Joe Burrow lost a Super Bowl a week ago today, but few tears were shed for him. He's 25 years old and has a lot of young talent around him, so surely he'll have more chances to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Even if recent history is against him.
I saw this Factoid online, attributed to CBS Sports (though it's possible others have done ones similar). It pointed out the ugly statistic that the last 16 quarterbacks to lose their first Super Bowl never even got back there, as a starting quarterback anyway. The last one to do it was Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills, who of course got back there three times after losing, only to lose again.
Since then? Two quarterbacks who lost their first Super Bowls returned to the big games, but both were backups. Neil O'Donnell was Steve McNair's backup the year the Titans lost to the Rams, and Drew Bledsoe watched Tom Brady lead the upset of those Rams two years later.
Here's the ugly history of those last 16 quarterbacks to lose their debut Super Bowls.
| FIRST-TIME SUPER BOWL LOSERS, 1994-PRESENT | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | Super Bowl | Season | Comment |
| Stan Humphries | L, 49-26 | 1994 | Threw 4 interceptions in lone playoff start the rest of his career. |
| Neil O'Donnell | L, 27-17 | 1995 | After 3-interception faceplant, never started another playoff game. |
| Drew Bledsoe | L, 35-21 | 1996 | Returned to Super Bowl five years later! As Tom Brady's backup. |
| Chris Chandler | L, 34-19 | 1998 | No one understands how Atlanta got there that year. Chandler never started another playoff game. |
| Steve McNair | L, 23-16 | 1999 | Lost to four different teams in ensuing postseasons. |
| Kerry Collins | L, 34-7 | 2000 | Lost ensuing 2 playoff starts. |
| Rich Gannon | L, 48-21 | 2002 | 37 at the time, he won just 4 more games before retiring. |
| Jake Delhomme | L, 32-29 | 2003 | Almost: Lost NFC Championship to Seattle three years later. |
| Donovan McNabb | L, 24-21 | 2004 | So close! His Eagles had a fourth-quarter lead over Kurt Warner's Cardinals in NFC Championship three years later. |
| Matt Hasselbeck | L, 21-10 | 2005 | Won games in three more postseason, but just one in each. |
| Rex Grossman | L, 29-17 | 2006 | Well, he's Rex Grossman. Won 2 more games in Chicago. |
| Colin Kaepernick | L, 34-31 | 2012 | Never had winning record again. Playing career shortened by controversy. |
| Cam Newton | L, 24-10 | 2015 | Team struggled a year later; Newton's career derailed by injuries. |
| Matt Ryan | L, 34-28 | 2016 | Team imploded after heartbreak. |
| Jared Goff | L, 13-3 | 2019 | Goff could get still get there one day. But probably not. |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | L, 31-20 | 2020 | If starting for Tampa Bay next year, you never know. |
| Joe Burrow | L, 23-20 | 2021 | Former No. 1 overall pick seems plenty capable of breaking the string. |
It's easy -- exceedingly easy -- to say that Burrow is much better than most of those players. Only three of the 16 were No. 1 overall draft picks, and a whole lot of the ones were outpunching their weight even to get that far. Burrow has little in common with the Humphries, Chandlers and Grossmans of the world.
It's a reminder, though, that getting to Super Bowls isn't easy. Every year that Burrow gets to the playoffs, he'll need to win 2-3 games just to make it to the big game, and those opponents will likely be led by comparable or superior quarterbacks -- guys like Josh Allen (who's already finding out how tough it is to even get to a Super Bowl) and Patrick Mahomes.
I feel pretty good about Burrow getting there again in the next 5-10 years, but I'm pretty sure I said that about Dan Marino in the 80s, too.
--Andy Richardson