Here's the weird thing, most super bowl teams aren't teams with high powered rushing offenses. Peterson never went to a Super Bowl, neither did Sanders or Tomlinson, or Dickerson.
More often than not SB teams have had a platoon at RB.
My biggest concern with Elliot is that I see him as not being a powerful guy who could will the ball over the goal line, that's the kind of player we need to add actual scores onto the meaningless piles of yards we accumulate.
Yea that's true although those guys usually were the focal point of their offenses, usually with average at best QB's, except for Tomlinson, and almost always without an HOF type of threat in the passing game to complement them.
Peterson especially has had to suffer through this, although when he had Favre they were an OT loss in the NFCC away from the Super Bowl, a game where they were honestly the better team, evidenced by the fact that it took a bonehead Favre mistake and OT for the Saints to beat them despite the fact that they were -4 in TO differential.
As far as the Chargers, you had to feel like they underachieved, they were the clear SB favorites in 2006 and it took a completely ridiculous game against the Patriots at home for them to not make it. They also made the AFCC a year or two later I believe.
Sanders obviously never got close but the conference was dominated in that era by another team with a dominant rushing attack. I have no clue what happened with Dickerson but I'd imagine they probably got close to the SB a time or two despite having what I assume was shit QB play.
At the end of the day I think it has more to do with teams becoming over-reliant and possibly lazy when it comes to building an offense around an HOF type of RB. Often times those teams are too content to try to make due with an average passing game to go along with their running game, whether it be because their QB is anywhere from shit to average or because they don't have any real targets in the passing game.
How many elite RB's have been accompanied by an elite QB and elite WR?
And then what might be a generational type of OL on top of that?
Almost none, so while in many ways I totally agree with much of what you and Cowboysrock are saying in theory, I think there is a strong argument to make for Elliott considering the specific circumstances of our team.