[Amnorix]

The unfortunate reality is that you need to get lucky to get a great QB, and nowadays the NFL -- due to various rules changes -- have made it VERY hard to be in contention for winning the SB if you DON'T have a great QB.

Lucky in that either someone NOBODY thinks is going to be all that slides to you (Brady, Rodgers, Wilson), or in that you are the worst team in the NFL **AND** an elite QB is available at the top of the draft that year (Peyton, Luck (?) etc.).

The NFL has made it harder to win with defense, and harder to win with special teams, which narrows the focus to winning via offense, which invariably means through the QB. The 1980s NFC East dominated but not through exceptional QB play. Simms and those nobodies that Gibbs won with after Thiesman weren't anyone's idea of Montana or Marino.

There has also been a decline in the quality of coaching, IMHO. Bedard wrote a long piece on this for MMQB a while back. In the 80s you had guys like Walsh, Gibbs, Shula, Parcells, Bud Grant, Landry and others butting heads. Now there isn't a single person on the planet that doesn't think Belichick is far and away #1. How many other HOF coaches are roaming hte sidelines right now? Pete Carroll maybe. Who else? Sean Payton's star has dimmed. Does anyone think Mike McCarthy is really that awesome? I think highly of John Harbaugh and Bruce Arians, but are they Hall-bound? Bottom line, it's ALOT thinner than the 80s.

So once again, the difference-maker is at the QB position. Just unfortunate, I think, that the importance of the quarterback position has now come to dominate everything in the NFL.