who goes down but oyu can't replace a QB with a center, or whatever (I know you said RB but that is equally ridiculous). If Bradshaw goes down, Franco doesn't become the QB. The back-up QB becomes the QB. And if HE goes down, the third-stringer becomes the QB. I assure you, it is far easier to win with Randle Ell or Josh Cribbs, or, as the Panthers demonstrated 3 years ago, a RB who never played QB before, than it is with a non-lineman playing Center.
Also, I would like you to look at that Browns-Bills game from two years ago and tell me with a straight face that either QB was the deciding factor or even close to it in that game.