Nine quarterbacks drafted first overall are playing in the NFL right now. How many have won a Super Bowl for the team that drafted them?
Zero.
Eli Manning won his second ring with the Giants after the 2011 season. He went first overall in 2004. Since then, nothing. We’ve had fourteen drafts where some team said “this is our guy” and grabbed a quarterback at the top. Fourteen swings. Fourteen misses. You’d think someone would notice.
Stafford Had to Leave
Matthew Stafford has a ring. Earned it in February 2022. But not with Detroit.
The Lions drafted Stafford in 2009 and kept him for 12 seasons. Twelve. They never won a playoff game. I’m not exaggerating—zero playoff wins in over a decade with a franchise quarterback. Then he goes to LA and wins a Super Bowl in year one with the Rams.
Same quarterback. Different everything else.
McVay called plays. Kupp ran routes. Donald destroyed people on the other side of the ball. The Rams weren’t waiting for Stafford to fix their problems. They’d already fixed most of them. Stafford was the last piece, not the foundation.
Detroit kept drafting wide receivers and praying. The Rams built a roster and then went out and got their guy. One approach won a championship. The other one won nothing for 12 years.
Nine Zeros
| Quarterback | Draft Year | Original Team | Super Bowl Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew Stafford | 2009 | Lions | 0 |
| Jameis Winston | 2015 | Buccaneers | 0 |
| Baker Mayfield | 2018 | Browns | 0 |
| Kyler Murray | 2019 | Cardinals | 0 |
| Joe Burrow | 2020 | Bengals | 0 |
| Trevor Lawrence | 2021 | Jaguars | 0 |
| Bryce Young | 2023 | Panthers | 0 |
| Caleb Williams | 2024 | Bears | 0 |
| Cam Ward | 2025 | Titans | 0 |
That’s every active quarterback who was drafted first overall. Nine of them. Nine zeros in the last column.
Stafford left Detroit. Mayfield bounced from Cleveland to Carolina to Tampa. Winston went from Tampa to New Orleans to Cleveland to New York. The franchises that drafted them got nothing out of it. Burrow got to one Super Bowl and lost to Mahomes. Lawrence may finally we turning the corner as he’s now Top 10 in our Daily QB Rankings. Murray’s hurt again. Bryce Young is 7-6 and Carolina fans think that’s progress, which tells you everything about where the bar is for these guys.
60 Years and Only Seven Winners
| Quarterback | Draft Year | Super Bowl Wins | Team(s) Won With |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terry Bradshaw | 1970 | 4 | Steelers |
| Jim Plunkett | 1971 | 2 | Raiders |
| John Elway | 1983 | 2 | Broncos |
| Troy Aikman | 1989 | 3 | Cowboys |
| Peyton Manning | 1998 | 2 | Colts, Broncos |
| Eli Manning | 2004 | 2 | Giants |
| Matthew Stafford | 2009 | 1 | Rams |
Seven quarterbacks in 60 years of the Super Bowl. That’s it. And look closer at that list—only Bradshaw, Aikman, and Peyton actually won with their original team. Elway refused to play for Baltimore and forced a trade to Denver. Eli did the same thing to San Diego. Plunkett flamed out in New England, flamed out again in San Francisco, and finally won two rings in Oakland. Stafford needed to escape Detroit.
Four of the seven had to leave to win anything.
Tennessee Walked Right Into It
The Titans grabbed Cam Ward first overall this year. Tennessee needed everything—offensive line help, receivers, defensive depth. They got a rookie quarterback instead.
Ward might be good. He might even be great. But he’s walking into a situation where he’s expected to be the entire offense from day one. That almost never works. Brady had Belichick. Mahomes has Reid and a front office that actually knows what it’s doing. Peyton Manning couldn’t get his second ring until he switched teams and Denver’s defense carried him across the finish line.
Quarterbacks don’t fix broken franchises. Broken franchises break quarterbacks. And the team picking first overall is, by definition, broken. That’s why they’re picking first.
The Guys With Rings Didn’t Go First
Tom Brady went 199th overall. Sixth round. Won seven championships. Roethlisberger went 11th—not first—and won two. Rodgers dropped to 24 because NFL scouts convinced themselves he had mechanical issues. He won one and should’ve won more. Brees went 32nd. Wilson went in the third round.
Mahomes is the only top-10 pick to win a Super Bowl recently, and he went 10th. Not first.
Check HeyTC’s Daily QB Rankings sometime. The guys at the top aren’t former #1 picks. They’re guys who landed in functional organizations. Kansas City had Alex Smith when they took Mahomes. Let him sit for a year. Green Bay had Favre when they drafted Rodgers. Let him sit for three. New England had Bledsoe when Brady was an afterthought in the draft.
None of them walked into a disaster and were expected to save it immediately. That’s what happens when you go first overall. You’re not joining a team. You ARE the team. And nobody can be an entire team by themselves.
The Smart Move Is Trading Down
Run HeyTC’s Super Bowl Simulator and look at which teams actually have a shot this year. None of them are built around a #1 overall quarterback pick. They’re built around depth and coaching and a quarterback who doesn’t have to do everything.
If I’m a GM with the first pick, I’m calling every team in the league trying to trade down. Get more picks. Build an actual roster. Find the quarterback later when there’s something worth joining.
Picking a QB first overall isn’t a shortcut to a championship. It’s a trap. Sixteen years of evidence and counting.
AI-Assisted Content (AIAC): Human ideas, drafts, and final edits—enhanced by AI.
