Miller: Which QB interloper will spoil Super Bowl matchup?

Super Bowl history is filled with matchups of quarterbacks bound for the Hall of Fame: Montana vs. Marino, Bradshaw vs. Staubach (twice), Aikman vs. Kelly (twice), Elway vs. Favre. Not this year. As we head into conference championship weekend, not only is there no possibility of a matchup of historic proportion, the fact is that Super Bowl LII will likely match a Hall of Fame-bound QB against one who quite possibly could be jettisoned by his current team as soon as the season is over. How strange is that? Certainly, there have been Super Bowl quarterback matchups before pitting a guy with jewelry and resume against a nobody. Peyton Manning vs. Rex Grossman comes quickly to mind, or even Kurt Warner vs. Tom Brady - back when Brady was thought to be the interloper. Warner already had a Super Bowl ring at the time. But the final four this year has a decidedly weird feel to it because Brady is the only quarterback with a pedigree among the four teams. In three of the four divisional playoff games last weekend, the quarterback with the resume was eliminated. They were Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Ryan, two of whom have led their team to Super Bowl titles and another who a year ago had the fourth highest passer rating in a Super Bowl game, but suffered a heartbreaking loss. In fact, Ryan's 144.1 passer rating in Super Bowl LI is the only one among the Super Bowl's 10 highest passer ratings that belongs to a losing quarterback. Nonetheless, those three were eliminated by teams whose quarterbacks were named Case Keenum, Blake Bortles and Nick Foles. Brady has won 26 post-season games as a starting quarterback. Until two weeks ago, none of those other three ever had won a post-season game and only Foles had even played in one. In fact, none of the three non-Brady quarterbacks in the final four have won as many games, regular season and post-season combined, as Brady has won just in the post-season. In case you were wondering, Brady has won 196 regular-season games to go along with his 26 post-season wins, including five Super-Bowl victories. Peyton Manning and Brett Favre are the only quarterbacks within 50 victories of Brady. Of course, when Brady led the Patriots to their shocking championship in the 2001 season, no one had a clue what was ahead for him, either. But we at least had a bit of a hint what the Patriots thought because after Brady had to leave the AFC Championship Game with an injury, and veteran Drew Bledsoe came in and passed for New England's only offensive touchdown, head coach Bill Belichick went back to the kid for the Super Bowl rather than Bledsoe, who had missed much of the season due to injury. And, after the season was done, the Patriots cut ties with Bledsoe. Obviously, we don't know what will happen with the three little-known quarterbacks still in the running this year, but we do know that two of them are playing only because of injuries to the regular starter, and, unlike the 2001 situation with Brady, there is every likelihood they will be looking for work next year. Those two are Nick Foles, who is playing for the Eagles only because Carson Wentz, their sensational second-year guy, suffered a season-ending injury in early December, and Case Keenum, who is playing for the Vikings only because of injuries to Sam Bradford and Teddy Bridgewater. It is a measure of the Vikings' lack of commitment to Keenum, the starter since September, that Bradford, Bridgewater and even Kyle Sloter, an undrafted rookie, remain on the 53-man roster. Likewise, his two playoff victories still haven't convinced a lot of folks in Jacksonville that Blake Bortles is the long-term future at quarterback for the Jaguars. After winning only 11 games in his first three NFL seasons, Bortles has won a dozen this year including playoffs, yet there is no known move by the Jaguars to sign him to a long-term contract. Right now, he is scheduled to play the 2018 season under his option year worth $19 million. One reason for that skepticism could well be that Bortles' passer rating for the 2017 season, 84.7, ranked 20th in the NFL, behind such luminaries as Josh McCown of the Jets and Tyrod Taylor of the Bills, among others. Which brings us back to Brady, whose passer rating this season, 102.8, was the third best in the NFL and the sixth of his career above 100. Not saying it's impossible, but were any team except the Patriots to win Super Bowl LII, it would rank with the Jets in Super Bowl III and that Brady-Warner matchup in Super Bowl XXXVI36 among the most stunning upsets of all time. Football isn't only about the quarterbacks, of course. But it's hard to get past that part of the game. Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange.