Great rookie QBs may be curse in disguise

Van Walker, Special to the News

Published September 9, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Denver Broncos

Editor's note: These reader-penned columns were whittled down from 146 entries in our Last Columnist Typing contest. One columnist is eliminated per week — a la Survivor — until one is left at the NFL season's end. The winner will cover an event alongside the pros.

More columns and details

To: The Broncos, the Cardinals and the Titans

From: A Concerned Fan

Re: Quarterback

The dreams of 20 NFL franchises ended with the close of the preseason, and if you don't want to be on the outside looking in, this is clear:

Your rookie quarterback carries a clipboard this season.

Why? No rookie quarterback has ever won a Super Bowl.

Sure, Matt Leinart has everything you could want in a franchise player: He's tall, athletic and possessed of a strong arm and a good head. Sure, Vince Young has impressed everyone with how quickly he has caught on in Tennessee. Absolutely, Denver fans have to be thrilled with Mike Shanahan tutoring Jay Cutler.

Yada. Yada. Yada.

Consider this pre-draft analysis: "Possesses all the intangibles; demonstrates leadership qualities and an ability to rally the troops. He's a clutch fourth-quarter quarterback who deals well with pressure. He has a presence and an aura about him in the huddle. He commands respect from his teammates. He is mobile and has above-average arm strength. And he's proven he can play in adverse weather conditions." — Mel Kiper Jr.

Yahtzee! And who was he blessing?

Joey Harrington.

And there will be no piling on Kiper because he wasn't the only one wrong on Joey Ballgame . . . we were all wrong.

Just like everyone was wrong about Jim Druckenmiller, Cade McNown, Ryan Leaf, Heath Shuler, Rick Mirer, Akili Smith and Andre Ware.

I'm not saying that Cutler, Young, and Leinart are going to stink out loud the way the aforementioned did, but I am saying that most rookie QBs do well to line up under center consistently. So why do they struggle doing something they've done forever?

Speed.

NFL game speed simply cannot be duplicated anywhere else. Quarterbacks have to learn to think faster than the guys trying to kill them, and that is a process that takes years, not weeks.

That's time The Big Three may not have. Cutler could be starting by Thanksgiving. When Kurt Warner gets broken early, Matt Leinart is Plan B and there is no Plan C. And it says so right here that Vince Young will be starting for Tennessee following their bye week in October.

Buh-bye, 2006 playoffs.

Don't take my word for it. Only one rookie (Bob Waterfield, Rams) ever led his team to an NFL championship, and he did it back when the earth was cooling. Nowadays, the team that starts a rookie has officially bailed out on their season, no matter what the Kool-Aid drinkers on sports talk radio think.

Trust me. Play the veterans and let next year come next year, not in October or November. Sit the kids until they're ready.

Van, 42, is from Detroit and currently teaches English in Daejeon, South Korea. He follows sports avidly on the Internet because it's cheaper than therapy and because his friend, a pastor, is pretty sure he won't burn for it.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News