ShareThisTroy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Namath combined to win eight Super Bowls. They also combined for three playoff road wins in their careers.
Sonny Jurgensen, Steve Young, Norm Van Brocklin, Warren Moon, Y.A. Tittle, Jim Kelly and Bob Griese all are Pro Football Hall of Famers. Together, they quarterbacked 20 playoff games on the road. They won three of them.
Big Ben Roethlisberger has three road wins all by his lonesome.
Any discussion of football's greatest quarterbacks includes Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and Dan Marino. Their combined playoff road record: 4-13.
Joe Flacco's playoff road record: 4-3.
Bart Starr quarterbacked the Packers to five NFL titles. Otto Graham quarterbacked the Browns to 10 championship games, winning seven of them. Peyton Manning has quarterbacked the Colts to 140 victories, including nine in the post-season. Starr, Graham and Manning each have two road playoff victories on their resume'.
Aaron Rodgers has two road playoff wins since Jan. 9.
Something strange swirls around pro football as the conference title games approach. Home-field advantage isn't what it used to be. Quarterbacks aren't capitulating to the pressure and the noise and the desires of opponents' blood-sucking pass rushers and fire-breathing fans.
Beware the Jets, who go to Pittsburgh, and the Packers, who go to Chicago. Road teams suddenly are standing tall in the NFL playoffs.
NFL road teams in the playoffs won just 26.7 percent of the time in the 1950s, 35.5 percent in the 1960s, 32.8 percent in the 1970s, 31.4 percent in the 1980s and 27 percent in the 1990s.
But in the last four NFL postseasons, road teams are 18-20, almost .500. And in 2005, the Steelers won three road games to reach the Super Bowl, which they won. The 2007 Giants did the same thing en route to their championship.
In the name of Daryle Lamonica (0-3 on the playoff road), what is going on? I say four things:
-- 1. Technology and strategy have weakened homefield advantage. Helmet radios, silent snap counts, domed stadiums. It's a lot easier to play on the road than it once was.
Domes are loud, but ask the 1967 Cowboys if they'd take pandemonium over Lambeau Field's ice. Teams now are equipped to handle the noise -- when's the last time you saw a quarterback really struggle with communication? -- so when they go to Minnesota or Indy or wherever, it's much more manageable.
-- 2. Quality control. The NFL is all about quality control. In college ball, 27-14 is a nail-biter. In the pros, it's a blowout. Most every game is close. Through osmosis, no franchise is allowed to stink for long, though the Lions certainly tested that theory.
You would think in such a delicate state of parity, homefield advantage would tip the scales. Not so. The NFL's quality control evens the field, everything from sideline blowers to officiating scrutiny to rule adjustments. For instance, games are shorter now, with the clock resuming shortly after an out-of-bounds play.
-- 3. Coaching is better than ever. No one has the corner on genius. Vince Lombardi outfoxed plenty of foes, with rarely reciprocation. Bill Belichick is the resident Einstein, but he wore the dunce cap Sunday when Rex Ryan and the Jetropolitans threw a dizzying array of defenses at the Patriots.
-- 4. Finally, quarterbacking is better than ever. Don't buy that theory that the league is short of quality QBs.
In 2007, Sanchez was a college backup, Flacco was the starting quarterback at Delaware and Rodgers shivered on the Packer sideline, backing up a 38-year-old museum relic.
Now the Jets' Mark Sanchez and the Ravens' Flacco are tied for the most playoff road wins in NFL quarterback history, matching Len Dawson and Roger Staubach. And Rodgers is drawing raves as the best quarterback on the planet.
Young quarterbacks more than ever before are prepared to play at a high level. The well-coached franchises -- of which there are many -- put the pups in position, and they produce. Even on the road.
(Contact Berry Tramel at btramel@opubco.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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