Now that the NFL has morphed into a pass-happy aerial circus, an even greater amount of importance and reverence (if that were even possible) has been heaped upon the quarterback position. You need a great quarterback to win in the NFL, so the logic goes, and the greatest quarterbacks win it all.
Recent history, it seems, only confirms this logic: Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning all boast a super bowl ring, and demigod quarterback Tom Brady has three. It's gotten to the point where pigskin-tossing greatness is seen as a product of owning championship hardware, not the other way round. Whenever the inevitable "greatest quarterback" conversation gets going, super bowl rings are the trump card.
"Sure, Marino had the stats, but Montana has the rings."
This line of thinking manifests on every level of sports banter, and can be seen among both NFL.com writers (Pat Kirwan comes to mind) and casual fans. And while I won't debate that great quarterbacks win championships – it's an evidently true statement – going around the other way and using championships (or, more broadly speaking, playoff success) as a means to gauge quarterback greatness is not only problematic and logically fuzzy, it's just plain wrong.
Winning in the NFL – especially come playoff time – takes a lot more than just good quarterback play. The running game, offensive line play, special teams, and especially the defense are all imperative, especially in the NFL's cold, outdoor playoff environments. Conflating quarterbacking greatness with playoff success – or, indeed, even regular season success – totally disregards the importance of these other phases of the game.
Case in point: Steelers quarterback and alleged rapist Ben Roethlisberger.
Roethlisberger, as I'm sure any football fans reading are aware, is invariably included in the "best current quarterbacks" discussion. Sure, he's not nearly as accurate as someone like Brees or Brady. And sure, he forces passes into coverage, holds onto the ball way too long (something that'd get him killed if he weren't the size of a linebacker), doesn't put up massive numbers, and doesn't actually play like an elite quarterback. There's one reason he's included in that "best quarterback" conversation, though: he's got two super bowl rings.
Actually, the Steelers defense – which ranked fourth in the league in 2005 (Ben's first ring), first in the league in 2008 (second ring), and second last year (could-have-been third ring) – won two super bowl rings. This isn't to say that Roethlisberger had nothing to do with those wins – the Steelers' fantastic defense just had more to do with them. Roethlisberger isn't a great quarterback so much as he is an above-average quarterback with a great defense to keep the game manageable.
Playoff "chokers," on the other hand, suffer from the reverse of this phenomenon. The one and only knock on Peyton Manning, despite all his statistical brilliance, has been that he "just doesn't win in the playoffs." As though that were entirely his fault, right?
During last season's playoffs, both Manning's Colts and Roethlisberger's Steelers played the New York Jets – Manning during the Wild Card Round and Big Ben during the AFC Championship game.
Manning's performance: a 95.7 quarterback rating and a loss.
Roethlisberger's performance: a 35.5 quarterback rating (including two interceptions) and a win.
Wow, it's almost as if something other than quarterback play impacted the outcome of the games, or something. (Like, say, the Steelers' defense, or Jim Caldwell's awful coaching.)
And while we're on the subject of Manning, can we please dispel the myth that Brady is unequivocally better because of his three rings? Both quarterbacks, to this point in their careers, have played 19 postseason games. Over these comparable careers, Manning has a higher completion percentage (63.1 to 62.2), more yards (5,389 to 4,407), a higher yards-per-attempt average (7.5 to 6.5), and a higher quarterback rating (88.4 to 85.7). The only statistical category in which Brady excels is the win column, and we can (mostly) chalk that up to a historically excellent Patriots' D and Belichick's coaching.
Even the best sports writers overlook this, though: ultimately, it's only the wins people remember, and it's (erroneously) the quarterback that gets all the credit for said wins.
"Sure, Manning had the stats, but Brady has the rings."
Well, though we may forget it, there are other players that touch the field beside the quarterbacks, and its time they got their due.
Email:eabenoit@buffalo.edu
