Guaranteed History: How Special is this Super Bowl?

In the NFL, quarterbacks (rightfully and wrongly) receive disproportional credit and blame for their team's successes and failures, wins and losses. Never do the lights shine as brightly as at the Super Bowl, where a win vaults the QB into hallowed company and a loss adds tarnish to what is often a stellar career.

Here's the question I've been pondering this week:

How often does a Super Bowl pit two QBs on the verge of legend-dom against each other, so that (barring an injury that would take one of them out of the game and assuming they play well enough to deserve most of the credit they will get if they win) if either team wins we'll be talking about a new member of the "greatest NFL QBs ever" conversation come Monday?

As it stands, Roethlisberger is a wunderkind, having gone a ridiculous 51-20 during the regular season and 7-2 in the postseason in his 4 season in the league. Add to that the record-breaking start to his career and that Super Bowl victory in his 2nd season and to win a 2nd title - in a measly 4 years in the league! - will elevate him into the upper echelon of QBs, even if he doesn't yet possess the game-changing ability of a (P.) Manning or Brady.

Warner has taken a different path, but one no less amazing. The former Arena League standout and grocery guy has out-of-this-world passing yards and would, with a win on Sunday, provide an exclamatory bookend to his career, placing the 2008 Cardinals next to the 1999 Rams. Winning two titles 9 years apart, with two different teams, both massive underdogs during most of the season? That guy would be a legend as well.

For the purpose of this argument, I will exclude QBs who are looking for their first Super Bowl win (like Elway in '97) even if that win would somehow validate their career.

The parallels:
Super Bowl X - Terry Bradshaw (who had won IX the year before) facing off against Roger Staubach (who had won VI)
Super Bowl XIII - Bradshaw vs. Staubach deux
Super Bowl XVIII - Jim Plunkett (who won XV) vs. Joe Theismann (who won XVII)

That's it.

To that we might add the following other close parallels (ignoring the criterion of having already won one):
XXIV - Montana (with 3 wins in his pocket) vs. Elway (appearing in his 3rd Super Bowl in 4 years)
XXVIII - Aikman (gunning for the repeat) vs. Kelly (appearing in his 4th straight Super Bowl)
XXXII - Elway (4th Super Bowl appearance) vs. Favre (gunning for the repeat)

Come Sunday night, we'll see who's left standing, and - if the Steelers win - if Roethlisberger puts together a game to elevate him into Bradshaw/Montana/Brady conversation or "merely does enough to win," as if he were a doubly-miraculous version of Trent Dilfer or Brad Johnson.

But for the first time in 25 years we'll be guaranteed to welcome a new member into the elite club who have won more than one Super Bowl.