Post by TheShadow on Sept 5, 2006 17:04:00 GMT -5
www.contracostatimes.com
Unique to football, a single player can be the lightning rod for everything good and bad that happens
By Cam Inman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Huddle up. Now listen. Yeah, to that guy. The quarterback.
"Nobody talks in the huddle but me," Cleveland Browns quarterback Charlie Frye said. "I feel, being in the huddle, I have to be the leader. That's why I spend a lot of time around here (at the Browns facility)."
Frye is entering only his second NFL season. But because he's a quarterback, he must serve as a team leader. It's part of the job requirement. Simple as that.
Finding the right quarterback isn't so easy, and 11 teams -- or 34 percent of the league -- enter this season with a new starting quarterback from last year's opening game.
But whoever plays the position on almost any team immediately inherits a role unmatched by any other position on their team or in any other sport. Some may call it a burden, some a reward, but the pressure that comes with being an NFL quarterback is heavy.
"I believe playing quarterback in the National Football League is the hardest thing to do in sports. I'm obviously biased," said Troy Aikman, a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback inducted last month into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "I don't know what it's like to maybe do some other things in sports. But I think what's expected of this position, in order to be successful at this position, so much of it goes beyond just your own skill level."
Physical demands are combined with mental ones. Praise is offset by criticism. Through it all, the microscope and cameras never stray far from the starting quarterback.
Look back this past offseason across the league, and half the 32 teams dealt with quarterback issues, whether they changed starters, watched injured ones get better or debated the shelf life of their aging signal caller.
Seven teams are entering the season with new projected starters: the Raiders (Aaron Brooks), Baltimore Ravens (Steve McNair), Detroit Lions (Jon Kitna), Miami Dolphins (Daunte Culpepper), New Orleans Saints (Drew Brees), San Diego Chargers (Philip Rivers) and Tennessee Titans, (Billy Volek, unless he's overtaken by rookie Vince Young).
Does that make them instant leaders? No, but they must adapt to the role sooner rather than later.
McNair, three years removed from sharing co-league MVP honors with Peyton Manning, already has drawn rave reviews. "The Ravens almost are reborn from an attitude standpoint," said Ron Jaworski, an ESPN analyst and former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback. "With a veteran leader, they feel like they have a chance. They've already bought into it."
Raiders coach Art Shell expected Brooks eventually to settle into a leadership role rather than outright demand it from the outset, Shell stating at the start of camp: "You can't just come in and say, 'I'm the leader because I'm the quarterback.' It doesn't work that way."
Rookie safety Michael Huff, the Raiders' first-round draft pick, agreed with Shell's take and noted he looks more to the leadership of returning Raiders such as wide receiver Randy Moss and defensive tackle Warren Sapp.
As quarterbacks throughout the NFL have learned, when things go well, the quarterback is king. When things bomb, the quarterback is a common target, along with the coach.
Can the same be said in baseball about just one player, say a cleanup hitter or an ace pitcher? How about a midfielder in soccer? Or in basketball, in which a point guard directs traffic but a big center or sharp-shooting forward can be a giant factor?
The quarterback is "the heartbeat of a football team," Jaworski said. "It's the face of the football team and the one position people are most critical of in a positive or negative way."
That's why having thick skin and a strong will comes in so handy for even the hardest-throwing, super-skilled quarterback.
"There's quite a few players that do have that physical talent, but I think it's a major (determiner) to be able to take charge and present the confidence that a quarterback has to do to his teammates," Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach said. "Players at the professional level, or at any level, they really are a little bit scared at times and they don't want to make a mistake. There's big games. You got to have the people that can kind of fight through the pressure and be able to take charge and say, 'Hey, listen, we can make this happen.' Because if you don't convince the rest of the team, you can't make it happen yourself."
Is it fair for quarterbacks to shoulder so much when they're already busy trying to spy where a blitzing defender is coming from or through which window to spot an open receiver?
"Whether it's fair or not doesn't matter. It takes commitment," said 49ers quarterback Alex Smith, last year's No. 1 overall draft pick. "That's why quarterbacks are the highest-paid players. It comes with the territory. It's predominantly the most criticized, the most viewed.
"You're touching the ball every play. Left tackles might make mistakes, but they kind of go unnoticed by the general public, or receivers might make mistakes, but if you make a mistake as a quarterback, all eyes are on you. It comes with the territory. If you don't like that, you're playing the wrong position."
Added 49ers coach Mike Nolan: "If the guys don't have confidence in (the quarterback) for whatever reason or they just don't like him, it's hard to make it work. I've seen a quarterback be successful when the players did not like him, but he was good enough that they put it aside and said, 'He can take us there.' I've seen other guys that weren't very good, but the guys loved him to death, and so he led."
In good times, the quarterback can't relish too much of the personal praise heaped upon him, for his leadership role makes him deflect kudos to his sturdy linemen, clutch wide receivers and unsung running backs. In bad times, look out Mr. Quarterback, the blame is coming at you as fast as blitzing linebacker Brian Urlacher. It's a perspective perhaps only quarterbacks can comprehend.
"The fraternity amongst quarterbacks is there because we all recognize and we all understand, I guess, those pressures that you talk about: what's expected, the demands on us when things aren't going well," Aikman said. "Really the two people within an organization that get exposed the most, whether you're winning or losing, are the head coach and the quarterback."
That's why fellow quarterbacks often are the best sounding boards when a quarterback needs guidance.
Aikman said he often consulted with opposing quarterbacks during offseasons, calling it a "quarterback club" that included the 49ers' Steve Young, the Miami Dolphins' Dan Marino, the Buffalo Bills' Jim Kelly and the Denver Broncos' John Elway, all of whom entered the Hall of Fame within the past five years. (Of the 202 players in the Hall of Fame, 31 played quarterback, including six enshrinees over the past three years.)
"I had a bunch of guys on my team I was able to talk with, share my frustrations with, they were really helpful," Aikman said, "but until you really get with a quarterback and talk to him about it, (non-quarterbacks) don't quite understand what you're dealing with."
Said Young: "Quarterbacks learn to deal with it by how almost it gets in their blood. Nobody is shocked by expectations. That's why it's so hard to play in the NFL. They'll say someone will be a good pro, but there's just too much, too many expectations and it all gets too much for some people. That's why there's a great weeding out process and why there are only 10 in the league that are top-line quarterbacks. It's a tough thing to handle, and a lot of it is just genetic makeup."
The 49ers' Smith agreed, noting there's a special aura that goes with being a quarterback, whether he's a novice or an accomplished veteran.
"It takes a certain amount of leadership the second you step on a field," Smith said. "Come game time, whether you're a rookie or not, those guys look at you. You have to communicate the play to everyone. You have to look in their eyes. They have to be able to trust you, to be able to have confidence in you."
Smith went 2-5 as a rookie starter last season and the Browns' Frye went 2-3 in his debut campaign, but regardless of their inexperience and few victories and, their teammates are looking to them for leadership.
Browns wide receiver Joe Jurevicius, an eight-year veteran who's coming off his third Super Bowl appearance, defers to Frye in terms of rallying the offense.
"Legitimately on offense, I think it's the quarterback's team, and you shouldn't take that away from Charlie," Jurevicius said. "He's the ringleader and field general. (Quarterbacks) are the guys who spend most of their time in the building, learning not only what they do, but what everyone else does."
Not all wide receivers have their quarterback's back, if you will. Take Terrell Owens, whose feud last year with quarterback Donovan McNabb fractured the Philadelphia Eagles locker room. A year later, Owens is gone and McNabb is battling to re-establish himself as the Eagles' foremost leader.
The Dallas Cowboys' Drew Bledsoe didn't need more than a day of training camp to let it be known that he'd put Owens in his place, if needed. Asked if he would ever tell a receiver to, "Shut the (expletive) up," as Owens alleged McNabb did to touch off their feud, Bledsoe replied, "If they need to be told that, then, yeah."
Smith admitted that he wasn't comfortable yelling or calling out teammates in the huddle as a rookie. But that didn't stop him from trying to step up and be a leader in other ways, most notably remaining optimistic in dire times.
Former 49ers running back Roger Craig remembered what it was like in the huddle with two of the franchise's fabled quarterbacks -- Joe Montana and Young. The 49ers looked to those two Hall of Famers for leadership. But did that hold true when replacements such as Matt Cavanaugh, Jeff Kemp or Mike Moroski were forced into action?
"We had to," Craig said. "When the quarterback steps in, he's the leader, he's the conductor."
He is, indeed. So huddle up.