QB controversy? Only in Denver

Van Walker, Special to the News

Published November 6, 2006 at midnight

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Ten months ago, Jake Plummer and Ben Roethlisberger played for the right to advance to the Super Bowl. Now, word around the campfire is that they are playing for their jobs.

This is true in Denver, not Pittsburgh.

As further proof that 24-hour sports programming has permanently warped our sense of perspective, I offer the "controversy" at quarterback brewing in Pittsburgh. This situation has gotten so out of hand that none other than Jake Plummer his own self had some quarterbacking advice for Ben Roethlisberger — think Jesse Jackson counseling Bill Clinton on adultery — but anyone who seriously believes that Charlie Batch is the answer has been drinking from the Monongahela River. There is nothing wrong with Ben Roethlisberger that another season under center won't fix.

See, no one in Pittsburgh is saying it out loud, but the simple fact is that their franchise quarterback NEARLY DIED one month before the start of training camp. Anyone else think that going from ICU to two-a-days might have adversely affected his season? It only took totaling his motorcycle to turn Roethlisberger into Jake Plummer, but hope is on the horizon, Sunday's result notwithstanding. He is playing football again, fearlessly if inefficiently. Better still, he's completing 64 percent of his passes this season, in keeping with his career totals, and he completed 70 percent in Sunday's loss. Yes, he has seven interceptions in his last two games, but when a guy throws 91 times in those two games, it must be expected that some of those tosses will find enemy hands. Given that he's lucky to be ambulatory and coherent at this point in his life, I'm willing to write off Roethlisberger's struggles this season and look forward to better numbers sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, I can't say it enough times: Jake Plummer is not struggling. This is who he is. This is a quarterback who has exactly three seasons in 10 where he's thrown for more touchdowns than interceptions, and exactly two in which he has completed 60 percent or more of his passes. He is not a good quarterback now, and he is not getting better with age. After an uncharacteristic 2005, Plummer has reverted back to the form he has shown throughout his entire career, where inconsistent performances are the rule. Besides, getting fat against a team that had already lost five times in seven games is not nearly as impressive as it might have been had he put those numbers up against undefeated Indianapolis at home last week. All Sunday's victory did was move Jay Cutler's inevitable coronation back by one week.

And it is inevitable. We have 10 seasons of proof that Jake Plummer can't regularly repeat Sunday's effort, while Cutler represents fresh-faced potential garlanded by first-round imprimatur. It's easy to imagine Cutler outperforming Plummer if only because Plummer has placed the bar so low.

It's easier to imagine Cutler outperforming Plummer this season.

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