Quarterbacks don’t make controversies

It’s the kiss of death for any pro football team. It can mar a season before it begins. And… It’s the kiss of death for any pro football team. It can mar a season before it begins. And it’s complete idiocy. It’s a Quarterback Controversy.

The talking heads at ESPN and the like always go nuts when there’s no clear starting quarterback for a team. They talk about how terrible it is for morale, how disastrous it can be, how it’s the last thing you want in training camp.

You won’t hear me criticize the media much, but here’s an example of when we just screw things up because it’s theoretically better for us.

To start: quarterback is the only position in any sport for which there is a designated controversy. One never hears about a Strong Safety Controversy, a Shortstop Controversy or a Left Defenseman Controversy. When there are two qualified players for the same position — at all other positions in all other sports — it’s called healthy competition. It’s not a bad thing; it’s a good one.

Tell a coach, “You have not one but two players so good they could start at a professional level,” and they won’t see that as a problem. And who can blame them? Two players engaged in a position battle — no C word — push each other. They can make each other better. That’s part of what training camp is for. But, when it’s a quarterback, all of a sudden the meritocracy inherent in sports goes away.

Why? Because some sports people are too married to an old-school idea of a quarterback as a coach on the field, the sine qua non of a championship. If a quarterback ever was necessarily those things, he isn’t now.

A favorite argument is that quarterbacks are more important to their team than other positions, and that, without a starting quarterback as a constant, a team will fall apart psychologically. Two examples from recent years to disprove this: the 2002-2003 Philadelphia Eagles and the 2000-2001 Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens are simply an example of a good team that won the Super Bowl with a great defense, a solid running game and a mediocre quarterback. Trent Dilfer wasn’t among the 10 most important players on that team, and yet they did all right.

The Eagles’ franchise player and quarterback, Donovan McNabb, went down with a crippling leg injury during their 10th game. The next week, Koy Detmer led the team to a win and got injured. Then third-string A.J. Feeley took over and went 4-1 as a starter to finish the season — the loss was a 7-10 overtime loss in the last game of the regular season. No one would question the impact that McNabb had on the game and on his team, but clearly he was less important than a winning system.

Another argument for the detrimental effects of a Quarterback Controversy is that the starting quarterback won’t have confidence. The more one thinks about this idea, the more stupid it sounds. For one thing, if failing to receive unearned, unconditional support is enough to fluster a QB, he’s not going to deal very well with teams of large men trying to attack him. For another, there’s no history of a good quarterback ever being narrowly named the starter or backup and then suffering because of it. One need look no farther than Tom Brady when, in the midst of a playoff hunt — a far more tension-filled time than training camp — he was the narrow winner of a Quarterback Controversy, and he wound up OK. (He won the Super Bowl.)

Of course, a quarterback can be all of the aforementioned things. He can be the most important factor on a Super Bowl team, like a John Elway, a Brett Favre. But he can also be a small factor, and it’s the player, not the inherent characteristics of the position, that make it as important as it is or is not.

Perhaps the worst thing about the fabrication of turmoil is the arbitrary fashion with which it is applied. The most obvious example of Quarterback Controversy this year is not being called one, because the media love Eli Manning too much.

In the past, I have been known as an outspoken critic of some of Pitt head coach Walt Harris’ decisions and statements. One of the many recent criticisms of that man is that he never names starters. While at times I’ve been frustrated by his inability to name the correct starter, I’ve always agreed with him that local sports reporters made too big a deal out of that. Of course, I also think that he should quit whining and saying things like “Calling plays is real hard,” and, “It’s no fun to play quarterback derby or quarterback ____ or whatever you want to call it.” I, for the record, call it coach.

We have recently learned that, after a local Quarterback Controversy of sorts, Tyler Palko, and not Luke Getsy, will be our starting quarterback for the first game. Harris said that part of his motivation was to dispel the impression that he doesn’t name starters. Of this I am certain: if Palko winds up sucking, it will not be because Harris waited too long to name him, and if Palko succeeds, it will not be because members of the media made Harris name him earlier than he might otherwise have. Either way, it will be his attitudes and his abilities that determine his future, not the fact that Getsy almost beat him for a job one summer.

Greg Heller-LaBelle has never been involved in an Editor Controversy. E-mail him at editor@pittnews.com.