Does the Washington Football Team need an elite quarterback to win the Super Bowl?

A deeper dive

If you disagree with me up to this point, I’m sure you have noted one major flaw in my analysis. While it’s true that 48 percent of the Super Bowl-winning QBs over the last 40 years were not elite, that does not mean that 48 percent of the Super Bowl-winning teams were led by non-elite QBs. That’s because the greatest QBs often win multiple championships.

So let’s look at it that way. I grant you, it’s probably a fairer use of the numbers. Of those 40 Super Bowl-winning teams, 27 of them had Hall-of-Famers under center. That takes into account Brady’s seven rings, Montana’s four, etc, etc…

But that still means 13 of the champions had non-elites playing quarterback. That’s still about 33 percent. Of course, you want the generational quarterback. A QB like that wins the big game two out of every three years. But in that third year, a regular, pretty good QB wins it all.

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If you look at Pro Bowl selections, the numbers are similar. If anything, they suggest that having elite quarterback play is less a factor in Super Bowl championships than the Hall of Fame numbers referenced above.

In a typical year, a minimum of six quarterbacks are selected for the Pro Bowl. In most years, a couple of others make it as alternates based on availability. In order to make the Pro Bowl, you basically have to be considered among the top 25 percent of the league’s quarterbacks in a given season. That hardly qualifies as elite.

Yet in the past 10 seasons, four Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks have not made the Pro Bowl. That list includes the 2021 champion Tom Brady. Obviously, by any measure, Brady is an elite QB. But was he among the top five QBs in the NFL in 2021? He wasn’t.

Nor was Peyton Manning in the 2015/16 season, when he won his second Super Bowl. Manning, at the end of his career and showing the effects of both age and injury, posted a QB rating of 67.9 during the regular season. That is not elite. Actually, it is wretched.

As a point of comparison, former Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins put up a 73.0 rating in 2020, the year in which he was unceremoniously cut. Though Manning improved somewhat in the playoffs, he was far from elite in 2015. So far from it, that many fans thought Brock Osweiller, who led Denver in touchdowns that year while filling in for an injured Peyton, should quarterback the team in the playoffs.

But of course, you want Peyton Manning over Brock Osweiller. Truly transcendent quarterbacks elevate their teams in ways that no other single-player does. That’s what makes any statistical analysis a little suspect.

Still, you can’t ignore the fact that Trent Dilfer has won as many Super Bowls as Aaron Rodgers, and that Brad Johnson has as many as Drew Brees. In the past decade, Russell Wilson has one. So does Joe Flacco. So does Nick Foles.