Phil Simms: The highest QBR in Super Bowl history

With more than half of the MVPs in the Super Bowl being quarterbacks, it’s not surprising that the performance of each team’s QB plays an important role in a team’s chances to win a Super Bowl title.

Over the past several years football has used a QB Rating to help us quantify how well a QB has played in a game. The QBR can range from 0 to a “perfect” score of 158.3. While we have not had a “perfect” QBR in the 49-year history of the Super Bowl, there have been a couple of performances that came close.

New York Giants QB Phil Simms in 1987 had a QBR of 150.9 in the Giants 39-20 win over the Denver Broncos. That is the highest QBR of any QB in Super Bowl history. The Top Five QBRs in the Super Bowl after Simms: Joe Montana, San Francisco, 1990 (147.6), Jim Plunkett, Oakland, 1981 (145.0), Troy Aikman, Dallas, 1993 (140.7), Steve Young, San Francisco, 1995 (134.8).

There have been four QBs that had a Super Bowl QBR over 100 that lost the championship game. They are:

Jake Delhomme, Carolina, 2004… 113.6
Kurt Warner, Arizona, 2009… 112.3
Russell Wilson, Seattle, 2015… 110.6
Roger Staubach, Dallas, 1979… 100.4

The quarterback with the lowest QBR to win a Super Bowl was Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger in 2006. He had a 22.6 QBR in the Steelers’ 21-10 Super Bowl victory over the Seahawks. Next lowest is Denver’s John Elway in 1998 versus Green Bay; his QBR in that win was 51.9.

One final stat: There have been 99 quarterbacks that have attempted 10 or more passes in a Super Bowl game. Here’s the breakdown of each QB’s QBR and the record of the teams in those QBRs.

QBR over 100: 28 wins-4 losses (.875)
QBR 80-99.9: 14-9 (.609)
QBR 50-79.9: 5-21 (.192)
QBR under 50: 1-17 (.056)

• QBR of 90 or above: 36-8 (.818)
• QBR of 80 or above: 42-13 (.764)
• QBR under 80: 6-38 (.136)
• QBR under 60: 3-24 (.111)

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