Real men of 'genius' stumbling into a better quarterback
Ah, well. It happens. Even to NFL masterminds, to men like Bill Parcells and Jon Gruden, who have won Super Bowls despite being unable to tell a crappy quarterback from a quality one.
This season in Dallas, Parcells stuck with Drew Bledsoe's empty husk for six games before turning the team over to Tony Romo -- who earned a spot in the Pro Bowl with a better season than any of Bledsoe's 14 years in the NFL. Romo's 95.1 passer rating is fifth in the league and well ahead of Bledsoe's career-best 87.7 rating from 1997.
How could Parcells not see that Bledsoe was garbage, and Romo was golden?
Ask Gruden. He's the loser -- technically this is true; the Bucs did go 4-12 -- who gave 11 starts to Bruce Gradkowski and just two to Tim Rattay. Gradkowski went 3-8 with a 65.9 passer rating. Rattay came off the bench to almost beat Chicago, then went 1-1 in his two starts, with an 88.2 passer rating. And Gruden's a quarterback guru.
It's rampant, this incompetence. If coaches were handling cobras and not quarterbacks, you'd see all kinds of dead people -- starting with Chicago's Lovie Smith, who has wrecked Rex Grossman. After Grossman emerged from his personal hell to make three strong starts, Smith benched him for Brian Griese late in the 15th game, triggering the shaken Grossman's meltdown last week: 2-for-12, three interceptions and a fumble.
The Bears have a Super Bowl team but a basket-case quarterback.
All of which leads to my favorite example of quarterback klutziness. This fall Arizona State's Dirk Koetter butter-fingered away his job by announcing senior Sam Keller would be the Sun Devils' 2006 starter, then overruling himself two days later and giving the job to sophomore Rudy Carpenter. Koetter's transparent weakness -- he folded after Carpenter threatened to transfer -- abetted the 7-6 season that got him fired.
Forget Koetter's gutlessness. How about his imbecility?
In 2005 Arizona State was 3-4 with Keller, who threw 14 interceptions in seven games and was trailing Stanford 45-7 when he was pulled with injury. Carpenter came off the bench to turn Keller's 45-7 mess into a respectable 45-35 loss, then went 4-1 as a starter. He threw for 17 touchdowns and just two interceptions. So of course, with that body of evidence, Koetter's first instinct was to make Keller the starter.
No wonder Koetter got fired three months later. I'm still wondering how he got the Arizona State job in the first place. And who he finds to tie his shoes.
