Fan Essentials: Best Super Bowl Quarterback Of All Time
Tom Bogert, CBS Local Sports
With names floating around such as Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson, choosing just one man from the illustrious list of Super Bowl winning quarterbacks will always spark debate and will almost never have a wrong answer*.
*Unless that answer is the aforementioned Dilfer or Johnson.
Thankfully, none of the five personalities queried of who they believe to be the best Super Bowl quarterback of all time is, chose Dilfer nor Johnson.
Damon Amendolara of CBS Sports Radio said there's simply only two options for the greatest Super Bowl quarterback of all time: Joe Montana or Tom Brady. Amendolara leans in Montana's favor over Brady.
Montana was the victor of four Super Bowls, loser of none. He passed for 11 touchdowns and 0 interceptions across those four contests. In his last Super Bowl, XXIV, Montana threw five touchdowns and 0 picks in a 55-10 drubbing of the Denver Broncos.
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Brady may not have gotten Amendolara's nod, but CBS NFL analyst Rich Gannon and Tiki Barber of CBS Sports Radio call Brady the best Super Bowl quarterback of all time.
New England has appeared in six Super Bowls with Brady, all of which were cracking, close contests. Brady could've easily been 2-4 or 6-0. In actuality, Brady is 4-2. For what it's worth, he's 4-0 against teams that aren't the New York Giants.
In three of Brady's four triumphs, he was named Super Bowl MVP. In those six games, he's compiled a 66.4 passing percentage, 1604 passing yards and a touchdown to interception ratio of 13:4.
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WFAN's Joe Benigno, while wearing a New York Jets jacket, said the best Super Bowl quarterback ever had to be Phil Simms. He wasn't even gnashing his teeth in the midst of that proclamation.
The New York Giants legend posted one of the best singular performances in Super Bowl history, leading the Giants to a 39-20 defeat of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI. Simms threw as many incompletions, three, as he did touchdowns. All in all, Simms finished the day with 268 yards completing 22 of his 25 passing attempts.
Simms will sit next to Jim Nantz as the color commentator for CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl 50, but Nantz doesn't reckon his NFL on CBS broadcast partner is the best Super Bowl quarterback of all time. That distinction goes to John Elway in the eyes of Nantz.
Elway, who saved his best performance for last, appeared in five Super Bowls, winning his final two, the last two seasons of his storied career. Elway won the MVP trophy for Super Bowl XXXIII after throwing for 336 yards with one passing touchdown, one rushing touchdown and one interception en route to his Denver Broncos defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-19.
The tipping point for Nantz was the cinematic nature of the last one. An MVP level performance, Super Bowl victory and retirement. Going out on top.
Nantz sees the possibility of the same situation happening with Elway watching as Peyton Manning plays in what could be his last game ever.
Meanwhile, Carolina Panther fans see the possibility of an even more ruthless repeat of Manning's most recent Super Bowl when the Seattle Seahawks disparaged Manning and the Broncos 43-8.
Stark contrast.
Somewhere, Josh Norman has probably already said that Cam Newton is the best Super Bowl winning quarterback ever.
