How important is it that an NFL team have an elite quarterback if they want to win a Super Bowl? As the Washington Football Team approaches free agency and the draft, that seemingly obvious question deserves a little bit of perspective.
And as you ought to know, I am all about perspective.
We can quibble over the definition of “elite.” For my purposes, I’m using the Hall of Fame and Pro Bowl selections as barometers. I’m sure we can quibble over plenty of other things as well, but I’m not all about quibbling. Just perspective.
Does the Washington Football Team need a top-tier QB to win a championship?
So, to be clear, you want to have a good quarterback. If you’re choosing up sides for your Thanksgiving touch football game, and you’ve got Patrick Mahomes and Mark Sanchez standing in front of you, you’re taking Mahomes. (Unless your team gets extra points for having good hair – then maybe you have to think about it for a bit.)
I’m not saying it is not advantageous to have a great quarterback. It is advantageous to have great players at every position. The question I’m posing is just how important is it to have that great quarterback if your goal is to win the Super Bowl.
I’m asking because, to hear some analysts discuss it, acquiring an elite quarterback is now bigger than winning the lottery or finding the holy grail. In the Super Bowl era, quarterback play has always been deemed crucial, but in 2021, it seems to be lifeblood. Oxygen, water, quarterback.
That’s the triumvirate for survival. Quarterbacks have moved ahead of food.
After all, you can go for a week without food. Can you really go for an entire week with Nathan Peterman as your quarterback?
OK, enough foreplay. On to the numbers.
The numbers
Over the past 40 years, 25 different quarterbacks have led their teams to Super Bowl victories. Among those QBs who are still playing, or are recently retired, we cannot know for sure who will eventually be in the Hall of Fame. But we can make pretty good guesses.
For my purposes, I’m saying the Brady, Roethlisberger, Brees, Rodgers, Wilson, and Mahomes will be in some day, while Flacco and Foles will be out. I’m also leaving out Eli Manning, whose candidacy will cause a fair amount of debate.
Of those 25 QBs, guess how many are in – or will one day be in – the Hall of Fame.
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Thirteen. The six mentioned above, along with Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, John Elway, Steve Young, Brett Favre, and Kurt Warner.
That means 12 quarterbacks who will never get into the Hall of Fame without a ticket have won Super Bowls over the last 40 years. That’s 48 percent of all the quarterbacks who have won the big game in that time period. If you bleed Giant blue and insist on enshrining Eli, the number only drops to 44 percent.
The likes of Trent Dilfer, Mark Rypien, and the aforementioned Joe Flacco accomplished the ultimate, and though they played very well in brief spurts, you would have to do some serious stretching to include them under the “elite” umbrella.
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.
Thoughts on the Washington Football Team QB decision
So getting back to the original point. Of course you want an elite quarterback. If Russell Wilson and Nick Foles get released tomorrow, and they both call you up and say “It has always been my dream to wear the burgundy and gold,” you rev up Mr. Snyder’s plane for Wilson. For Foles, maybe you send him a complimentary Darrell Green jersey.
But I do think that as the Washington Football Team contemplates its QB situation, we have to pump the brakes on this idea that you need an elite quarterback in order to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. You simply don’t.
The most surefire way to boost that trophy is to build a quality organization, from front office to coaches to roster. The best way is to make sure that the UDFA cornerback stashed on your practice squad is better than the corners stashed on everybody else’s practice squad. Because, one day late in the season, that kid may have to step in and play important minutes for you.
OK, your starting QB is more important than your practice squad CB. But you get the point, right? Find your QB, but don’t sacrifice the rest of your team for him. History shows pretty clearly that you don’t have to.
And lest you think I was being too dismissive of Super Bowl-winning quarterback Nick Foles, I intended to have Darrell sign that jersey.