This year’s Super Bowl certainly sparked several debates throughout the world of sports. Has Eli surpassed Peyton? Was this Tom Brady’s last shot to win his fourth Super Bowl? Does Brady’s inability to beat Eli Manning hurt his legacy at all?

While these are all fun debates to listen to and take part in, there is one thing that seems to be forgotten by the sports world. It takes more than a quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

The NFL has become a quarterback driven league, causing quarterbacks to not only get more praise than they deserve at times, but also too much blame when things go wrong. At the end of the game, the first thing that is looked at it is the play of both quarterbacks and the game is somehow hinged off of their performance alone.

While Eli Manning did play great football, this historic postseason run was anchored by the Giants defense and even their special teams. In the Super Bowl alone, Justin Tuck sacked Tom Brady twice, little-known linebacker Chase Blackburn made an incredible interception in front of Rob Gronkowski and Steve Weatherford pinned the Patriots inside their own 10 three times, once which led to the safety on the first offensive play the Patriots ran..

Yes, the quarterback play in the NFL is better than it has ever been. While having the flashy offense where the quarterback puts up huge numbers looks great, defense still wins championships in the NFL and that isn’t going to change.