The NFL likes to pride itself on being a league of parity, where any team can be good in any season and quick turnarounds can happen with regularity. When it comes to simply making the playoffs, that might be the case.
But when it comes to getting to the Super Bowl — and actually winning it — a small handful of elite quarterbacks have completely taken away the concept of parity.
Specifically in the AFC.
With the Kansas City Chiefs’ 32-29 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, they are in the Super Bowl for the third year in a row and the fifth time in the past six years.
The biggest reason for that run of success is the simple fact they have Patrick Mahomes at quarterback and nobody else in the AFC does.
He is the biggest difference-maker every year and in every big game, and he keeps making enough plays to lift the Chiefs to the league’s biggest stage.
It continues what has been a quarter-century run of dominance in the conference by a small number of elite quarterbacks.
How small of a number? Over the past 25 Super Bowls, the AFC has only had seven different quarterbacks start in the game.
The list:
- Tom Brady — started nine Super Bowls with the New England Patriots
- Patrick Mahomes — has now started five Super Bowls with the Chiefs.
- Peyton Manning — started four Super Bowls, making two appearances each with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos.
- Ben Roethlisberger — started three Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers
- Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals), Joe Flacco (Baltimore Ravens) and Rich Gannon (Oakland Raiders) all started one each.
That is it. That is the entire list of AFC Super Bowl quarterbacks over the past 25 years.
Only three of them are still active, with only Mahomes and Burrow still starting. Flacco is technically still active, though it remains to be seen if he will play again next season.
By comparison, the NFC has had 20 different starting quarterbacks in the Super Bowl over that same stretch (six of them are still active), with only Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles), Eli Manning (New York Giants), Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) and Kurt Warner (Arizona Cardinals, St. Louis Rams) starting more than one.
None of them have started more than two during that stretch.
The thing about the AFC is the run of dominance by elite quarterbacks actually goes back even further than just this past 25-year run that has been dominated by Mahomes, Brady, Peyton Manning and Roethlisberger.
The 15 years before that only saw eight different starting quarterbacks as John Elway (five), Jim Kelly (four), Trent Dilfer, Steve McNair, Drew Bledsoe, Neil O’Donnell and Boomer Esiason (all with one each) started games. That means over a 40-year run of Super Bowls, the AFC has only had 15 different quarterbacks in the game.
The NFC has more than doubled that number (31) over that stretch.
The NFL might very well be a league of parity to a certain point, but what it truly is is a league of quarterbacks. If you have an elite quarterback, you are always going to have a chance to win it all. The problem is actually getting one of them on your team. A lot of teams think they might have one. But only a small handful of them actually do. Especially in the AFC.
