Does the Super Bowl Make or Break a QB?

Much has been made over the past week about how Super Bowl XLIV affected the legacy of Peyton Manning as well as his place in NFL history. First of all, I have to say that I believe this to be ridiculous. Manning does more for the Colts offense than any quarterback has ever done for any team in NFL history. He is the de facto offensive coordinator for that team and has done so brilliantly in the past 12 years since being drafted out of Tennessee.

I said it shortly after the Super Bowl ended, and I’ll say it many more times, Manning and the Colts didn’t lose this game; the Saints won it. Peyton Manning executed a near perfect touchdown drive the first time he touched the ball in the second half. Without the onside kick and score to start the half by the Saints, that would have put the Colts up 17-6 and with the solid but not flashy Colts defense with Manning clicking, that might have been too much for the plucky underdogs. Sean Payton took risks and was determined to throw the Colts off guard every chance he got.

In my mind this brings up a larger issue. Is the Super Bowl a jinx for some quarterbacks and how important is quarterbacking play at football’s highest level?

Well, the first part of that question is bordering on impossible to answer. The second, however, is easily quantified and yes, I went to all the trouble to quantify it. When I looked at these numbers, I did not just include the starting quarterbacks, I included everyone who threw a pass attempt for each team in the Super Bowl. For instance, in Super Bowl V, Earl Morrall went 7-15, Johnny Unitas went 3-9 and Sam Havrilak (a wide receiver) threw one pass and completed it so the Baltimore Colts completed 11-25 passes for the game.

In the first 44 Super Bowls, the team that had the better passer rating as a team went an astonishing 40-4. Even more astonishing is the disparity between the two. The passer rating for winning teams is 104.0 while the rating for the losing team is 60.0. The largest such disparity occurred in Super Bowl XXIV, when San Francisco’s passer rating was 145.4 and Denver’s rating was 24.5. The four quarterbacks who had the better passer rating on the losing team were Bret Favre (Super Bowl 32), Jake Delhomme (38), Matt Hasselbeck (40), and Kurt Warner (43). In achieving that feat, Jake Delhomme also became the only quarterback to have a passer rating over 100 while throwing the ball more than 10 times.

A large factor in this rating disparity is due to turnovers. The winning teams have thrown just 24 interceptions (highlighted by Joe Montana’s 0 interceptions in 122 career Super Bowl pass attempts) in 44 Super Bowls while the losing team has thrown an astonishing 91 interceptions (highlighted by Rich Gannon’s 5 interceptions in Super Bowl 37).

Going back to the first part of that question I asked; is the Super Bowl a jinx for some quarterbacks? To answer that, I think you have to look at the circumstances surrounding the game. You are facing one of the best defenses in the league in front of 50,000 (in a small stadium) people while hundreds of millions of people are watching on TV. There is the pregame circus and the halftime show which is longer than a normal NFL halftime. Also, at least when it comes to the first time quarterbacks, there can sometimes be some jitters and butterflies which can cause passes to get away from them due to the adrenalin rush they are sure to be feeling.

The most interesting part is that virtually no quarterback performs as well as he does during the regular season. Most of them perform far above and beyond their normal performance or completely flop on the game’s biggest stage and there is plenty of evidence to support that claim. Honestly, one of the closest to his normal performance is Peyton Manning. In two Super Bowls, he has gone 56-83 for 580 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions for a passer rating of 85.4 against his career passer rating of 95.2.

Arguably the starkest case is John Elway. There is no question that he is a Hall of Famer and there’s no question that he belongs in the discussion for one of the best quarterbacks ever to put on pads. Many people remember his last two years in which the Broncos were a juggernaut and won both Super Bowls. However, if you look at his performance in the Super Bowl, his influence on his teams was much more that of a leader than a great passer. For instance, his passer rating in his first Super Bowl against the New York Giants was 83.6 (not too bad, above average for certain) and in his last Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons was 99.2 (definitely very good), but his rating in the three Super Bowls between those two was 35.4. At this point, I choose to point out one of my favorite factoids about the NFL passer rating formula; if every pass you throw falls incomplete, your passer rating is 39.6. In those three games, Elway completed just 41.9% of his passes (36-86) and threw 6 interceptions against just 1 touchdown.

Does this make Elway a bad quarterback? Of course not. His first three Super Bowls came against a Bill Parcells led defense, a Joe Gibbs led defense, and the 49er’s juggernaut that most teams had trouble playing within 20 points of. The fact of the matter is that Elway was a gunslinger who performed much better in a balanced offense than a passing led attack. He had his share of big games but he was never asked to carry a team game after game the way Peyton Manning is.

The flipside of the coin is Joe Montana. He was great in the regular season and was somehow heads and shoulders better in his four Super Bowl victories. His passer rating in 4 Super Bowls was 127.8, helped mostly by the fact that he threw 11 touchdown passes and was never picked off in those four games.

And finally, another interesting note; if you had one game to win and you had to choose between these seven quarterbacks, who would you pick?

Jake Delhomme
John Elway
Dan Marino
Ben Roethlisberger
Phil Simms
Johnny Unitas
Doug Williams

If it was me, and I didn’t know that this is a trick question, I would probably put some combination of Elway, Marino, and Roethlisberger in my top three (Big Ben was stupendous on the winning drive against the Cardinals). Now, I understand that looking at passer ratings in a vacuum doesn’t always work but it is usually a good first look at a quarterback’s performance. When one looks at these seven QB’s passer ratings, it tells a very different story than their careers do.

150.9 - Phil Simms
127.9 - Doug Williams
117.1 - Jake Delhomme
66.9 - Dan Marino
64.1 - Ben Roethlisberger
59.3 - John Elway
34.7 - Johnny Unitas

In closing, I’ll say this. Quarterbacks are judged by how they perform in the Super Bowl for better or worse. Dan Marino was one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history and set numerous records in his career. The thing that many people judge him by though is that he only played in one Super Bowl and got blown out by the 49er’s.

For comparison, without looking it up (I had to) guess how many World Series Ted Williams and Hank Aaron combined to play in and win. Williams is widely considered to be one of the best hitters of all time and Hank Aaron courageously endured unimaginable persecution en route to the all time home run title. Neither of their careers seems to be defined by the number of World Series that they played in or won.

How a player performs in the playoffs and league championships should be used as a tool to help define who the player was. It should not completely define who a player was or what their legacy is. It’s unfair to a great player like Dan Marino that his legacy is “tarnished” because of his Super Bowl record.

I’m all for it enhancing a player’s legacy (Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Terry Bradshaw, Bart Starr, and Kurt Warner amongst others), I just don’t like it replacing a player’s legacy.



















By the way, Ted Williams played in the 1946 World Series and did not win while Hank Aaron played in the 1957 and 1958 World Series against the Yankees and was victorious in 1957.