TAMPA, Fla. — There’s a lesson to be learned in Super Bowl 56, although I’m not sure how reassuring it is.
The participants, once again, have reminded us of the unmistakable relationship between the NFL’s biggest game and the eternal quest to find a franchise quarterback.
In 2019, the Bengals had the league’s worst record and a 30-year dry spell when it came to postseason victories. They got Joe Burrow with the first pick in the draft and, boom, they’re in the Super Bowl.
“He’s able to elevate his teammates, his coaches around him, to believe that special things are possible,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said during a Zoom interview this week.
A year ago, the Rams had the NFL’s best defense but couldn’t get past the division round of the playoffs. They traded for Matthew Stafford in the offseason and, boom, they’re in the Super Bowl.
“What he’s done, he’s elevated everybody around him. He’s made me a better coach. He’s made his teammates better. He’s such a great person,” Rams coach Sean McVay said.
This all sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
A year ago, Bruce Arians and players in the Tampa Bay locker room were talking about Tom Brady in near-identical terms. Just like Burrow and Stafford today, Brady had changed the vibe and expectations of a franchise merely by putting on a new uniform.
“You hear it, you kind of wonder can someone really change the culture that much,” Bucs co-owner/chairman Joel Glazer asked rhetorically last off-season. “Absolutely.”
In that sense, the last two Super Bowls can be construed as evidence of hope. No matter how many stains are on your won-loss record, you might be one quarterback away from the promised land.
On the other hand, the top dozen NFL quarterbacks in terms of average salary are all sitting at home this weekend, which goes a long way toward explaining how infuriating the search can be.
The last time the Bengals were in the Super Bowl in the late 1980s, their quarterback was Boomer Esiason. Since then, they’ve had 31 different players start at quarterback.
They used the first pick in the 2003 draft (Carson Palmer), the third pick in 1999 (Akili Smith) and the sixth pick in 1992 (David Klingler) in a futile search for that big-game star. The Bucs, similarly, used first-round picks on Josh Freeman and Jameis Winston and never saw the playoffs with either quarterback.
The point is, as the Bengals and Rams are preparing to battle for the Lombardi Trophy Sunday evening, the Bucs are again at a crossroads when it comes to a quarterback.
Brady has retired, which means Tampa Bay will be savior shopping this spring. In the early 2000s, that typically meant identifying and grooming a college player. Beginning in 2003, 11 of the next 12 Super Bowl winners had drafted their own quarterback, and usually near the top of the first round.
But, starting with Peyton Manning’s rebirth in Denver in 2015, three quarterbacks have won the Super Bowl within a year or two of signing a free-agent deal. If Stafford beats the Bengals, that would make four newly acquired quarterbacks in seven years to have won a Super Bowl.
Would you call that a trend or a quirk?
Personally, I’d call it a possibility.
Even if you look at Jimmy Garoppolo or Carson Wentz or Kirk Cousins or Winston as poor imitations of franchise quarterbacks, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of something miraculous happening in Tampa Bay in 2022. Perhaps, they just need the right roster at the right moment to define their careers.
Stafford, after all, spent a dozen years in Detroit without winning a postseason game. And then, in a matter of days from Jan. 17-30, he went 3-0 in the playoffs, averaging 301.7 yards per game and throwing six touchdowns with just one interception.
“It’s hard for me to put into words how much he’s impacted our team and myself personally,” said Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell. “I’m so excited for him to have this opportunity, he’s worked so hard to get here. We wouldn’t want anybody else leading us out there on Sunday.”
Burrow, meanwhile, took a team that finished 29th in the NFL in scoring in 2020 and put the Bengals in the top 10 this season.
“What stands out for Joe Burrow is exactly what I always thought stood out for Joe Montana,” NBC analyst and three-time Pro Bowl receiver Cris Collinsworth said on a conference call this week. “And that’s presence, in the moment when it matters most and when his team needs a play, when he needs to escape the rush. He just has had a lot of that.”
Just like Brady and the Buccaneers a year ago, a quarterback has changed everything for a team about to win a Super Bowl.
And, once again, the Bucs find themselves in need of a similar quarterback.
What are the odds it can happen again in Tampa Bay?
