There’s been a lot of talk over the past week about the quarterbacks taken in the draft, the schools they played for, how much they won in college, and the level of competition they faced. That got me thinking: does any of that actually matter when it comes to success in the NFL?

 

So, I did some digging into the history of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, and a few surprising patterns emerged:

1. No quarterback since Joe Montana (1977) has started for both a collegiate national championship team and a Super Bowl-winning team. (And no, Jalen Hurts doesn’t count, he didn’t start in Alabama’s national title game.) That’s nearly 50 years without a single example.
2. Traditional powerhouses, “blue blood” programs, have rarely produced Super Bowl-winning QBs in the past 20–30 years.
3. Some of the most hyped college programs; Texas, Florida, Clemson, USC, Ohio State, Penn State, and LSU, have never produced Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks.
4. The last quarterback to win both the Heisman Trophy and a Super Bowl Champion was Jim Plunkett in 1981.
5. No quarterback has ever won a Heisman, a national championship, and started as a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Joe Burrow has come the closest recently.

 

So what does this all mean?

It means that where a quarterback played in college, who they played against, and even what they won doesn’t necessarily translate to NFL success. Winning in the pros is about talent, intelligence, and drive, not just past accolades or who your opponents were.

For perspective: of the 34 different quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl, they’ve come from 28 different colleges. The most any single school has produced is three, and that’s Alabama and Purdue.

But wait, didn’t I say blue blood programs don’t produce successful NFL QBs? Look at Alabama, they’ve had three Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. True, but the last one was in 1976. That’s 49 years ago, nearly two full generations.

 

 

Note to General Managers and NFL Decision-Makers:

You may want to think twice before hitching your franchise’s future to a Heisman winner or a quarterback who just led a stacked team to a college national championship. The data simply doesn't support the idea that these accolades translate into long-term success in the NFL.

Since 1977, no quarterback has started for both a college national championship team and a Super Bowl-winning team. Not one. And when it comes to Heisman winners? The last to win a Super Bowl as a starting quarterback was Jim Plunkett, over four decades ago. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a trend.

Why is that? One explanation is that quarterbacks on powerhouse college teams often play in near-perfect conditions. They’re surrounded by elite talent on both sides of the ball, have top-tier coaching, and rarely face adversity on the field. They don’t get sacked much. They’re not trailing late in games. Their receivers are often wide open. In short, they aren’t forged by fire.

But the NFL is fire. It’s chaos, speed, pressure, and adversity on every down. Quarterbacks need more than a big arm or a trophy case, they need resilience, problem-solving, leadership, and grit. Traits that are often sharpened by losing seasons, broken plays, and battling through tough rosters in college.

So instead of focusing on shiny résumés, GMs should be asking: Has this quarterback ever had to carry a team? Has he been punched in the mouth and responded? Has he led a two-minute drill when everything was falling apart?

The ones who have, regardless of school prestige or college trophies, are usually the ones who make it.