Only Great QBs Win Super Bowls

With very rare exceptions. The winners of the first ten Super Bowls (Starr, Starr, Namath, Dawson, Unitas, Staubach, Griese, Griese, Bradshaw, Bradshaw) are all in the Hall of Fame. Kenny Stabler is not in, but he's appeared on the finalist ballot a couple of times, then we get Staubach, Bradshaw, Bradshaw before hitting Jim Plunkett. Plunkett's a better candidate than most folks realize, with an 8-1 record as a postseason QB and two Super Bowl wins as a starter. Then we hit Montana's first SB win.

Joe Theismann is the first QB who won a Super Bowl who does not have much of a case as a Hall of Famer. Then we get Plunkett and Montana again. Jim McMahon was a fine player and certainly a star, but not quite HOF caliber. Ditto with Phil Simms and Doug Williams. Then it's Montana, Montana, then Jeff Hostetler who certainly appears to rank among the least likely SB winners. Mark Rypien was a fine player for several years and an amazing player for one, but like the other Redskin QBs nobody at his house is waiting by the phone for the call from Canton.

Then we get back into a long line of HOF-QBs: Aikman, Aikman, Young, Aikman, Favre, Elway, Elway. Kurt Warner's probably not going to get inducted, but he's had a hell of a career. Nobody thinks Trent Dilfer's going to be immortalized. Brady follows and then Brad Johnson for the "Huh?" crowd. Then Brady, Brady, Roethlisberger, and Manning.

Even among the guys who aren't going to Canton, most of them were highly anticipated players. Jim Plunkett won a Heismann at Stanford and was the #1 pick in the draft; Trent Dilfer and Doug Williams were first rounders for Tampa Bay, while Simms was a top draft pick of the Giants. Jim McMahon held all the NCAA records when he left college.

Now I am being a little unfair; some of these guys were completely unheralded until they started winning championships. Bart Starr was something like a 17th round draft pick, Len Dawson was cut by the Browns in 1958 and would have been nowhere without the AFL. Joe Montana, although a household name for his college football heroics, was a third-rounder. Nobody thought Tom Brady would develop into the player he has.