UNTESTED, UNDER FIRE
Circumstances have put QBs in the post-season spotlight
The NFL playoffs are all about quarterbacking greatness. This post-season could revolve around Tom Brady’s attempt to secure a fifth career Super Bowl triumph with the New England Patriots. Or perhaps the central storyline will end up being Dak Prescott trying to cap his already remarkable rookie season as a Dallas Cowboy with a confetti-covered celebration.
But first, the opening weekend of these playoffs could be the exception that proves the rule. The four first-round post-season games Saturday and Sunday are littered with quarterbacks better suited to the second half of an August preseason game, with the stands far from filled and the front-line players watching safely from the sideline, as opposed to a high-stakes January encounter.
There is Matt Moore, a longtime backup who has become the Miami Dolphins’ starter by necessity. There is Brock Osweiler, the Houston Texans’ failed-so-far $72 million man whose recent benching has been undone by circumstances. There is Connor Cook, a rookie third-stringer who will make his first NFL start because of injuries to not one, but two Oakland Raiders quarterbacks.
“You have guys here that can make a name for themselves,” former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said this week. “They have a chance to go out and make people look at them in a totally different way.” Or not. This weekend’s games will showcase their fair share of prominent quarterbacks with Hall of Fameworthy careers. Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, Seattle’s Russell Wilson and the New York Giants’ Eli Manning are former Super Bowl winners. Detroit’s Matthew Stafford has one of the nine 5,000-yard passing seasons in NFL history and was a league MVP candidate this season before an injured middle finger on his throwing hand hindered his recent performance.
But that is how it’s supposed to be. That is the norm. What makes this weekend noteworthy is the pervasiveness of the not-readyfor-prime-time quarterbacks who will take the field, not by choice but because of injuries to those slated to play in front of them.
That happens in the NFL, of course. It even happens in the playoffs. The Arizona Cardinals started Ryan Lindley in a playoff game two years ago because of injuries to starter Carson Palmer and backup Drew Stanton along with coach Bruce Arians’s wariness of going with rookie Logan Thomas. They lost to the Carolina Panthers, 27-16, and generated 78 yards total offence, a record low for a post-season game.
But happening to three teams in the same post-season? That’s not a normal occurrence. According to the NFL, Cook will become the first quarterback during the Super Bowl era to make his first career start in a post-season game.
“Sometimes not knowing what you don’t know is the best thing for you,” Theismann said in an interview. “He just says, ‘OK, we’re playing the Texans. I’ll study up and get ready and go play.’ He doesn’t know regular season speed. So he doesn’t know that playoff speed is faster.”
Cook’s Raiders and Osweiler’s Texans play one another Saturday afternoon in Houston. The Raiders were on their way to a magical season and looked like a formidable threat to the Patriots in the AFC when Derek Carr, their brilliant third-year quarterback who had blossomed into an MVP frontrunner, suffered a broken fibula in his right leg during a Christmas Eve game against the Indianapolis Colts.
Enter backup Matt McGloin. But he suffered a shoulder injury in last Sunday’s loss at Denver that, combined with the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory, cost the Raiders the AFC West title and dropped them from the second to the fifth playoff seed.
So now things fall to Cook, who was chosen in the fourth round of last year’s NFL draft out of Michigan State. He was the draft’s 100th overall selection, coming off the board 35 spots before Prescott. NFL talent evaluators liked his passing ability but wondered about things like leadership, given that he hadn’t been elected a team captain during his final season at Michigan State. (Cook, for his part, pointed out that he’d been chosen as a captain for some individual games.)
He did not play at all this season until taking over for McGloin last Sunday and completing 14 of 21 passes, with a touchdown pass and an interception, in the 24-6 defeat to the Broncos. He must face the league’s top-ranked defence this season Saturday in Houston.
“He can throw the ball down the field,” said a front office executive with one NFL team, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to provide a frank assessment of another team’s player. “It’s all the other stuff that you worry about. Can he be accurate and consistent? Can he make good decisions? Can he handle the pass rush? Can he lead his team? You wonder. These are not the ideal circumstances to start finding out.”
Osweiler was supposed to be the answer to the Texans’ quarterbacking woes when he left the Broncos to sign an $18 million-per-year contract in Houston. Instead, he was the league’s 29th-rated passer during the regular season and was benched by coach Bill O’Brien in favour of Tom Savage. But Savage suffered a concussion during last Sunday’s loss at Tennessee. Savage has not been cleared to play and now it’s back to Osweiler, whose return last weekend reportedly included a heated verbal exchange with O’Brien in the locker-room at halftime.
“He’s had an excellent week of practice,” O’Brien said at a midweek news conference. “He’s been on the money with what we’re trying to do. He’s prepared just like he has every week this season as the starter or when he was the backup. He’s a hard-working guy. He’s a very prepared guy. And we’ve had a good week.”
Cook vs. Osweiler does not exactly rival Brady vs. Manning. But one of the unheralded quarterbacks will advance to an AFC semifinal next weekend, possibly at New England against Brady and the top-seeded Patriots.
“With Matt Moore, you know pretty much what you’re going to get,” Theismann said. “With Brock Osweiler, you have no idea. You have no idea which guy is going to show up. With Connor Cook, who knows? He could go out there and light it up. He at least got a taste of it last week. That was an important game. He got out there and now the coaches have had the week to get him ready.
“Both of those defences are good. I wouldn’t expect either of those guys to go out and throw for 300 yards. I wouldn’t expect the score to be in the 30s. That should be like a 17-14 game, something like that. Both of those teams will try to win it with their defence and won’t ask their quarterback to do too much.”
Moore and the Dolphins square off with Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner, and the thirdseeded Steelers on Sunday in Pittsburgh. The 32-year-old Moore made three starts at the end of the regular season after Miami’s Ryan Tannehill suffered a knee injury. Before that, Moore hadn’t started a game since 2011. Moore orchestrated victories over the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills before the Dolphins lost last Sunday to the Patriots.
“I think Matt Moore has a chance to play well,” Theismann said. “I’ve always felt like he’s a pretty solid quarterback. He has the most experience of the group we’re talking about. He’s also been playing the last few weeks. I think he’s in a pretty decent position the run the offence the way Adam (Gase, Miami’s firstyear coach) wants to have it run without having to make too many adjustments. They’ll try to run the ball and go play good defence.”
Sometimes not knowing what you don’t know is the best thing for you. … (Connor Cook) doesn’t know regular season speed. So he doesn’t know that playoff speed is faster.