Al Davis and John Madden used to debate the most important position on the field. Davis would contend that cornerbacks were the most important, no doubt picturing the problems of allowing the opposition long touchdown passes. Madden took the more popular, and easily defended, supposition that the offensive line was the most important unit on the field. Without a good line your runningbacks had no holes to run through and your quarterback was an easy target.

Where both men agreed, with a nod and smile, is that to win you had to have a championship caliber quarterback.

Some NFL teams never seem to find the guy that could be considered a blue-chip franchise signal caller, the Chicago Bears on top of this list. Still, with a solid defense and competent play for his brief NFL career, Jim McMahon and the 1985 Bears won a Super Bowl.

A dozen NFL teams have never won a Super Bowl, and four, the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars, have never even participated in a Roman Numeral contest.

The Minnesota Vikings participated in four of the first 11 Super Bowls, lost them all, and haven’t been back since they were downed in Super Bowl XI by the Oakland Raiders. The Buffalo Bills advanced but lost four straight Super Bowls beginning in 1990.

The lack of a quality quarterback is most often the root cause for failure. Still, some franchises, most notably the Atlanta Falcons, have had men lining up behind center that seemed to have the talent to take a team all the way, and still failed.

Steve Bartkowski was a top franchise quarterback for 11 seasons with the Falcons, but only got his team into the playoffs three times and lost three of four postseason games. In 1998, Chris Chandler got the Falcons into the Super Bowl, but they were beaten by John Elway’s Broncos, 34-19. Michale Vick was the most dynamic athlete calling plays beginning in 2001, but his career was blunted by off-field behavior and on-field injuries. He twice led the Falcons to the playoffs and split four postseason games.

Then the Falcons got a sure bet franchise standout with Mat Ryan in 2008. The Boston College product led the Falcons to the playoffs in four of his first five seasons and to the Super Bowl to complete the 2016 season. That was the year the Falcons coughed up a 28-3 third quarter lead and lost to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the first overtime Super Bowl. In all, Ryan led Atlanta to six postseasons but ended all six years with losses.

After leading Atlanta to four straight losing seasons, the Falcons gave up on their one-time star before the 2022 season. Experiments with Marcus Mariota, Desmond Rider and Taylor Heinicke the past two seasons did not end the Falcons losing season run which now stands at six negative campaigns in a row.

So, this year, Atlanta has taken a two-headed approach to find their savior to line up behind center. They lured Kirk Cousins from the Minnesota Vikings with a four-year contract worth 180 million dollars. Then they spent their first pick in this year’s draft to acquire Michael Penix Jr.

Cousins has had a most interesting career. In 2012, the Washington Redskins had the second overall pick in the NFL Draft and chose Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III. Three rounds later, with the 102 pick, they selected Cousins out of Michigan State.

Cousins played backup to Griffin for his rookie season even though Griffin injured his knee in a Week Eight game against the Baltimore Ravens. While RGIII returned initially after the injury, Shanahan sat him out of Washington's final three regular season games and Cousins led the Skins to three straight wins.

Shanahan then went back to Griffin for the opening playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks, and Griffin led the Redskins to a pair of first quarter touchdowns to stake the home team to a 14-0 lead. But, as the game wore on, Griffin’s knee became more and more inflamed, and the injury inhibited his play. Still, Shanahan continued to play Griffin as the Redskins relinquished the lead. On his final play of that game, Griffin fumbled and was so severely injured he was unable to even recover the ball that was loose at his side.

Griffin was never the same, while Cousins remained a backup in Washington until becoming their full-time starter in 2015. The following season, Cousins earned Pro Bowl honors and in 2018 signed the highest guaranteed free agent contract in NFL history, an 84-million-dollar deal with the Minnesota Vikings.

Now, he is off to Atlanta with another team willing to pay top dollar for the one-time Michigan State QB. There is a glitch in Cousin’s career, he has had one heck of a time trying to beat teams with winning records. Over the first dozen seasons he has played in the NFL his record against teams with winning marks is 16 wins and 47 losses. No team is going to win a Super Bowl if they can’t beat a quality opponent.

But the Falcons shelled out a 180-million-dollar deal in hopes Cousins, who ranks fifth overall in NFL completion percentage all-time for quarterbacks with at least 1,500 attempts, can reverse that history with wins in January and a victory in February.

Or perhaps the 2024 Falcons will strike gold just as the Seattle Seahawks did in 2012. That year, the Seahawks dealt out big bucks to bring in veteran Matt Flynn to run their offense, and he was beaten out in training camp by a rookie named Russell Wilson. That year, Seattle Head Coach Pete Carroll, who fully expected Flynn would be his starter, couldn’t turn his back on the spectacular preseason play of his rookie out of Wisconsin.

Wilson earned the job and the money be damned, the coach went with the player best suited to lead his team to wins. Which Wilson did, guiding the Seahawks to the Super Bowl in both his second and third pro seasons.

The Vikings have their money tied up in Cousins, but their first pick in this year’s draft, Michael Penix Jr., has been super impressive in camp. Cousins may have come into the league underrated, but now he, like Flynn before him, might find out that a first-year talent is there to take his team all the way.