Special to Pickwatch.com

This matchup of No. 1 picks at quarterback won’t be a dud.

Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow and Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford both come into Super Bowl LVI with burdens that reach far beyond simply winning an NFL title.

For Burrow, the top pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, he is attempting to prove that the Bengals can finally be a winner. Their last conference championship before 2021 was in 1988 and they have never had a league championship in only 15 playoff appearances. 

For Stafford, the top pick from 2009, the goal is to finally prove he can be a winner now that he has escaped the Detroit Lions—another team seemingly destined forever to be one of the NFL's worst teams.

Those objectives have been the goal all along for each man, but the immediate reality of the opportunity is now before them. They are either three hours away from forever changing the trajectory of their team’s history or proving that some burdens are simply too significant to be overcome.

They are also shining a light on the biggest issue in the NFL.

Ownership matters.

Since 1968, the family of legendary NFL coach Paul Brown has run the Bengals with either Brown himself or son Mike being in charge. The team has had it’s share of good-to-great quarterbacks, including Ken Anderson, Boomer Esiason, Carson Palmer and Andy Dalton. It’s also had its share of talent everywhere else. Cincinnati has done almost nothing with all of that talented...outside of only two Super Bowl appearances before this year.

Likewise, Stafford spent more than a decade in Detroit, much of it next to the likes of Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh. Unfortunately, that time was also spent under the leadership of the Ford Family, which has owned the Lions since 1961. Over six-plus decades, the Fords have produced exactly zero championship and zero Super Bowl appearances.

This is why fans need to understand that sports is often way more complicated than we understand. Great talent as a player is often not enough. Archie Manning proved that in New Orleans. Jim Plunkett suffered so badly after being the No. 1 pick by New England that he was almost mentally and physically broken. Other top-pick quarterbacks like Steve Bartkowski, Andrew Luck and Palmer have failed to live up to their status because owners didn’t have a plan how to take advantage of their greatness.

But, only a handful of teams have the kind of complete history of failure like the Bengals and the Lions. The Arizona Cardinals have a had a long run of futility that has chased them from Chicago to St. Louis and now to the desert. The Cleveland Browns built the Factory of Sadness.

That is why this Super Bowl stands out so indelibly. Burrow has a chance to change the history of the Bengals. Stafford has a chance to wash the history of the Lions away from his tortured soul now that he is in Los Angeles.

One quarterback will leave Super Bowl LVI making history, the other will leave us wondering if he is doomed to repeat it. 

Jason Cole is the author of seven books, including "Elway: A Relentless Life." He is also a Hall of Fame voter & FanBuzz NFL columnist.