This article will not change your mind on what you think of Peyton Manning to the Seahawks. If you want him, you will read this article and say "so what?" If you don't want him, you may add a few more points to your stance.

Hopefully, this article can explore some NFL history, championship models, and more of Pete Carroll's philosophy. I know Danny, who is the reason why I write here, and whose opinion I respect, thinks it would be foolish to not explore Peyton Manning. I get that. My feel is that most Seahawks fan agree with Danny. This is a respectful counter-point.

On the record - I do not support Peyton Manning to the Seahawks. I do not support it because of age, fit, future QB development, injury history, team identity and money. I also do not support it because my interpretation of NFL history tells me that a Super Bowl winner is overwhelmingly a team in the midst of a run of sustained success. This sustained success, or 'mini-dynasty', is marked by multiple Super Bowl appearances and exact continuity at the quarterback and head coach position.

I want a young, drafted quarterback and I do not mind if the Seahawks draft one in Round 2 in 2012 and another one in Round 1 in 2013. I am a draft guy for many reasons I won't list here. Anyway, on to the article.

The media is rumoring Peyton Manning to the Seahawks. Let me throw some thoughts into that conversation. My first thought on that is this: no QB has won a Super Bowl with two different teams. Ever. The closest thing was Kurt Warner. My second thought: Super Bowl winning is overwhelmingly done by Mini-Dynasties.

I have a hard time seeing Peyton Manning forming a mini-dynasty with a new team at his age. John Elway was with his same team when he won those two late Super Bowls. We can leave the neck thing out of it, but let's talk about mini-dynasties.

THE MINI-DYNASTY

A mini-dynasty, as it pertains to this article, is a team with at least two Super Bowl appearances in four years. What I found, is that a vast majority of the time, mini-dynasties have the same head coach and same QB (eight out of ten times).

The idea of a dynasty is important to Seahawks fans because it's a big part of identity and personality the team's head coach espouses. It's the core goal - more important than anything, really. It's what 'Win Forever' is based on. Pete Carroll tells this story on his first win as an NFL head coach, on the road with the Jets at Buffalo - and the inception of the "Win Forever" concept.

"I noticed for the first time all of Buffalo's division championship banners on display- and it dawned on me that, while we had just won a game, since Coach Levy had been there, they had put up winning season after winning season, division championship after division championship. There must have been six or seven of them up there. And as I stood there congratulating myself on my brand new 1-0 record as an NFL head coach, it hit me: now that's success."

I did a study on the last 46 Super Bowl Winners and the all 92 Super Bowl Participants. You can see my chart here.

You know how Pete Carroll says 80-85% of the time, the team that wins the turnover battle, wins the game? How about this one - 80-85% of the time - the team that wins the Super Bowl appeared, or will appear, in another Super Bowl within four years - with the exact same head coach - and the exact same quarterback.

Most Seahawk fans would trade their right arm for one Super Bowl Ring. As for Pete Carroll - I think one is not enough. Additionally, I believe Pete has concluded that getting one Super Bowl ring typically involves being part of a larger sustained movement of success. Meaning - if you get one ring - typically you appear in at least two championship games. Again, most Super Bowls are won by mini-dynasties.

How can I say this another way - Super Bowl winners, a great majority of the time (80-85%), come with these three components:

(1) Another appearance in the Super Bowl within four years (past or future).
(2) Same Head Coach in those appearances.
(3) Same Quarterback in those appearances.

If you look at the chart - every line that is colored in means that team appeared in more than one Super Bowl in a four-year period. There is a lot of color on that chart - especially on the left side (the winning team side).

HISTORY

Here is a complete list of all historical Super Bowl/Coach/QB pairings (Mini-Dynasties):

(1) PACKERS - Super Bowl I and II: Vince Lombardi and QB Bart Starr (what more needs to be said?).
(2) CHIEFS - Super Bowl I and IV: Hank Stram and QB Len Dawson (They lost I to Green Bay and won Super Bowl IV).
(3) VIKINGS - Super Bowl IV, VIII, IX, XI: Bud Grant and QB Fran Tarkenton (They lost all four - but they were still a dynasty).

Pete Carroll writes about Bud Grant, whom he coached under, in Win Forever:

"One of the coaches I'm most proud to say I worked under was Bud Grant of the Minnesota Vikings. Coach Grant is the 3rd winningest professional football coach in history...his intuitive powers truly amazed me and I remain in awe of those abilities to this day."

(4) COWBOYS - Super Bowl V, VI, X, XII, XIII: Tom Landry and QB Roger Staubach (They won two and lost three; five appearances in nine years - impressive).
(5) DOLPHINS - Super Bowl IV, VII, VIII: Don Shula and QB Bob Griese/Earl Morrall (appeared in three straight Super Bowls, lost the first and won the next two)
(6) STEELERS - Super Bowl IX, X, XIII, XIV: Chuck Noll and QB Terry Bradshaw (appeared in four Super Bowls in six years, won all four).
(7) RAIDERS - Super Bowl XV, XVIII: Tom Flores and QB Jim Plunkett (dynasty somewhat related to Madden/Stabler of XI).
(8) 49ERS - Super Bowl XVI, XIX, XXIII, XXIV: Bill Walsh (3)/ George Seifert (1) and QB Joe Montana (I excluded Seifert/Young in XXIX but no doubt that win was related to these four).

Pete Carroll in Win Forever on Bill Walsh:

"Often, when I left his office, I felt the same way I had with Coach Grant in Minnesota: privileged to pick the brain of one of the great minds in my profession. It was though Coach Walsh let me in on his professional secrets."

On George Seifert: (a young Pete Carroll would visit Seifert before Seifert was head coach):

"George would let me sit in his office and ask questions about the NFL, the philosophy of former 49ers head coach, Bill Walsh, and overall defense"

(9) BRONCOS- Super Bowl XXI, XXII, XXIV: Dan Reeves and QB John Elway (these were all losses but three SB appearances in four years is impressive).
(10) GIANTS- Super Bowl XXI, XXV: Bill Parcells and QB Phil Simms (yes, Hostetler helped too).
(11) BILLS- Super Bowl XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XVIII: Marv Levy and QB Jim Kelly (all losses - but this is the team that inspired Win Forever!).
(12) COWBOYS- Super Bowl XXVII, XXVIII, XXX: Jimmy Johnson (2)/ Barry Switzer (1) and QB Troy Aikman (a true dynasty).
(13) PACKERS- Super Bowl XXXI, XXXII: Mike Holmgren and QB Brett Favre (won the first and lost the second).
(14) BRONCOS- Super Bowl XXXII, XXXIII: Mike Shanahan and QB John Elway (Elway finally got his, twice).
(15) PATRIOTS- Super Bowl XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII, XLVI: Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady (you know the story).
(16) STEELERS- Super Bowl XL, XLIII, XLV: Bill Cowher (1)/ Mike Tomlin (2) and QB Ben Roethlisberger (you know the story).
(17) GIANTS- Super Bowl XLII, XLVI: Tom Coughlin and QB Eli Manning (interesting that Coughlin and Belichick were with Parcells).

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On the John Clayton Radio Show on Saturday (Feb 11th, 2012), the Professor threw out a number - he said that the Seahawks had $34.8M in Salary Cap Room for 2012.

Mr. Clayton wrote an article for ESPN on Monday, explaining how 30 of the 32 NFL teams "rolled over" their cap room from 2011 to 2012. Apparently, per Andrew Brandt. this is part of the new CBA - that teams can roll over their remaining cap into the next year. Apparently there is no downside to this, even in 2013 when the new salary cap floor goes into effect - the min cash spend of 89% is tied to announced cap NFL-wide, not adjusted per rollover.

The Seahawks were not in the top five teams in terms of salary cap room for 2012 - those were JAX, CIN, KCC, TB, and WAS. These teams had anywhere from $45M to $63M in room.

The Seahawks will be close to these "leaders" once they cut or restructure Marcus Trufant. He restructured his deal for 2011, but his 2012 contract is still in effect. That contract called for a base salary of $7.2M and his signing bonus when the deal was struck was $10M. That $10M is spread out over the life of the deal ($1.67M on top of the base salary for cap purposes).

I checked in with Brian McIntyre via Twitter and he confirmed that the Seahawks $34.M is most definitely "post-conversion" but does include Trufant's 2012 salary/bonus.

Since this is amateur salary cap, I don't know what cutting Trufant does in terms of the acceleration of the signing bonus and dead money and all of that. What I do know is that once they cut Trufant - the Seahawks will clear an estimated $7M in cap room.

Rough math: once this happens, the Seahawks will have about $42M in cap room.

I haven't seen how Clayton and ESPN builds these numbers, but I have to believe they have factored in Sidney Rice's cap number increase from $3.2M in 2011 to $8.2M in 2012, as well as Zach Miller's cap bounce from $3.0M to $7.0M. This should all be factored into the $34.8M - which we have now converted to $42M.

Where is this money going to go? These are rough cut cap estimates:

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Though I've been looking backwards and stuck in the past in my posts recently (that will continue), like many, I'm also a constant browser of free agency and draft stuff. Without trying to be all serious sounding - what happens in free agency and the draft is really very important. This offseason and next offseason are hopefully the final years of building what looks on track to be a solid foundation for this franchise. I definitely care about what happens in March and April. I mean, don't we all care around here? It's a good thing. So, here are some thoughts I've been holding in for a while; as recent as from yesterday, or as far back as the fall. Just preparing you.

The Lineage Factor

Unlike last offseason, free agency happens first (like it usually does). We've heard Marshawn Lynch, Red Bryant and David Hawthorne (to name a few) express a strong desire to be back. There is a sentiment Seattle will try and re-sign a good portion of their guys (while attempting to better every position on the roster). It's always encouraging to hear guys want to stick around to build something; a testament to the "system" working because the organization is attracting players it inherited and new players it recently traded for or signed. So right off the bat, one thought is - 'do more high profile players look at Seattle as a possible destination after seeing the change in culture have an on-field effect, especially in the second half of the season?' Maybe.

But, what I'm not saying is that I'm expecting Seattle to go free agent crazy; not at all. Davis quoted John Schneider in his Green Bay Model series part IV; "If we put together a nice Draft this year, [add] a couple nice free agents, re-do some of our guys together, then yeah, we'll be on our way. [Next year, we'll] add another Draft to that and we'll be on our way to the motto we had at Green Bay, where we don't have to go outside the house."

Lineage was a huge factor during free agent acquisitions last year because of the lockout and coaching turnover; Seattle was finding "their" guys. The potential for continuity after almost no offseason was king, pursuing certain players at key positions so their familiarity within the system would potentially trickle to other guys on the daily, instead of pursing players with higher potential and the ensuing task of transitioning/fitting a key player into a new scheme if he did not come in as a sure "fit." The organization valued creating team wide chemistry and trust (perhaps more than normal) because of the missed months.

The Seahawks used free agency to bring in Tarvaris Jackson, Sidney Rice, Zach Miller, Robert Gallery, Jimmy Wilkerson and Atari Bigby; this group, each player with a tie to Schneider or a coach/coordinator, was intended to be more than 1/3 of the starting offense and a few small, potentially key pieces on defense. They took risks on players with injury histories or potential red flags in some cases, but hoped for the high ceiling to be a reality.

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The Seattle Seahawks have Benjamin Button disease.

It seems that as every year in the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era passes, they get younger rather than older. In 2009, the final year of Moruskell*, the Seahawks had an average age of ~27.4 years of age. The mentality in that regime was more like "Sign veteran players in an effort to field a decent team now," almost similar to the Bill Bavasi Mariner years that went so well.**

*Moruskell: A synonym meaning the time when Jim Mora was the head coach and Tim Ruskell was the GM OR an unpublished villain from Uncanny X-Men that was part man and part mollusk.

**That didn't go well, silly. I was being sarcastic.

That year, Seattle didn't only let their own players get older but they went out and signed a 32-year-old T.J. Houshmandzadeh, a 31-year-old Edgerrin James, a 36-year-old Lawyer Milloy, and a 30-year-old Ken Lucas. Seattle did let some older players go (Bobby Engram, Maurice Morris, Julian Peterson, Brian Russell, Mike Wahle) but ultimately the average age went up from ~26.8 to ~27.4.

In 2010, Scharroll* started to clean house a bit more. Gone were Nate Burleson, Seneca Wallace, Rob Sims, Darryl Tapp, T.J. and Josh Wilson. Deion Branch was also traded during the season. The inevitable retirements of Patrick Kerney and Walter Jones also made the team younger, but Scharroll wasn't making it a habit to get older either. They did add Chris Clemons, Leon Washington, and Charlie Whitehurst, but overall the average age dropped to ~27.

*Scharroll: A synonym meaning either the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era OR a long lost cousin of a character on Happy Days.

The drop became far more dramatic in 2011 after Seattle finally said goodbye to old guys Matt Hasselbeck, Brandon Stokley, Chris Baker, Olindo Mare, Lawyer Milloy, Junior Siavii, and Craig Terrill. Seattle's oldest player was Raheem Brock (33) but they only fielded seven players over the age of 30. And that included Jon Ryan, Clemons, Robert Gallery, Brock, Marcus Trufant, Atari Bigby, and Heath Farwell. Seattle's average age dropped to the third lowest in the NFL at ~25.5.

Davis Hsu has already addressed this trend in his piece on the Schneider/Packers model. What I want to do today while SBN is still operational for the time being, is pontificate (my word of the day) on what it means for the Hawks right now and in free agency and whether or not being younger even correlates to being better or worse.

Won't you pontificate with me?

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Welcome to Seaside Heights, New Jersey; home of the Najeh Davenport Memorial Tournament championship game.

Well folks, you knew it'd be this way. All along, you just knew that the chase for the coveted Jeff Reed Trophy would come down to these two rascals. Sure, you may have voted for one of their opponents just to try and make it close, but if I asked you to choose who the worst two roommates in the NFL would be and gave you the following eight players to choose from (Tim Tebow, Richie Incognito, Cortland Finnegan, Adam Jones, Terrell Owens, Ben Roethlisberger, Jay Cutler, and James Harrison) you'd pick Finnegan and Harrison. Perhaps if T.O. was still on a team and more culturally relevant than he is now, he'd have a shot, but the people have spoken.

For those who missed it the first time around, here's a primer on how this works:

In 2002, Green Bay Packer Najeh Davenport snuck into a woman's apartment and pooped in her closet. I don't care what the context was; none is necessary for one human pooping in another human's closet. It is, however, my favorite athlete arrest of all time and it's high time it was honored as such. Closet-crapping is a lot funnier when it happens to someone else, however, and if Najeh is davenporting on other people's floors, one can only imagine how often he's done it at his own place. He would have to be among the worst NFL players to ever have to share a living space with.

So, it is with Davenport's fecal felony in mind that I present you -- the sophisticated, intellectually-elite readers of Field Gulls -- with the chance to vote in the NFL's Worst Roommate Tournament.

I believe that I am uniquely qualified to govern this tourney*, as my college years (and post-college "find myself" years) saw me share houses with over 30 different people. While the overwhelming majority of my roommates have been great to live with, my sample-size is large enough to have seen just about everything when it comes to irksome domestic characteristics. I am not exempt from some of those characteristics myself, but that doesn't mean I don't know a bad roommate when I see one.

*I believe I'm uniquely qualified to govern most things.

Now, some parameters: This tournament is limited to players who are currently active, which eliminates would-be contenders like Ryan Leaf, Keyshawn Johnson, and Mike Vanderjagt. Current free agents like Terrell Owens are eligible, however. Also, the reasons for inclusion in this tournament are open, so it's not limited to criminals or tools or whatever else immediately jumps to mind as a qualification. Lastly, this will be an eight-player bracket, to be voted on one match-up at a time. The winner receives the Jeff Reed Trophy, which is just a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.

The choices have been whittled to this pair of curmudgeonly rapscallions whose on-field talents serve as a barely acceptable treatise for their off-putting behavior and general douchery.

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Let's talk about the Seahawks quarterback situation!

(single gunshot)

It would be an understatement to say that talking about what the Hawks should do with the quarterback position turns fans into bickering neighbors and can sometimes lead to flame wars. It would be an overstatement to say that it turns us into flesh-eating zombies, picking apart each others corpses for morsels of brain and innards. But the latter would certainly be more interesting.

What most of us can agree on: Tarvaris Jackson is not the quarterback of the future. Not all of us can agree on that, but I think the fair majority would say that T-Jack is more Mr. Right Now than he is Mr. Right. I do think that Jackson is plenty good enough to serve as a 2012 stopgap should Seattle decide to draft their QBOTF this year. But if he shows any semblance of developing into great quarterback beyond that, it would be quite a surprise to me.

There is the crowd that wants to draft a QB, no matter the cost, and Field Gulls has and will continue to address those options.

Then there is the crowd that says the future resides somewhere on the free agent or trade market. Is it going to be Matt Flynn? Peyton Manning? I hear Charlie Whitehurst is a free agent.

By now you may have picked up on the fact that when I write articles like this, I try to give you just the facts, ma'am. I rarely make bold declarations one way or the other, mostly because I'm doing research that will help us all get a better understanding of what history tells us. History is fascinating, telling, and holds very little doubt.

History is to accuracy as I am to self-loathing; absolute.

So what can recent history tell us about teams that found their quarterback on the free agent or trade market as opposed to the draft? How many of them won a Super Bowl because of it?

Let's take a look....

Brett Favre - NYJ/MIN

When Favre finally parted ways with the Packers, it was the New York Jets that first took a crack at seeing if those Wranglers had any fight left in them in 2008. They started the season 3-3, but won five straight games in the middle of the year, including a 34-31 OT win at New England. However, Favre was awful down the stretch (reportedly because of an injury that the Jets didn't disclose) and New York lost four of their last five to miss the playoffs. The greatest impact Favre made in New York wasn't what he did on the field, but what he did on the phone.

Favre's next stop was in Minnesota (a place that also wasn't satisfied with Tarvaris) and he had possibly the greatest season of his career in 2009, throwing 33 touchdowns against an un-Favrelike 7 interceptions, leading the Vikings to a 10-1 start. They finished 12-4, but blew out the Cowboys in the divisional round. They lost an OT heart-breaker to the Saints in the NFC Championship. The next season would be a forgettable one.

Success Level - Some. The Jets were nearly playoff contenders, but collapsed down the stretch. The Vikings had one uber-successful season, but 2010 was terrible and they found their QBOTF Christian Ponder in the following draft.

Much more after the jump..

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Ray Rice, Frank Gore, Ahmad Bradshaw, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis will try to make the Super Bowl tomorrow. Bradshaw is the only one who has been there before, as a player on the 2007 championship team.

People spend a lot of time, or should I say waste a lot of time, arguing about what positions are the most important to be "elite" at if you want to go to the Super Bowl. It's not that the argument is invalid or that the discussion isn't worth having, it's that I feel like people just "say stuff" too often without looking it up. I don't really care what your gut tells you or what three random examples you have, use intelligent analysis or historical data to back it up.

There are exceptions to every rule. So having an "elite" quarterback does not guarantee a Super Bowl, nor does the lack of an "elite" quarterback prevent you from going to the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl and so did Trent Dilfer. There are no rules as to what you have to have in order to win a championship. I REPEAT:

There are no rules as to what you have to have in order to win a championship.

You have to have 53 players. You have to have some coaches. A stadium would be nice. Having a lot of good players helps. It's hard to win with bad players and bad coaches. But there's never going to be a hard and fast rule that says "You just can't win in the NFL with a shitty quarterback."

You can. Teams have. Phil Simms was not a great quarterback. Rex Grossman went to the Super Bowl and he was terrible. Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers were phenomenal this year. Seriously, they might have just had the two greatest seasons for a quarterback in history.

They aren't playing tomorrow.

However, it is interesting to look at the data and see what it tells you. I'm going to look at the last twenty teams to make the Super Bowl and see how talented they were at certain positions. I'm starting with running back. I'm not going to look at every position. I don't know what I'm going to look at. I just decided to do this because it's relevant as of today and I have a little bit of free time. Enough free time to write this today also.

Yeah.

A running back hasn't won the Super Bowl MVP since Terrell Davis in 1997. That doesn't mean anything probably, but it is interesting. Will I find other interesting results? You might be surprised how few 1,000 yard backs make the Super Bowl. Here are the last twenty Super Bowl running backs, including running-back-by-committee situations:

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First, as a little introduction I'd like to compliment Davis Hsu for the hard work he's done at this site. If you're not familiar with Davis or his work, let me just break it down for you because it's really pretty awesome. An example of one a day in the life of Davis might include going to his job for 10 hours, hanging out with his family and putting his kids to bed, then retiring to his study to do hours and hours of research on the Seahawks cap structure, putting together spreadsheets detailing every single player on the Seahawks, how long they're under team control, and how much they make, projecting future cap space and potential for signing free agents and retaining Seattle's star players. On another day, he'll do this with other teams that he admires as well, so he can better understand what the Seahawks' front office is doing and/or should be doing.

In his other free time, he reads books on the Ravens and Steelers because he's fascinated with their ability to win consistently over the years. He's read Pete Carroll's book. He's read Paul Allen's book. Not for fun, but to understand his team better and understand how to win in the NFL better. He not curious, he's studying furiously. He scribbles down notes in the margins. How do I know this? I first met him when we went to the VMAC for Pete Carroll's Win Forever coaching seminar (this was way before he wrote for this site, that's how much of a Seahawks' nut he is) and he brought me, unsolicited, Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat and Tears, an excellent book that explains in detail the evolution of every important offensive and defensive scheme in football history. It came complete with Davis' revelations jotted into the line breaks.

Anyway, he takes a scientific process and and academic viewpoint to his NFL fandom. And I love it. Davis and I email frequently, typically just shooting the shit, but he'll also bounce interesting ideas off of me (and others) and one recent chain I thought I'd share because I found it interesting. Davis was exploring the idea of the "Clutch Game Manager" that Pete Carroll has mentioned on many occasions. Davis has added the word 'clutch' because if you've listened to his recent press conferences, Carroll clearly wants a guy that has some late-game heroics in him. A guy that's able to lead a team back in the fourth quarter. A guy that's proficient in the two-minute drill.

Scott Enyeart has argued this, and I've mentioned it several times as well, but I think the whole "game manager" label has been misconstrued or mis-characterized a bit by the media and fanbase here. People will inevitably point to the idea that only two or three teams in the past twenty years or so have won a Super Bowl with these so-called 'game-managing' quarterbacks, and people picture Trent Dilfers and Brad Johnsons running around in Pete Carroll's mind's-eye. 'In the modern NFL,' people will say, 'only teams with the elite quarterbacks can win the big one.'

The exceptions, of course, as many would report, would probably be the Buccaneers in 2002 with Brad Johnson and the Ravens in 2000 with Dilfer, and... that's kind of it. In like, the last 30 or 40 years.

Well, Davis explored that notion and depending on how you look at it, that's not necessarily true. The following is my paraphrasing from Davis' mad-scientist emailing, with the following jointed disclaimers:

First, we all agree that Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning are 'elite,' but maybe weren't way back when in terms of what we're about to describe.

I also think we define "elite" as: a QB that is (1) generally regarded as top 5-6 QB in the NFL by most experts/fans (2) throws for todays equivalent of 4000 yards (which may have been like 3600 back 5-10 yrs ago but ten QBs threw for 4000 yards in 2011) (3) first ballot (non-injury replacement) Pro Bowler.

There are QBs that are really good and not 'clutch game managers' and are not 'elite,' ie - Matt Schaub, maybe Matt Ryan.

The top 5-6 Elite QBs are: Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Phillip Rivers, and honorable mention Matt Stafford. "High volume" QBs that are not elite but not game managers are probably: Matt Stafford, Michael Vick, Matt Ryan, Matt Schaub, Jay Cutler, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Tony Romo is an example of high volume but not elite.

The game managers that are possibly clutch? Alex Smith, maybe Joe Flacco and maybe Mark Sanchez circa 2009, 2010. Anyway, here we go.

****************

2001 Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots

Yes, they had Tom Brady- and yes - he went to the Pro Bowl that year - but he was not "Elite".

In 2001, he threw for 2,843 yards in 14 starts. The Patriots, as a team, threw for a shade over 3000 yards for the year. Drew Bledsoe got hurt in game two. The four 'Elite QBs' that year were Kurt Warner (threw for 4663 yards), Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Rich Gannon- they all threw for over 3700 yards.

New England was 22nd in the NFL in passing in terms of yards.

That year they ran 473 times and passed 482 times, nearly exactly 50-50 balanced offense. Their defense gave up yards - 24th in the NFL - but only gave up 17 points a game - good for 6th in the NFL. They were 9th in the NFL in turnover margin at +7. Tom Brady threw 18 TDs and 12 Picks and he was sacked 41x, which was a ton.

In the Super Bowl that year, Brady threw for 145 yards with 1 TD and no picks.

Brady was not "Elite" but rather a "Clutch Game Manager" at the time. This idea gets clouded because of what he has done since.

2005 Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers (11-5)

In 2005, Pittsburgh passed the ball a league-low 379 times, and ran the ball a league high 549 times (41% / 59%). They had the 24th ranked passing offense in terms of yards 2926 yards.

They had the 5th best rushing offense at 2223 yards, but only 12th in YPC at 4.0 (they just ran a ton). That Steeler team a turnover margin of +7 (good for the 10th).

In the Super Bowl, Ben Roethlisberger had a QB rating of 22.6, was 9/21 for 123 yards and two picks, and did "rush" for a TD (though did he cross the line?).

Interestingly, he won a Super Bowl in his 2nd season - same as Tom Brady in '01. Ben was 23, Tom was 24. You can win a Super Bowl as a QB in your 2nd season- but YOUR TEAM has to be STRONG.

The '05 Steeler sefense was strong:
- 1st vs the run in YPC at 3.4
- 3rd vs the run in yards per game at 86
- 16th against the pass in yards at 198
- 4th best defense in total yards allowed
- 3rd best defense in points allowed at 16.1 per game
- 8th best defense in QB rating allowed

Basically the defense was rock solid vs. the run, average against the pass in terms of yards - but stingy in points. That defense did not have a ton of picks (only 15) good for 19th, but they did have 47 sacks (good for 3rd).

For comparison, the Seahawks had 50 sacks that year and led the NFL. To be fair to Ben, he was the offensive rookie of the year in 2004 and his numbers in 2005, were 196 for 295, 66.4%, with league high YPA at 8.9, 17 TD, 11 INT, 98.1 QB rating.

So, the little they did throw, he was very efficient. The key here is that he led six 4th quarter comebacks. He was the QUINTESSENTIAL CLUTCH GAME MANAGER. I bet that 6th 4th quarter comeback by Big Ben was a record that lasted till Tim Tebow did that this year..

Ben was not voted to the AFC Pro Bowl for the 2005 season - he was behind Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Jake Plummer, Steve McNair and Trent Green. Tom Brady did go to the Pro Bowl in 2001 but finished with only 2843 yards passing. Ben Roethlisberger passed for 2400 yards and PIT 2800 yards or so for the year and didn't go to the Pro Bowl in 2005.

The point is, they had a balanced or run-based offense with a very clutch quarterback in Big Ben. Defense was good, turnovers were good.

I also think with a good team, as Big Ben and Brady showed, a QB can win a Super Bowl in their "sophomore" year if the team around them is good and the QB is clutch.

Of course the Seahawks want an elite QB - but on his way to being that - if he can be that 'clutch game manager' in his early years, and they have a good team around him, they can win a Super Bowl in 2013/2014, theoretically. Obviously, it will be hard, but not unprecedented, even in the last decade. Also obviously, you have to get lucky in several different ways, but as we're seeing this year, if you get hot at the right time anything can happen.

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