The NFL likes to pleasure itself on being a league of parity, the place any crew may be good in any season and fast turnarounds can occur with regularity. With regards to merely making the playoffs, that is perhaps the case.
However relating to attending to the Tremendous Bowl — and truly profitable it — a small handful of elite quarterbacks have utterly taken away the idea of parity.
Particularly within the AFC.
With the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ 32-29 win over the Buffalo Payments on Sunday, they’re within the Tremendous Bowl for the third 12 months in a row and the fifth time prior to now six years.
The largest cause for that run of success is the straightforward reality they’ve Patrick Mahomes at quarterback and no one else within the AFC does.
He’s the most important difference-maker yearly and in each massive sport, and he retains making sufficient performs to carry the Chiefs to the league’s largest stage.
It continues what has been a quarter-century run of dominance within the convention by a small variety of elite quarterbacks.
How small of a quantity? Over the previous 25 Tremendous Bowls, the AFC has solely had seven totally different quarterbacks begin within the sport.
The checklist:
- Tom Brady — began 9 Tremendous Bowls with the New England Patriots
- Patrick Mahomes — has now began 5 Tremendous Bowls with the Chiefs.
- Peyton Manning — began 4 Tremendous Bowls, making two appearances every with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos.
- Ben Roethlisberger — began three Tremendous Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers
- Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals), Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens) and Wealthy Gannon (Oakland Raiders) all began one every.
That’s it. That’s the total checklist of AFC Tremendous Bowl quarterbacks over the previous 25 years.
Solely three of them are nonetheless energetic, with solely Mahomes and Burrow nonetheless beginning. Flacco is technically nonetheless energetic, although it stays to be seen if he’ll play once more subsequent season.
By comparability, the NFC has had 20 totally different beginning quarterbacks within the Tremendous Bowl over that very same stretch (six of them are nonetheless energetic), with solely Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles), Eli Manning (New York Giants), Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) and Kurt Warner (Arizona Cardinals, St. Louis Rams) beginning multiple.
None of them have began greater than two throughout that stretch.
The factor in regards to the AFC is the run of dominance by elite quarterbacks really goes again even additional than simply this previous 25-year run that has been dominated by Mahomes, Brady, Peyton Manning and Roethlisberger.
The 15 years earlier than that solely noticed eight totally different beginning quarterbacks as John Elway (5), Jim Kelly (4), Trent Dilfer, Steve McNair, Drew Bledsoe, Neil O’Donnell and Boomer Esiason (all with one every) began video games. Meaning over a 40-year run of Tremendous Bowls, the AFC has solely had 15 totally different quarterbacks within the sport.
The NFC has greater than doubled that quantity (31) over that stretch.
The NFL would possibly very properly be a league of parity to a sure level, however what it really is is a league of quarterbacks. When you’ve got an elite quarterback, you might be all the time going to have an opportunity to win all of it. The issue is definitely getting one in all them in your crew. Quite a lot of groups suppose they may have one. However solely a small handful of them really do. Particularly within the AFC.
