What does Plummer have to do to lose his job?

William Bryan, Special to the News

Published November 20, 2006 at midnight

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Editor's note: These would-be columnists were whittled down from 146 hopefuls 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.

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I would like to begin this week by complimenting some of my contemporaries on this page. The first is Van Walker, who has been telling you since September that no amount of pixie dust will bring the Broncos a championship with Jake Plummer under center. Please hit the back button on your browser, scroll down, and give Van the "10" that you did not give him but should have every time he made this point.

The second praiseworthy columnist is the one who did not lead with the question, "What does Jake Plummer need to do to lose his job?" Anybody with the broad imagination to have watched the Broncos' 35-27 loss to the Chargers and come away with any other significant thoughts deserves the readers' admiration. Give him a "10" as well.

The rest of us must be judged on our own merits, on the artistry with which we demand Plummer's head on a pike in our front yards. Rather than a whole column, we should each write a single sentence, without profanity, describing how we are personally better quarterbacks than Plummer. The most convincing sentence not only wins Last Columnist Typing, but also gets to quarterback the Broncos on Thursday night.

I very nearly threw my cat at the television after listening to two solid minutes of John Madden gushing over Plummer's third-quarter pass to Javon Walker that nearly hit Quentin Jammer in the tuckus. I acknowledge that Madden knows more than I will ever know about the game, and I do appreciate the nuance of the deliberate underthrow, but the only thing I saw there was Walker making a play where there was none.

And that was Plummer's highlight.

So, what does Jake Plummer have to do to lose his job?

This is not a rhetorical question. I really want an answer. Generalissimo Shanahan is solely responsible for the decision, so I assume he has been making it, that he has an actual reason that Plummer is the best choice. Surely he noticed that by the middle of the first quarter Sunday night, he had reverted to the Week Two philosophy of using only the safest 30 percent of his playbook.

The situation has reached the necessary crisis point to make a change, which is that it no longer matters who the backup is. You no longer need to have fallen foolishly in love with an unproven rookie quarterback in order to believe the wrong guy is taking snaps in Denver. You need only to have watched the starter to realize the disadvantage to which the Broncos have staked themselves.

The real anguish is not that everybody knows this, nor is it that you, faithful reader, have to muddle through seven half-coherent rants about the ineptitude of the Broncos' quarterback play. The real anguish is that the Broncos have no chance in this short week of preparation to install a new quarterback, so we have to live it all over again Thursday night.

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