KB1122's Obvious but Essential Championship QB Rules, Ch. 2: Be 34 or Younger

[KB1122]

Continuing on from the first round thread, football fans wonder about a quarterback's championship window. There is a crazy way to get a good idea of how long it lasts - draw conclusions from the ages of the winning quarterbacks in the 47 Super Bowls. Here they are:


23 - 1
24 - 1
25 - 2
26 - 5
27 - 7
28 - 5
29 - 3
30 - 3
31 - 4
32 - 3
33 - 5
34 - 3
35 - 1
36 - 1
37 - 2
38 - 1



Source (with Aaron Rodgers' age corrected): http://football.about.com/cs/superbowl/a/sbquarterbacks.htm

Conclusions:
1) The Super Bowl championship window runs from 26 to 34, with a few exceptions.

2) If you're not going to be young, be good. The QBs that have won past the window have been best-of-era-ish types - Elway, Staubach, Unitas (with an assist from Morrall, who was 36 himself), with only Plunkett, in the strike shortened season, as an outlier.

3) This is my main reason for not wanting to extend Romo's contract. But there are very few quarterbacks I would extend beyond 34. Right now, maybe Brady or Manning, maybe.

4) Tony would appear to have one or two good years left on the window.

 

[whynot]

How about you do it again with seasons as starter? He doesn't have the miles on the clock that other 33yo QBs have. Although the porous OL seems to be trying to rectify that...

 

[Tricericon]

2) If you're not going to be young, be good. The QBs that have won past the window have been best-of-era-ish types - Elway, Staubach, Unitas (with an assist from Morrall, who was 36 himself), with only Plunkett, in the strike shortened season, as an outlier.

That's because, with a few exceptions, only the "best-of-an-era types" are good enough to hold down starting jobs at 36-38. Not because there is some playoff juju cutoff at 34.

 

[Hoofbite]

That's because, with a few exceptions, only the "best-of-an-era types" are good enough to hold down starting jobs at 36-38. Not because there is some playoff juju cutoff at 34.

BINGO!

If you're going to argue against Romo's extension do it based on the fact that most QBs don't succeed that late in their career, not based on an intermediary result that stems from this fact.

Cut out the middleman and get right to the heart of the issue.

 

[arglebargle]

Also, comparisons of the present to '60's era football have to be taken with a bit of salt.