thependulumswings

Last week we wrote the following.

Should one or two slight upsets occur, Jared Goff and Tom Brady would lead either or both of the Rams and Patriots to the very lovely(ahem) and picturesque, beautiful Atlanta.  Therefore, regardless of the outcome of the games, a “franchise” quarterback will eventually lead his team to the podium to cherish the coveted Lombardi Trophy.  Brady and Brees are the old guard great qbs.  Goff and Mahomes are the up and coming ones.

Roger Goodell will (we hope and think) get booed loudly prior to the presentation.  But, we digress.

Super Bowl winners come in different shapes and sizes, but they usually have two things in common.  One, they have a real good or great coach.  And two, they have a real good or great quarterback.  There are outliers of course.  So, who might be those outliers?

We continue to examine those very questions in our run up to the Super Bowl features continuing today.  Today we examine the question “who is the worst quarterback to have won a Super Bowl?”  Our take from bad to worse is in reverse order below.

3.  (tie) Mark Rypien– Rypien led the Washington Redskins to a 37-24 SB win over the Buffalo Bills in 1991.  The sixth round pick by the Skins in 1986 started for only 5 years, won just 47 games, and completed a modest 56% of his career pass attempts.  His team bettered the Bills led by Jim Kelly who we selected as the third best QB to have played in but never won a Super Bowl.  His career passing rating is 78.9.  That’s 80th all-time for qb’s who have met the minimums to qualify.  He’s tied with Byron Leftwich.  Ouch.

3.  (tie) Jeff Hostetler– A real gamer Hostetler filled in for half of a season and the playoffs for Phil Simms.  He rode a dominate Bill Parcells defense to a 20-19 triumph over the Jim Kelly led Bills a year before Rypien did the same.  He won only 51 games as a starter(4 years) in his career and completed 58% of his passes.  He did get one trip to Hawaii for a Pro Bowl.  His 16k career yards ranks 136th just 100 yards ahead of one Rodney Peete. Ouch.

2.  Trent Dilfer– Dilfer was a first round pick of the TB Buccaneers in 1994.  After moving to the Baltimore Ravens he won a ring with them punishing the New York Football Giants 34-7.  In the 4-0 playoff run that year he threw for only three touchdowns.  He basically stayed out-of-the-way of one of the most dominant defenses in NFL history led by Ray Lewis.  For his career Dilfer threw 129 interceptions v 113 touchdowns and completed only 56% of his attempts.  His 70.2 passer rating is 149th all time and ranks below Rex Grossman.  Ouch.

1.  Doug Williams- Williams also was a first round pick of the TB Buccaneers.  As a starter in his nine-year career he lost 42 and won only 38 games.  After TB he went to Washington and played lights out in SB XXI whipping John Elway and the Denver Broncos 42-10.  He threw 100 NFL TD’s against 93 picks.  His passer rating was a quite low 69.4.  His 49 percent career completion percentage held true to form in the 1987 playoff run to the SB as he completed 49% of those attempted as well.  It was a bit of a different era back then, but 49% is 49%.  Ouch.

No NFL level quarterback is bad.  But relatively speaking these four “bad ones” won the biggest game of them all.

Some how. Some way.