There is an ongoing list of great players who have never won a championship during their careers. Despite the outstanding numbers put up by Dan Marino, he never won a championship. So am I writing off Marino as a bad player? Absolutely not, but I do want to make the point that a superstar player can be a loser, but still be a superstar. There is a difference between being an amazing athlete and being a winner; the two do not always go hand and hand.
Old school.
I find that the two easiest sports where you can separate the winners from the losers are in football and basketball. In football, however, the only position where you can easily decipher who is a winner and who is a loser, is the quarterback. Obviously, this makes sense because the quarterback touches the ball on 99% of the plays on offense and is the most important player on the team.
When I think of losers in the NFL, my mind immediately links to Tony Romo, Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler. These are great NFL quarterbacks, do not get me wrong, but they will never win the Super Bowl because they are losers. Whether it is Romo muffing a hold in the playoffs, Rivers and the Chargers always finding a way to fold in the postseason, or Cutler always ending up throwing countless picks on the way to a disappointing year, these players always find a way to lose when it matters most.
Don't eat buttered popcorn during a game. Idiot.
On the flip side, there are winners in the NFL, too. A few players come to mind, like Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger, but where do you draw the line? Obviously, Roethlisberger and Brady have won multiple Super Bowls, but what about the quarterbacks who have just won one? Or the ones who have come close but never sealed the deal? I am thinking of players such as Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb. For these players, it is difficult to decide what to label them; winner or loser.
Peyton Manning has won a Super Bowl, but it was over Rex Grossman, who is... Rex Grossman. Otherwise, he has lost in the playoffs to the Patriots, Steelers and Saints in recent years when the Colts were the favored team. But I see Manning as a John Elway type quarterback who will win one or two more championships towards the end of his career.
Brees is the kind of guy who was stuck in a losing environment in San Diego and then led the Saints to a Super Bowl in just a few years down in Louisiana. Now that I have mentioned San Diego as a losing environment, it brings up the question if Rivers is truly a loser or just stuck in Loserville. Honestly, we will never know until he either win a Super Bowl as a Charger or leaves to try his chances elsewhere. Because Rivers is a legitimately good quarterback, if he is not really a loser, he will ultimately prove himself a winner.
After all, he is the Lord of No Rings.
I think Favre's situation was that he is so good, it was inevitable that he would win one championship. But other than Super Bowl 31, he has habitually folded in the playoffs and in big games. It is also possible that Peyton Manning falls under this category if he fails to win another Super Bowl for the rest of his career, because he would pretty much be in the same situation as Favre.
At last we come to Donovan McNabb. Some would say he is a loser because he always choked in the playoffs and lost in the Super Bowl, but in all reality, he took the Eagles to places they had never been before. I would also argue that without McNabb, Philly would never have made it to four consecutive NFC conference championship games at all. And, in all reality, the Eagles were never an elite team while McNabb was at the helm. It is hard to believe McNabb could win anything with the Redskins at this point, but he should continue to have a productive career, just not achieve that championship season any time soon. Also, you have to wonder if Philadelphia is a losing franchise, like San Diego, and will just never win a Super Bowl, regardless of the quarterback or any other players.
Well, I do have a bizarre man crush on Donvan McNabb.
For all you oldies out there, some historic NFL losers include: Jim Kelly and Dan Marino. On the flip side, some NFL winners include: Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Steve Young and Troy Aikman. For obvious reasons, the winners won Super Bowls and the losers never did. Kelly was there for four straight years and never pulled out the win while Marino has some of the best passing statistics of all time, but no rings. Clearly, I do not have the credentials to say much more about quarterbacks before the 90s but I cannot think of any more blatant examples.
Joe Namath is still a stooge.
Come back to find out my winners and losers from other sports!
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