There’s an old saying that defense wins championships, but over the past two decades or so, the NFL has been highlighted by high-flying offenses. The Greatest Show on Turf, the 2007 New England Patriots, the 2011 New Orleans Saints, the 2013 Denver Broncos, and the 2019 Kansas City Chiefs are some teams that come to mind when thinking about great offenses, but what if I told you that the key to winning it all still revolves around having not just a good defense, but a great one?

Take this year, for example. The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots both have great offenses, but they rank No. 1 and No. 2 in scoring defense this season, and that success has continued through the playoffs. But this year isn’t the only example in recent history.

Only one team in the past 10 years has won the Super Bowl without a top-10 defense (the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs). Even when you expand that to the past 25 years, just six teams have accomplished that feat. Since 2000, when you remove those six outliers, the average defensive ranking of Super Bowl champions is 3.21. Over that same span, the average offensive ranking of the Super Bowl champion is 7.4. You obviously have to play complementary football, but it’s pretty clear which side of the ball is most important.

And when you look at the quarterbacks who have accomplished that in the 21st century—Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Patrick Mahomes, and Joe Flacco—it’s easy to see why it’s not done more often. Not just anyone can overcome having a bad defense.

But even those elite quarterbacks who have overcome bad defenses to win the Super Bowl can’t do it every year.

Elite Defenses Make Legends

The Up & Adams show put out a graphic showing the 13 quarterbacks who have won multiple Super Bowls in their careers. They have totaled 37 championships between them, but only five of those 37 Super Bowls have been won without a top-10 defense.

Just 13.5 percent of those Super Bowls have been won without an elite defense. So who were those outliers, and how did they win?

Let’s start with the most recent: the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs, who finished the regular season allowing 22.2 points per game, which ranked 18th in the league. Despite their bad defense, the Chiefs earned the first-round bye and knocked off the Jaguars, 27-20, in the Divisional.

Then, in the AFC Championship, they once again held their opponent to 20 points, beating the Bengals, 23-20. Then, they had to rely on Patrick Mahomes to win a 38-35 shootout in the Super Bowl to win it all. It’s safe to say this was the worst defensive playoff performance of any Super Bowl champion in the 21st century.

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Next up are Eli Manning and the Giants, who are the only ones to accomplish this feat twice, in 2007 and 2011. In 2011, the Giants’ defense gave up 23.1 PPG, which ranked 21st in the league, but that number dropped to 13 in the postseason before the Super Bowl.

They then had to face the Patriots in the Super Bowl and held them to just 17 points. In 2007, it was much of the same. They gave up 20.8 in the regular season before surrendering just 17 in the NFC playoffs. In the big game, they ended up holding undefeated New England to just 14 points. The Giants may not have had a top-10 defense in the regular season, but they played as one in both of their Super Bowl runs.

Eli’s brother, Peyton Manning, accomplished this feat with the Colts back in 2006. Indianapolis entered the postseason with the No. 18 scoring defense, but they held their first two opponents to a combined 14 points before winning a shootout against New England in the AFC Championship. In the Super Bowl, Indy’s defense stepped up again, holding a red-hot Chicago offense to just 14 points.

The only other instance of a QB with multiple rings winning without a top-10 defense is Jim Plunkett. He won two Super Bowls with the Raiders in 1980 and 1983, the latter of which came with the No. 13 scoring defense in the NFL. But like the others, they played much better in the postseason, surrendering a combined 33 points through three games and never allowing more than 14.

Each instance of a QB with multiple Super Bowl rings winning without a top-10 defense has at least one thing in common. They either have an all-time great quarterback, and/or their defense made a complete 180 in the postseason. Of these five outliers, only one of them gave up more than 16.3 PPG in the postseason, and that was the 2022 Chiefs.

Legends Made by Their Defenses

I don’t want to take anything away from these players, because you still have to have that it factor to win multiple Super Bowls, but here’s a handful of guys that have won a lot, but haven’t been able to do it without a top-10 defense.

The most obvious example of this is Tom Brady. Dude knew how to win, but out of his seven Super Bowl victories, none of them came with a defense that ranked outside of the top-10. The worst defense he ever won a Super Bowl with was in 2014, when they gave up 19.7 PPG, and outside of that, none of the defenses he won with ranked worse than 7th. To further that point, in his seven Super Bowl victories, his defenses gave up an average of 18.7 PPG. You still have to be an elite quarterback to even come close to winning seven Super Bowls, but not many others had the run of elite defenses Brady had throughout his entire career.

Brady played 21 seasons in the NFL, and had a top-10 defense in 15 of them (71.4 percent). That is much higher than some of the other legends that played during his time period. Peyton Manning (23.5 percent), Aaron Rodgers (12.5 percent), Patrick Mahomes (12.5 percent) and Drew Brees (10.5 percent) would’ve killed to have the defenses Brady had, and if they did, they’d probably have more Super Bowl rings to their name.

But Brady isn’t the only one who benefited from elite defenses. Joe Montana, who ranks second all-time with four Super Bowl wins, had a top-10 defense every single year he won it all, with his worst ranking 8th in the league, giving up 18.4 PPG. In his four Super Bowls, the 49ers’ defense gave up just 15.75 PPG.

Terry Bradshaw is tied with Namath with the second-most Super Bowl victories of all time, with four. In the four seasons he won the Super Bowl, his defense ranked no worse than 5th, and in the big game, they surrendered an average of 18.25 points.

Three quarterbacks have combined to win 15 of the 59 Super Bowls to date, which is over 25 percent. Of those 15 Super Bowl titles, none of them were won without a top-10 scoring defense.

It’s obviously possible to win without a top-10 defense, but it makes it a hell of a lot tougher. Just ask Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and other elite quarterbacks who never quite had the defense to win it all a second time.

Great quarterbacks can find a way to overcome a bad defense once in their careers, but after crunching the numbers, it’s safe to say that elite defenses make legends. Even the greatest can’t do it on their own.