erod
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Quarterbacks are like cover girls.
They can look awfully good on paper, but when you strip away the make-up and look behind the airbrushing, you might have just another high maintenance bimbo with Fran Drescher voice and daddy issues. Seldom does reality live up to the hype.
Nothing seems as hard to find as a real NFL quarterback, and I think I know why.
I get so sick of the empty clichés about QBs. "Strong arm", "big frame", "quick release", "good arm motion", "son of a high school coach", blah, blah, blah. I could name 200 guys that have come along with those exact attributes that didn't amount to Matt Foley down by the river.
Cajones. Tremendous, giant, vulcanized stones. THAT is what should be scouted, not candidates for Chip 'n Dale.
I don't know how the great ones do it, and I understand why the others can't. I couldn't, no matter what I looked like. To stand in that pocket, eyes always downfield, taking hit after hit for marathon season after marathon season without wavering from the task at hand...that is the stuff of legend. That is what separates the super rare elite ones from the rest of the also-rans.
Brains, too. All the guts in a slaughterhouse won't amount to jack squat either if you don't have the mental moxie to make it matter.
The textbook says Brees and Romo shouldn't be elite. But they are. It says Weeden and Gabbert should be elite, but they're a million miles from it. Back in the day, guys like Jim Everett and Marc Bulger had it going early on, but lost their nerve. Hits took their toll, and their eyes starting watching the rush instead of looking downfield. Their fire flickered, and went out. Their perfect NFL physiques couldn't save them.
I watch and wonder why NFL teams continue to cast their lot with some of these guys. They remain obsessed with QB measureables despite years of documented failures. First-round busts abound on strapping, 6-foot-5 catapult bodies that melt in the NFL lights.
Dallas is no doubt casting nets to find it's successor to Romo, and tried to land Canton-looking Paxton Lynch. I'm glad they didn't because he's rumored to have the football IQ of a garbanzo bean. Now, they're suddenly pressed for a backup to Romo, at first reaching out for Captain Measureable in Nick Foles. He chose Kansas City, so now they're scrambling for anybody with a resume, regardless of how it reads.
I think they're taking the wrong approach. Just find a guy with gonads, somebody that won't wilt in the Cowboy-sized spotlight of America's pressure cooker. Never mind if he can throw a ball through a tire from 40 yards and smile for the cameras. Get somebody that will compete.
I was disgusted with Weeden last year. The guy had no spine. That late slide on 4th-and-1 showed his true colors. Cassel quite obviously seems content to ride the backup gravy train for quarterback money. He doesn't care anymore.
No more of that, please.
Whether it's Showers or Prescott, or a guy on another team, find a competitor like Doug Flutie, not a daisy like Elvis Grbac. And when you draft the real "next Romo", look for the things that make Tony special, not what the football textbook says makes him inferior.
That's a textbook that should be burned.
They can look awfully good on paper, but when you strip away the make-up and look behind the airbrushing, you might have just another high maintenance bimbo with Fran Drescher voice and daddy issues. Seldom does reality live up to the hype.
Nothing seems as hard to find as a real NFL quarterback, and I think I know why.
I get so sick of the empty clichés about QBs. "Strong arm", "big frame", "quick release", "good arm motion", "son of a high school coach", blah, blah, blah. I could name 200 guys that have come along with those exact attributes that didn't amount to Matt Foley down by the river.
Cajones. Tremendous, giant, vulcanized stones. THAT is what should be scouted, not candidates for Chip 'n Dale.
I don't know how the great ones do it, and I understand why the others can't. I couldn't, no matter what I looked like. To stand in that pocket, eyes always downfield, taking hit after hit for marathon season after marathon season without wavering from the task at hand...that is the stuff of legend. That is what separates the super rare elite ones from the rest of the also-rans.
Brains, too. All the guts in a slaughterhouse won't amount to jack squat either if you don't have the mental moxie to make it matter.
The textbook says Brees and Romo shouldn't be elite. But they are. It says Weeden and Gabbert should be elite, but they're a million miles from it. Back in the day, guys like Jim Everett and Marc Bulger had it going early on, but lost their nerve. Hits took their toll, and their eyes starting watching the rush instead of looking downfield. Their fire flickered, and went out. Their perfect NFL physiques couldn't save them.
I watch and wonder why NFL teams continue to cast their lot with some of these guys. They remain obsessed with QB measureables despite years of documented failures. First-round busts abound on strapping, 6-foot-5 catapult bodies that melt in the NFL lights.
Dallas is no doubt casting nets to find it's successor to Romo, and tried to land Canton-looking Paxton Lynch. I'm glad they didn't because he's rumored to have the football IQ of a garbanzo bean. Now, they're suddenly pressed for a backup to Romo, at first reaching out for Captain Measureable in Nick Foles. He chose Kansas City, so now they're scrambling for anybody with a resume, regardless of how it reads.
I think they're taking the wrong approach. Just find a guy with gonads, somebody that won't wilt in the Cowboy-sized spotlight of America's pressure cooker. Never mind if he can throw a ball through a tire from 40 yards and smile for the cameras. Get somebody that will compete.
I was disgusted with Weeden last year. The guy had no spine. That late slide on 4th-and-1 showed his true colors. Cassel quite obviously seems content to ride the backup gravy train for quarterback money. He doesn't care anymore.
No more of that, please.
Whether it's Showers or Prescott, or a guy on another team, find a competitor like Doug Flutie, not a daisy like Elvis Grbac. And when you draft the real "next Romo", look for the things that make Tony special, not what the football textbook says makes him inferior.
That's a textbook that should be burned.
