The Steelers’ win over the Rams in Super Bowl XIV was their fourth Lombardi in six years, the end of the last actual dynasty to dominate that trophy for a long period until Tom Brady came along.
It was also the first Super Bowl of Danny Rouhier’s life, and in the 43 years since, he’s noticed a trend: almost EVERY team to hoist the Lombardi since has had a QB that is either in, or bound for, the Hall of Fame.
Sure, the ’87 Redskins are an exception, as even without the replacement players, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien were never elite signal-callers, and you’ll always have the Trent Dilfers of the world. Every rule has exceptions, but this one has very few in a lot of examples – and in taking calls on whether or not Sam Howell can change your mind about him, Drew in Fairfax brought up a point that made Danny remember the 2019 Nationals, and how, even though they were playing at their maximum, it took a few breaks to win it all, too.
So, Danny looks at what everybody is at their maximum, and thinks maximum Howell isn’t enough – but after a few more calls, Mike in Crofton said he’s down with a Howell return, asking, “when is the last time a Top 2 or 3 QB won a Super Bowl?”
And that’s when Danny went to work.
“Of the Super Bowl champions going back to 1980, 33 were quarterbacked by Hall of Famers, and when you add in Eli Manning – who shouldn’t get in because he’s a jag who got hot twice with great defenses, but he played in New York – that’s 35,” Danny said. “Everyone from Manning to Rodgers to Brees to Brady so many times, Roethlisberger, Kurt Warner, everybody.”
Even Jim Plunkett was borderline to Danny and “Brad Johnson was really good,” and so, while yes, you have Dilfer, Joe Flacco, Jim McMahon, Nick Foles, and Phil Simms/Jeff Hostetler, even some of them had mitigating circumstances; you can research them all, but a common thread for at least four of them is that they had one of arguably the Top 10 defenses in NFL history.
And if you shorten the time to 30 years, since Danny thinks the most modern era of free agency started in 1992?
“That’s Aikman and Young, Montana, and all those other guys,” Danny said. “And yeah Eli Manning, so that’s close to 90 percent of the last 30. So I think you need that elite guy. It’s a rare exception in this day and age. The perception, because Washington won three Super Bowls with Doug Williams, Mark Rypien, and Joe Theismann, is you need a good offensive line, and the best teams right now have great ones but the easiest fix, that cheat code, is to nail it at that quarterback spot.”
