Grossman was no where near average, he was fucking terrible. Over his career he's thrown more interceptions than tds. With the way the nfl is today you have to be pretty awful for that to happen. As for super bowl QBs from 95 onwards, I'm not sure they back up your theory. In order they are: - Steve Young '95 - Troy Aikman '96 - Brett Favre '97 - John Elway '98 - John Elway '99 - Kurt Warner '00 - Trent Dilfer '01 - Tom Brady '02 - Brad Johnson '03 - Tom Brady '04 - Tom Brady '05 - Ben Roethlisburger '06 - Peyton Manning '07 - Eli Manning '08 - Ben Roethlisburger '09 - Drew Brees '10 - Aaron Rodgers '11 - Eli Manning '12 - Joe Flacco '13 So 12 out of 19 teams had elite QBs, and nearly all the rest had above average QBs. Of course, those teams had other great players as well. Look, if you're just saying everything else combined is more important than the QB position, well no shit, but if you're really trying to argue it's not the most important position that's obviously not true. And how many average/below average QBs are you seeing there? Maybe Dilfer and Johnson(although Johnson had a phenomenal season that year). You could add flacco and Eli Manning, but claiming they're average might be a stretch, and that would still leave a huge minority of average QBs.
The problem is that there is a severe lack of competent quarterbacks in the league. Teams aren't looking to replace guys like Flacco, Wilson, Cutler, or Rivers. No one is calling for Ryan Nassib in New York, and Alex Smith probably doesn't lose his job unless injury forces them to give Kaepernick a shot. Bad teams start a rebuild around a quarterback because no other position can make as big of an impact. Just ask Andrew Luck. It also helps that a qb will probably be around long enough that he still has plenty left in the tank by the time you finish acquiring the other pieces.
Yeah, looking at that list, I see that between 14 and 17 of the years were won by quarterbacks who will be in the Hall of Fame.
Also, it's worth pointing out that if you have a top 3 defense and some good skills positions players on offense you might win a super bowl with an average QB. If your QB is below average, it's borderline impossible, regardless of how strong the team is elsewhere.
I'm going to stand by my previous statement that Kurt Warner was not an elite QB. The same can be said of Eli. I'm going to leave Rodgers off as well since he hasn't been playing long enough to call either way. When I said QB's that went to the Superbowl, I wasn't talking about just the ones who won. Look on the opposite side of that list. Yes, the argument can be made that the reason the teams that won with elite QB's did so is because they had an elite QB, but I'd argue that there is an even amount of elite vs average QB's that have won, so there must be something else at work. I'd also like to point out the person on that list who has won and been to the most Superbowls is Tom Brady. 6th round draft pick Tom Brady. So it begs the question, is Brady really an elite QB or is he the product of having the rest of the pieces in place that make him WAY better than he really is? I'll throw out 7th round draft pick who never started a college game Matt Cassel, who had an 11-5 season and then turning into a complete bust since as a little piece of evidence that QB's are not what you build a team around.
OK, but a lot of QBs get put in because of injury. Some of them end up being decent, but most are terrible. Very few of them end up being Tom Brady. Sure, Brady didn't carry the team single-handedly.... but the Patriots were 5-11 the year before he took over, and the first week, they lost to a Bengals team that went 6-10 for the year. And if we're using draft position, then Isaac Bruce was drafted in the second round, Terrell Owens and Hines Ward in the third round, Cris Carter in the fourth, Marques Colston in the seventh, and Rod Smith not at all. And that's just wide receivers. You can play the same game at other positions (see: Terrell Davis, Matt Birk, Shannon Sharpe, Richard Sherman, Zach Thomas, Jason Taylor, Rodney Harrison, etc.). Evaluating NFL talent is really hard, and people frequently get it wrong. Using the draft position of a player as an indicator of ability level when there's over a decade of actual NFL evidence on the table is silly.
Evaluating talent is ridiculously hard which is why you don't need to put all your effort into finding that one elite QB out of the hundreds that are out there. I'm not smart enough, nor have enough total knowledge of football to evaluate what stats would mean the most when you added them all together that gives you the best chance at winning games, but I can without a doubt state you don't need an elite QB to win.
Here's the list of losers over the same span: Stan Humphries Neil O'Donnell Drew Bledsoe Brett Favre Chris Chandler Steve McNair Kerry Collins Kurt Warner Rich Gannon Jake Delhomme Donovan McNabb Matt Hasselbeck Rex Grossman Tom Brady Kurt Warner Peyton Manning Ben Roethlisberger Tom Brady Colin Kaepernick I'm not going to speak for the beginning of the list because I was too young to remember it, but most of those guys (excepting Grossman) were either consistently above average QBs or had monster seasons that year. The same Matt Cassel who took the Chiefs to the playoffs in the one year where half his teammates didn't miss most of the season with injuries? Anyway, if you don't build your team around a quarterback then where do you start? Defense like the Rex Ryan Jets? Or Do you draft a stud left tackle like the Browns and Dolphins both have done recently? The simple fact is that guys like Andrew Luck and RGIII turned terrible teams into playoff contenders, and no other single position upgrade can make that kind of impact. The Colts actually let a lot of there better veterans go before last year and still improved significantly. You don't need an elite quarterback to win, but you have almost no shot without at least an above average one. And an elite one can give you a lot more wiggle room in case your team does have a few deficiencies due to injuries or guys who don't pan out.
I agree you don't need an excellent QB to win a Super Bowl. That doesn't mean you should try to do it. Not having a Pro Bowl caliber QB vastly decreases your likelihood of success in winning a Super Bowl. It is theoretically possible to win in almost every single possible conceivable way, and the recent Super Bowl evidence supports that. You can win without a rushing attack, without a great quarterback, without a passable offensive line, or without a defense. Just because you theoretically can do something doesn't mean it has a high probability of success. For example, the 2003 Patriots didn't have a running back worth a damn (their leading rusher was under 650 yards with less than 4 yards a carry). The 2000 Rams couldn't stop anyone to save their life (literally dead last in the NFL in points allowed). The 2007 Steelers and 2010 Packers couldn't really run the ball or protect their quarterback, so who knows what the fuck their offensive line did all week. The 2011 Patriots were a sticky helmet away from winning a title with Reche Caldwell. I'm not going to bother figuring out who the worst punter to win a Super Bowl recently was, but I bet at least one of them sucks. Edit: Oh, hey, what do you know, the 2003 Patriots were second to last in the NFL in yards per punt.
Ok, now you're just being ridiculous. If you want to claim Warner isn't elite you're actively ignoring nearly a decade worth of seasons out of convenience, but even if you try to make that case you can't call him average. I never said that Eli Manning was elite, I actually said the opposite and let you claim him as average (which isn't really true, but whatever), so I'm not sure what your point is there. Rodgers is in his sixth season as a starter, and he's been great every year. I think he's proven himself at this point. The most absurd part of this post though is your questioning Tom Brady. First, it doesn't matter at all where he was drafted. How the hell would that be relevant? It doesn't matter if he was undrafted or taken first overall when you have over a decade of playing time to look at. He's also performed well with multiple different supporting casts. Cassel had a decent season with New England. He also missed the playoffs a year after they made the super bowl, and threw less than half as many TDs as Brady did the previous year, and one of his seasons with KC was better than that year with New England, so no, he wasn't a complete bust after he left. And of course Cassel was going to play a little better with NE's offense than he would somewhere else(was anyone disputing that a strong supporting cast helps???). They set the record for total points on offense the previous season. In any case I shouldn't even have to point any of that out because if you're really trying to use Tom Brady having the most super bowl wins as an example to support your argument you might as well just concede it. Come on, if you want to argue a theory you can't just throw out the results you don't like. The fact is, the vast majority of QBs on that list are well above average and you know it. Of course a team needs more than one good player to win it all, but a star QB is the holy grail of the NFL. It's not that every GM in the league is confused. No, you don't, but it is the most important component. See my post after the first response and what Clutch/Cowbell wrote.
Let me clear up some points. I really don't think Kurt Warner is an elite QB. We could argue back and forth, but he was a product of an insane offense for a few years (one in which he was injured for half of and Trent Green filled in without missing a beat), a lackluster performance in NY, and then another Superbowl on a team that included edgerrin James, Fitzgerald, Boldin, and an above average defense. I restate my initial claim. Average QB. 2 RB's that can catch out of the backfield, but don't need to be dominate in the run game. Two sure handed receivers (WR or TE). A good kick returner. Two above average guards. Above average defense. If I was building a team, I'd start at the two guards, grab the running backs and receivers next, fill my defense out, get my kick returner, and then fill in a QB. Basically what the Chiefs are this year. I've said it before, Alex Smith is a garbage QB, but he works well in a system where most of the decision making is taken out of his hands. It's not the most exciting brand of football out there, but it gets the job done. I don't profess to know the magic formula you'd look at to determine how to put a team together, which is why I said it would be interesting to see someone go the moneyball route and put together a team that wasn't formed around needing to waste energy looking for an "elite" QB. The reason I brought up Brady and Cassel's draft status was to further along the point that trying to find an elite QB and building a team around them is a backward way of thinking, even though it's the prevalent thought process of just about every front office in football.
The 'above average' defense you referred to was ranked 28th in points allowed per game that season. Above average indeed. Of course subsequent QBs repeated Warner's success in Arizona... except they didn't. Then, you seriously said you would prioritize getting a kick returner over a QB in an era where teams kick off from the 35 and the majority of kicks aren't even returned. I can't even. I'm sorry dude, but your analysis of the game is downright horrid.
You don't just return kickoffs. If you have a good defense you'll be receiving a lot of punts and a good returner who can consistently get you great field position is a game changer. *Arizona lost a lot of their key players after Warner left. When you go from Edgerrin James to Beanie Wells as your RB and you lose Boldin, what do you expect? They did though make it far in 2009 and were beat by the eventual Superbowl champs who had...two sure handed receivers, a RB that could catch out of the backfield, a good kick returner, in this case an above average QB, and although it gave up a lot of points, a defense that had one of the highest turnover ratios that year.
You pretty much just described the Cincinnati Bengals, and I don't think anyone but Ballsack actually expects them to win it all this year.
I'll also point out that Arizona gave up a good cornerback and a 2nd round draft pick for Kevin Kolb. Awesome moves trying to chase the dragon of finding that elite QB.
To be fair he also doesn't really know how to coach college players, as evidenced by his 68-67 lifetime NCAA coaching record and 28-48 record in conference games. I think the most obvious reason to get rid of him, though, is that at this point he is actively making players resent the team, and that can't be helpful from a front office standpoint. Why would anyone want to stay with or join a team that stands by this asshole?