Which backup quarterbacks have started and won the Super Bowl, and in which years?

1. The canonical list: names, Super Bowls and the contexts that made them backups

Roger Staubach, who had been a backup and took over in midseason, started and won Super Bowl VI for the Cowboys ^[1]; Earl Morrall — pressed into service for the Miami Dolphins early in the 1972 season — led the team through the perfect season and is credited with the win in Super Bowl VII ^[2]; Jim Plunkett, a veteran who reclaimed a starting job with the Raiders, started and won Super Bowl XV after taking over midseason ^{[7] [3]}; Jeff Hostetler, a career backup forced into action by injury to Phil Simms, started and won Super Bowl XXV for the Giants ^[3]; Doug Williams, signed as a backup in Washington, started and dominated Super Bowl XXII, becoming the first Black quarterback to start and win the game ^{[1] [5]}; Kurt Warner, a preseason backup who rose from Arena Football to start and win Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams, claimed both MVP and a title season ^[4]; Trent Dilfer, who replaced Tony Banks midway through the 2000 season, started and won Super Bowl XXXV behind a dominant Ravens defense ^[2]; Tom Brady — famously the Patriots’ sixth‑round backup who took over after Drew Bledsoe’s injury — started and won Super Bowl XXXVI, launching a dynasty ^{[1] [8]}; and Nick Foles, who replaced Carson Wentz late in the 2017 season, started and won Super Bowl LII and was named its MVP ^{[5] [1]}.

2. Why definitions of “backup” skew the roster and the narrative

Different outlets emphasize different criteria when compiling “backup winners”: some include players who began seasons on the bench then became full‑time starters (e.g., Terry Bradshaw’s early bench role before championship runs), while others restrict the label to career backups or emergency fill‑ins who had spent most of the season off the field; reporting from AP, SI, the NFL and feature sites demonstrates this variance and explains why lists sometimes count nine, ten, or more names ^{[6] [1] [2]}.

3. Common threads: timing, team strength, and single‑game brilliance

The sourced accounts show recurring patterns: backups who won often benefited from strong rosters or defenses (Trent Dilfer’s 2000 Ravens) or seized an unexpected opportunity and produced a transcendent performance on the biggest stage (Doug Williams in Super Bowl XXII; Kurt Warner’s MVP season) ^{[2] [1] [4]}. Conversely, some victories were team‑driven rather than signal‑caller‑driven, which is why journalists repeatedly pair individual heroics with institutional strength when explaining these upsets ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Limits of the record and where reporting diverges

The public sources compiled here — including NFL features, SI, AP and several retrospectives — agree on the core names but diverge on borderline cases and on whether to count players who only briefly started regular‑season games before a playoff run; those definitional choices explain the occasional discrepancy in list length between outlets ^{[1] [7] [6]}. If a reader seeks a strict, play‑by‑play criterion (for example, only quarterbacks who began the season as backup and had never been regular starters), the sources do not universally adopt a single standard and further primary‑record checking would be required ^{[1] [6]}.

5. Conclusion: the rarity and the takeaway

Winning a Super Bowl as a quarterback after beginning as a backup is rare but repeatable; the best documented examples — Staubach (VI), Morrall (VII), Plunkett (XV), Hostetler (XXV), Williams (XXII), Warner (XXXIV), Dilfer (XXXV), Brady (XXXVI) and Foles (LII) — are supported across multiple contemporary and retrospective sources, even if outlets differ on precisely who qualifies as a “backup” ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}. The phenomenon underscores