NFL Quarterbacks Who Won a Super Bowl Without Ever Making a Pro Bowl

by Jeremy Block - 9/7/2026

Quarterbacks who won the Super Bowl but never made the Pro Bowl Eli Manning

Nothing about a Pro Bowl selection says a quarterback can actually win anything, and nothing about a Super Bowl Trophy says the voters ever really thought much of the player holding it. The two get treated like they belong together, mostly because the same handful of players throughout different eras kept showing up on both lists, and the pattern was so common that fans stopped questioning it.

Six quarterbacks won a Super Bowl before ever getting voted into a single Pro Bowl, two never got the invitation at all, and one waited thirteen years after winning a Lombardi trophy before even getting the invitation at all. Pull up a seat, let's check out six quarterbacks who won a title before ever making a Pro Bowl.

Doc’s Sports offers NFL expert picks for every game on our NFL predictions page.

Jim Plunkett (1971-1986)

Between winning a Heisman, going first overall in the draft, and taking Rookie of the Year, you would think that practically buys a quarterback at least one Pro Bowl selection, right? Well, think again. Jim Plunkett collected all three accolades by 24 years old and finished 16 seasons in the NFL with zero Pro Bowl selections.

New England drafted him first in 1971 and watched him take an absolute beating behind an awful offensive line for five years, going 23-38 as a starter. San Francisco traded for him in 1976 and cut him two seasons later after he threw 30 interceptions to just 22 touchdowns. The Raiders then stepped in and signed him as a backup in 1978, where he sat for two full seasons and threw a total of 15 passes.

At that rate in Plunkett's career, it made complete sense why a Pro Bowl nomination wasn't there—he had nothing to show for it, at least until 1980. Dan Pastorini broke his leg in Week 5, and Plunkett took the reins and turned a 2-3 Raiders team into the first wild card club ever to win a Super Bowl. Plunkett went 13-of-21 for 261 yards and three touchdowns in a 27-10 win over Philadelphia in Super Bowl XV, and took MVP. Three seasons later he did it again, throwing for 172 yards in a 38-9 blowout win against the Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII.

Two rings, a Super Bowl MVP, 25,882 career passing yards, and not a single vote. Plunkett is the only starting quarterback with multiple Super Bowl wins with no invitation to Canton.

Doug Williams (1978-1989)

Tampa Bay wouldn't cut Doug Williams a check, so he packed up his things, went to play in the USFL for two seasons, returned to the NFL as somebody's backup, and then put up 35 points in one quarter of a Super Bowl.

Getting drafted 17th overall in 1978 meant inheriting a dysfunctional Buccaneers roster that had gone 2-26 in its first two years of existence, but Williams changed that in no time. He had the Bucs in the NFC Championship Game by 1979, and the franchise still paid him near the bottom of the barrel among starting quarterback salaries across the league. Contract talks blew up over it in 1983, so he left for the USFL.

Washington brought him back as a second stringer in 1986, and the job was his by the end of 1987. Super Bowl XXII got off to a rough start for Williams, with Denver going up 10-0 and a sack leaving him with a hyperextended knee. The injury only kept him out one drive, and Williams came back to throw four touchdown passes before halftime, finishing 18-of-29 for 340 yards in a 42-10 win.

Super Bowl MVP, along with becoming the first Black quarterback to ever start and win one, and the voters somehow still found reasons to look elsewhere for nine straight years.

Joe Flacco (2008-present)

Here's where the story shifts a little. Joe Flacco technically did get a Pro Bowl selection, but it took him 13 years after winning a Super Bowl MVP to do it, which is about as delayed as it gets and earns him a spot here.

Flacco guided the Ravens to the playoffs in each of his first five seasons, and the 2012 postseason is where he made his name, with 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions through four games, and a 34-31 win over the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII that came with the Super Bowl MVP trophy.

The only thing left to grab was a Pro Bowl nod, but it never came Flacco's way. He moved on from Baltimore in 2019, lost 10 of his final 11 starts between the Broncos and Jets, and by November 2023 was sitting at home unemployed until the Browns called and stuck him on the practice squad. He went 4-1 as a starter, threw for 1,616 yards and 13 touchdowns, and became the first quarterback in Browns history to put up 300 yards in four consecutive games, which got him Comeback Player of the Year.

Then at 39 years old, the Pro Bowl invitation finally came his way in January 2026, in his 18th season. Better late than never, I guess, huh?

Jeff Hostetler (1984-1997)

Backups don't usually get handed a 13-3 team in December and told to go win a championship with it, but this is the spot Jeff Hostetler landed in with the Giants after six seasons of barely stepping onto the field.

Two career starts was the only thing Hostetler had on his résumé until Phil Simms broke his foot in Week 15 of the 1990 season and the job fell to him. Hostetler did not disappoint, going 2-0 to close the regular season, then throwing two touchdowns and no interceptions in a 31-3 divisional win over the Chicago Bears.

Hostetler closed out his miracle run in Super Bowl XXV, going 20-of-32 for 222 yards, one touchdown, and zero giveaways in a 20-19 win over a Buffalo team that had just racked up 51 points on the Raiders.

Even with getting the job done, New York chose to cut him loose two seasons later anyway. Los Angeles signed him as a starter in 1993, and he threw for 3,334 yards and 20 touchdowns on a 9-7 Raiders team in 1994 to finally get himself voted in. Four years after the ring, the only Pro Bowl he would ever see came knocking.

Ben Roethlisberger (2004-2021)

A ring at 23 years old sounds like the start of a legendary career, and Ben Roethlisberger did it by having statistically the worst game any winning Super Bowl quarterback has ever played.

He went 13-0 as a rookie starter in 2004 and won Offensive Rookie of the Year without a single Pro Bowl vote coming his way, which isn't the craziest thing considering he was a rookie in a league stacked with future Hall of Famers like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees.

Pittsburgh went into the 2005 playoffs as the sixth seed and knocked off Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Denver on the road to reach Super Bowl XL.

Beating the Seahawks 21-10 took just about nothing from Roethlisberger, unlike every other quarterback here, and he finished 9-of-21 for 123 yards with two interceptions and a 22.6 passer rating that still stands as the worst ever by a winning Super Bowl quarterback.

So where does the Pro Bowl selection enter the mix? Two seasons later in 2007, when he threw 32 touchdowns with a 104.1 passer rating. Five more Pro Bowls followed, plus a second ring in Super Bowl XLIII where he actually played like the guy people remember.

Eli Manning (2004-2019)

Nobody in New York wanted to hear about Eli Manning after he tied for first in the NFL with 20 interceptions in 2007, but anything is possible, because just six weeks later he was holding a Super Bowl MVP trophy.

The Giants finished 10-6 on the regular season and slid into the wild card spot with nobody expecting them to have a chance in the playoffs, then won at Tampa Bay, at Dallas, and at Green Bay in minus-23 wind chill to reach the Super Bowl against an 18-0 New England team favored by 12 points and chasing the first perfect season in 35 years.

New York did everything it could to put Tom Brady and the Patriots on their heels, but really, it was Manning. He finished the game 19-of-34 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, with 152 of those yards coming in the fourth quarter alone, and the 17-14 upset still ranks as the biggest in Super Bowl history. Even after taking down the best team in the league, no Pro Bowl nod.

The first of his four selections came the following season in 2008, and he added a second ring and a second Super Bowl MVP to his trophy case over the same Patriots team four years later.

Get NFL picks on every single game, or if you want our very best bets by the experts, sign up for your free $60 account with a guarantee.

Start:	September 8, 2026 @ 7:30 PM
Expert:	Tony George
Free $60 Account Sign Up

NFL Quarterbacks Who Won a Super Bowl Without Ever Making a Pro Bowl

Most Recent NFL Handicapping