Before, during and after Sunday’s game between the Bengals and Rams, NFL fans often heard an approximation of the sentence, “This won’t be the last time Joe Burrow plays in a Super Bowl.”
Well, history indicates people are getting ahead of themselves.
Sure, Burrow might be the next Tom Brady, in that he could bring a perenially losing franchise from the depths of NFL irrelevance to annual contention. But Brady alone didn’t transform New England into a dynasty; he formed a one-two punch with Bill Belichick, the greatest coach in football history. Cincinnati might have a solid head coach in Zac Taylor, but he’s no Belichick.
But even if Burrow and Taylor prove to be one of the better quarterback-head coach duos in the league, that hardly guarantees them an opportunity to atone for their controversial Super Bowl LVI loss in Los Angeles — let alone eventually win a Lombardi Trophy.
As pointed out by Tucker Boynton, who uses his Twitter account to share various sports stats, it’s abnormal for a quarterback to win a Super Bowl after losing one. In the last 45 years, 27 QBs have lost at least one Super Bowl, but only four won one later in their respective careers:
— Tom Brady (twice)
— John Elway
— Peyton Manning
(Of course, Brady and Manning both won their first appearances in the Big Game.)
Furthermore, only five quarterbacks ever have made it back to a Super Bowl after losing one:
— Brady (three times)
— Elway (three times)
— Jim Kelly (three times)
— Peyton Manning (twice)
— Kurt Warner
And then there’s this list, which features some rather accomplished quarterbacks:
Obviously, what other quarterbacks have done in previous years does not impact what Burrow and the Bengals can or will do moving forward. They will create their own destiny.
But history is not on their side. Burrow certainly is good enough to overcome it, but he can’t do it alone.
