Winning a Super Bowl involves so many different factors, including having a great team, establishing a culture, following exceptional leaders, and so much more. One of the key components that feels more and more necessary as days go on is a franchise quarterback. Without a top player under center, it feels like a team’s path to the Super Bowl is over before it begins. The Pittsburgh Steelers know this well, as they’ve won multiple Super Bowls thanks in part to two franchise signal callers in Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger.
Now, the team is being forced to take a slightly different approach. After Kenny Pickett showed he could not become Roethlisberger’s successor, the team was forced to pivot at the quarterback position. While the trade for Justin Fields may provide them with a long-term starter, they’ve seemingly rested their Super Bowl aspirations for this season on a different team’s franchise quarterback.
Not too long ago, Russell Wilson helped lead the Seahawks to back-to-back Super Bowls, winning the first and then losing the second. Wilson recently spoke about how he believes that this level of success that he brought to the Seahawks helped open doors for other black quarterbacks. Much has been said about whether or not that point is true, with Wilson himself coming out later and saying that full context matters with those quotes. One analyst and former player seems to disagree that Wilson was a key factor in winning that Super Bowl in Seattle.
On the latest episode of his podcast The Stinkin’ Truth, Mark Schlereth took umbrage with Wilson seemingly implying that he lead the Seahawks to those two Super Bowls and created opportunities for quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes.
”Let’s not jump on to the Patrick Mahomes bandwagon, that guy is as good as it gets. And oh by the way, those Super Bowls that you went to? You had a generational defense, the Legion of Boom, that became the model in the NFL at that time,” Schlereth said about Wilson. “We’re going back to, what, 2012, 2013? 2013, I believe, when they won that Super Bowl. After that, every team in the league started trying to play that Match Cover 3 that Seattle and Pete Carroll put together. It became the standard defense for the NFL.”
Schlereth is correct in his analysis of the Seahawks’ defense being the strength of their team during that period in time. In fact, they even scored first in that Super Bowl victory, crushing one of the best offenses the NFL has ever seen. Schlereth would continue breaking down his thoughts on Wilson’s contribution to those Super Bowl winning teams, or lack thereof in his opinion.
“So you had a generational defense, you had a run game with Marshawn Lynch in beast mode. You didn’t have a cape on. You didn’t sling a team on your back and carry them to the promise land. You were along for the ride to a degree. If we’re just gonna be honest about history, honest about the history of that, let’s be honest about the teams that you went to the Super Bowl with,” Schlereth stated.
Nothing Schlereth said is new information, but it does have some truth to it. Wilson probably doesn’t win that Super Bowl without such a great team around him. Was he as much of a driving force for his team as Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? No, but those are the two quarterbacks Wilson faced in the Super Bowl, and if not for one of the craziest sequences in NFL history, he would be able to claim he beat both men in the biggest game in football. Taking Tom Brady to the absolute limit in the Super Bowl doesn’t happen by accident.
The real question of whether Wilson can lead the Steelers to victory in the big game will be up for debate until it isn’t anymore. No one can really know until the season begins. Based on his time in Denver, it’s unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Maybe the Steelers could surround Wilson with a team as talented as the Seahawks Super Bowl team. With stars at every level of the defense, and hopefully some better injury luck in 2024, the potential is there for a league-leading defensive unit.
