I remember the first time I saw Rex Grossman play quarterback live at a stadium. It came at the Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville during his junior year at Florida in 2002.
Sure, I had watched him play on television before, but seeing him live that day left an impression on me.
He was one tough player.
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| Even in a tame Bears offense, Grossman threw 23 TD passes in 2006. (Getty Images) |
Georgia couldn't keep him down. He kept getting back up after taking big shots.
He was resilient.
That trait is something he will need again -- provided he gets the chance. For some strange reason, Grossman is not with an NFL team.
Three seasons ago he started all 16 games as the Chicago Bears made it to the Super Bowl. Now he can't even get a backup job.
Something isn't right.
Is Grossman another Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? Not even close. But he is certainly plenty good enough to be a backup quarterback in a league filled with guys who aren't nearly as good.
Cleo Lemon or Rex Grossman? That's easy.
Seneca Wallace or Grossman? Also easy.
Heck, I might even take him over a handful of starters.
How is it that Kyle Orton, who played behind Grossman in 2006, is now a hot commodity in Denver and Grossman can't even get a sniff?
I have a theory: It's called labeling.
NFL front-office types are good at that. They gossip a lot between themselves and when a player gets a label, it's hard to shed.
When Byron Leftwich was looking for a job this past offseason, he did so with a label of his own.
Bad guy, they said.
Three general managers asked me if he was a bad guy because they knew I lived in Jacksonville and knew Leftwich and several other players on the Jacksonville roster. That perception wasn't even close to the truth. Teammates loved the guy. I told those general managers just that.
Tampa Bay will find that out soon enough after they signed him.
Grossman's label is one of an erratic passer who isn't good enough to be even a backup. Remember the "Good Rex" and "Bad Rex" references from the 2006 season? When he played poorly, he was the latter. When he played well, he was the former.
It's true he has been a below-average passer in his career, but a lot of that has to do with the way the Bears played offense.
They put him in third-down-and-make-a-play situations far too much. That means run on first down, run on second down and then ask your quarterback to make a play on third down.
In football, that's a formula for failure.
That style is a big reason why even during the 2006 season Grossman threw 20 interceptions to go with his 23 touchdown passes.
Those 23 touchdown passes are hard to overlook for me. In a bad passing offense, that's a good number.
Brett Favre has hit that number once in the past five years. Donovan McNabb once in four years. David Garrard hasn't done it yet. Neither have Kerry Collins or Chad Pennington.
Of the league's 32 projected starting quarterbacks going into the 2009 season, half have never recorded 23 or more touchdown passes in a season during their careers.
I can say this with certainty: There isn't much difference between the current Favre, the broken-down, can't-throw-it-down-the-field model, and Grossman right now, aside from a glossy résumé and the national media in his pocket.
Don't laugh. I mean it.
Then there's Michael Vick. Here's a guy coming off two years of not playing football and he was never a good passing quarterback at any point in his career anyway.
Yet it's all about Vick and how he'll fit into some team's Wildcat formation, how his legs will liven up a team's creativity. You can have him.
Grossman? He just sits and waits.
"Rex should be signed," said Grossman's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, in an e-mail. "It does not make sense. He is young, healthy and talented. Plus he is a winner. I am very surprised he isn't signed, but confident he will get signed by camp."
Grossman's numbers won't wow a team, but he's better than they are. He has been a 54.2 percentage passer, and that's not good enough. But I always go back to the way the Bears played offense.
They don't ask their quarterback to do much. They think that protects them. In reality, it hurts them.
With the right team, playing in an offense that is a little more daring, Grossman could succeed.
If not as a starter, certainly as a quality backup.
It's amazing to me that the kid I saw play with that toughness at Florida over seven years ago, a quarterback who was in the Super Bowl three years ago, isn't signed to a contact with two months to go before camps open.
There has been talk he might give the new UFL a shot. He's better than that.
Somebody forget the label and sign the kid. He deserves it.
