| The quarterback is the quarterback for a simple reason that goes back to the very origins of football. “Quarterback, halfback, fullback,” wrote Jerry Rice in “America’s Game,” a book covering the history of the NFL’s first 100 years. “From the center, the fullback was all the way back, the halfback crouched halfway back, and the quarterback stood a quarter of the way back. So, the QB got the ball first and decided where the other two would go.” These days, that’s not all the quarterback decides. If the dizzying speed of Tuesday’s news cycle reminded us of anything — as Aaron Rodgers pledged his future to the Green Bay Packers and Russell Wilson upped sticks from Seattle — it’s that the QB is a role unlike anything else in sports. Present-day QBs are football’s version of big-business CEOs who don’t know how to clock out. They’re hands-on — because they can be. They have the broadest of shoulders, not just because of those pads they wear. They increasingly have the willingness and dexterity to be part of everything, all things to all people, as if the rigors of playing a brutally competitive and physical sport were not enough. Wilson, it was reported a few years ago, sometimes arrived at the Seattle Seahawks training facility before 6 a.m. Maybe he’ll do the same in the crisp Mile High air of Denver. It’s part of the job, he claims. QBs don’t just throw, they have a lot more to do. The most senior QBs can not only write their own check but lately also go a long way to designing their own roster and impacting what the surrounding personnel looks like. Before things improved in Green Bay, Rodgers and general manager Brian Gutekunst seemed locked in a “him-or-me” situation. Hmm, wonder how that one would have turned out? The most important position on the field now extends far beyond it, from influencing teammate decisions to the front office and coaching personnel. Before Deshaun Watson’s career was put on hold by his legal issues, his tenure with the Houston Texans soured when he was not consulted over the hiring of GM Nick Caserio. QBs can be the pied piper and chief recruitment officer wrapped into one, as proven by the collection of talents that made their way to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after Tom Brady jumped onto the pirate ship. The Bucs, obviously, wouldn’t have won the Super Bowl without Brady, but they probably wouldn’t have done so without Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown and Leonard Fournette either. Maybe it’s right that QBs should take on some other tasks beyond hurling a pigskin 17 days a year. For they are the $50-million men now, some of them at least, and once Rodgers’ deal gets inked, best believe a new benchmark will be set and it isn’t going to go south. They wield the power, and they are more and more primed to use it. Quarterbacks can dominate the news on any given day, no matter what else is going on, even when the league is supposedly shut down for the year — a level of publicity that money can buy, it just happens to be really expensive. A franchise is a golden goose that, truthfully, may or may not lay valuable eggs, but it’s still worth paying enormous sums to give yourself the best possible chance of finding one that might. Finding one that’s something more? Well, that could give you a shot at a Super Bowl, and all the glorious spinoffs of prestige that come with it. Today’s QB is a hybrid, part pampered rock star, and part behind-the-scenes mover and shaker. They allow franchises to dream and they know how to sell the fantasy — with a little help from agents and publicists. That’s how Dak Prescott, a former fourth-round pick making a couple of million bucks, was able to play hardball over a new deal with the Dallas Cowboys, which would be the most valuable sports franchise in the world were Jerry Jones ever to sell up. And despite that apparent disparity, it was a fair fight. Quarterbacks, in the form of high draft selections, are remedies for the downtrodden and a reason to hope. Just think how Trevor Lawrence’s arrival in Jacksonville was greeted. They have the license to swagger even when it is not an obvious fit for them to do so. Joe Burrow comes across as a humble kid from rural Ohio when you talk to him, but he’s an NFL quarterback (who almost won a Super Bowl in year two) so if he feels like wearing sunglasses indoors and outrageous mink coats, he’s going to. Successful QBs are even the catalyst, apparently, for greatness in other sports. LeBron James, midway through his 56-point explosion for the Los Angeles Lakers last weekend, told the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford, “I had to put on a show with you in the building,” as Stafford sat courtside. They are capable of reinventing themselves without doing very much — Mitch Trubisky went from being a bit of a punchline in Chicago to the verge of a $10 million contract within the past year. His total pass attempts in that span as Buffalo Bills back-up? Eight, and one of them was an interception. It is the only position where you could mortgage your future yet be in no apparent hurry to see that future arrive, a warped version of “win now.” Trey Lance cost the San Francisco 49ers a haul of draft capital ahead of a season where he would mostly sit, and they would eventually lead in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship Game. It is a position where for all the analytics and what we think we know, it was still possible for a guy who never managed to stick anywhere as a long-term starter (Nick Foles) was able to outduel, outplay (and out-catch) Brady in a Super Bowl. This only serves to show there are no guarantees with quarterbacks except for this: the QB is the big man on campus. And if he’s not smart enough to know that and capitalize on it, he probably doesn’t have what it takes to stick around very long. Mr. QB has all these hats — game manager, team leader, signal-caller, man of many talents and wielder of ultimate power. The guy who stands a quarter of the way between the offensive line and the fullback — and at the center of everything else. |
