QBs Stafford, Burrow took differing paths to title game
LOS ANGELES — It’s difficult, if not impossible, to downplay the importance of having a top-level quarterback to win a Super Bowl. Or even get to it.
There are exceptions such as Jared Goff, Nick Foles and Rex Grossman, though Foles played like a superstar in early 2018. Generally, the biggest names, from Brady to Mahomes, Manning (Peyton) to Manning (Eli), Wilson to Roethlisberger are the biggest achievers.
Yet this Sunday’s Super Bowl features a QB considered more of a productive journeyman, Matthew Stafford, and a second-year phenom whose first pro season was shortened by a knee injury, Joe Burrow. That’s not the script we expect.
For a dozen seasons in Detroit, Stafford did his best, but other than Hall of Fame receiver Calvin Johnson, he didn’t have the help. He was lumped, probably unfairly given his work this season for the Rams, with the likes of Kirk Cousins, Alex Smith and Tony Romo.
Note that only one reached a Super Bowl, Smith as a backup to Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers in in the 2012 season.
Stafford deserves a re-evaluation, particularly if he guides the Rams to their first championship since Kurt Warner, another Hall of Famer, did so in the 1999 season while the team was based in St. Louis.
“We went out and got him because we thought it was a chance to be able to get a great player of his magnitude,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said, not regretting sending Goff, the top draft choice from Cal in 2016, and a slew of high picks to the Lions. “What he’s done, he’s elevated everybody around him. He’s made me a better coach. He’s made his teammates better.”
Burrow’s path has been a bit more familiar, blazed this century by Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes. Major success early in their careers, with rings.
That road has been made more passable to young QBs for a variety of reasons. The college game has become more wide open than the NFL, so they are more pro-ready passers. They also get on the field earlier than, say, when Aaron Rodgers spent three seasons behind Brett Favre in Green Bay.
Burrow is the real thing. Ask nearly anyone on any NFL team about him and the praise flows.
As it does, naturally, from the Bengals, who might be a year or so early in their arrival to the title game, but certainly have set the foundation for a champion.
“The leader in the huddle is just a stone-faced killer, like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go score this, we’re going to get the twopoint conversion afterward, and boom, that’s it,’ ” seven-year veteran tight end C.J. Uzomah, whose career blossomed in 2021 with Burrow. “You’re like, ‘Nice.’ Like, I love hearing that. Now I’m going to go back to doing what I need to do.
“So, yeah, I mean he’s the person. He’s the glue. He is the glue to this entire team, especially as an offense of just this is how it’s going to be, business as usual. Let’s go down and put points on the board. I don’t know how to put into words exactly other than what I just said, but he’s that guy.”
The NFL could use “that guy,” too. Brady and Roethlisberger hung it up a year after Drew Brees and Philip Rivers retired, two years after Eli Manning left the sport. Other QB icons — Rodgers, Wilson, Matt Ryan, Stafford — are on the far side of their careers.
So there’s plenty of room for Burrow and Justin Herbert, Josh Allen and Kyler Murray. That’s a good thing.