Want to win the Super Bowl? Get a Hall-of-Fame Quarterback!

If your favorite NFL team wants to win a Super Bowl, your best chance of winning should include having an NFL Hall-of-Fame caliber quarterback at the helm.  It’s true, and I have the statistics below to back-up my claim.

By every Super Bowl decade, your team will have its best chance to win with a Hall-of-Fame level quarterback running the offense.  In the first 10 Super Bowls, every winning quarterback eventually became an NFL Hall-of-Famer.  In subsequent Super Bowl Roman Numeral decades, a team with a future Hall-of-Fame quarterback won at least 60% of the time.  Out of 51 Super Bowl games played, an NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback has led the winning team 68.63% of the time.

For the most recent decade, I have made a few assumptions:

1.  Tom Brady = a virtual lock for Hall-of-Fame, so I have indicated him as a Hall-of-Famer
2.  Peyton Manning = ditto
3.  Drew Brees – based on his career NFL records/stats and 1 Super Bowl win, he’s likely in.
4.  Aaron Rodgers – same as Brees above, but just a little bit less likely due to injuries, bad TV commercials, etc.

I’m currently NOT including 2-time Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger as a “lock” nor the NY Giants 2-time SB winner, Eli Manning, as future Hall-of-Famers.  Winning 2 Super Bowls during your career does not guarantee that you will be inducted into the NFL’s Hall-of-Fame (see also: Jim Plunkett).  Seattle’s Russell Wilson is certainly moving up the potential Hall-of-Fame chart every year and, with another Super Bowl win, could likely position himself for entry into the golden circle once his career ends.

Given Ben’s off-the-field issues several years ago, Eli’s great years/terrible years at quarterback, and Russell’s relative youth, I had to draw the line somewhere.

The moral of this story?  As the playoff season nears, and your team has a quarterback named Brady, Brees, or Rodgers running the show, your statistical chances of hoisting the championship trophy are higher than the other teams without a Hall-of-Fame level quarterback.

Here is the complete list of all 51 Super Bowl winning quarterbacks and whether they made (or should soon make) the NFL Hall-of Fame.