Ranking the Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks

Is Jalen Hurts the worst?

The Eagles beat the Chiefs 40–22 in the Super Bowl last night (February 9, 2025), and their quarterback Jalen Hurts was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Although he played a great game, any of several Eagles defenders could have won MVP. The defense dominated the first three quarters so completely that Hurts and the offense could put the game out of reach.

Hurts has his detractors. Although Hurts was fifth in passer rating and tenth in QBR in 2024, the Eagles don’t depend on his arm and he hasn’t been considered an elite quarterback in the same class as Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, or Joe Burrow.

That’s not unusual. Several Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks weren’t elite or at least weren’t considered elite early in their careers. But I wasn’t prepared to see a post on X last night saying Hurts was the worst quarterback to have won a Super Bowl. The account where I saw the post has only a few hundred followers. I chose not to engage in debate, but I began thinking about who were the best and worst quarterbacks to have started and won the Super Bowl.

I concluded that we have a good idea if we count the career as if the quarterback hadn’t won the Super Bowl. How do the quarterbacks who started and won a Super Bowl compare with each…