SoDak Bronco
12-20-2006, 03:24 PM
The gold standard for judging crops of NFL rookie quarterbacks is 1983, when Dan Marino, John Elway, Jim Kelly and three other eventual starters were drafted into the pros.
Those superstars are long retired, yet 1983 is resonating again at the NFL's prestige position because that's the year this season's three most prominent rookie quarterbacks were born — 19 days apart.
The Tennessee Titans' Vince Young, the Arizona Cardinals' Matt Leinart and the Denver Broncos' Jay Cutler— the first quarterbacks selected in the 2006 draft — have taken over as starters and figure to be part of a who's-the-best? debate for years. Young has the most wins (seven), Leinart has thrown for more than 200 yards in eight of his 10 starts (405 at the Minnesota Vikings) and Cutler got his first win Sunday in outdueling Leinart and the Cardinals.
"There's no question in my mind that it's not going to be a two-out-of-three thing, as far as all of them hitting," says Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher, whose team studied the quarterbacks intensely given its No. 3 pick in the draft and expectations all three would be available.
Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow coached Leinart in his Heisman Trophy season of 2004 at Southern California, where the two-time national champions ran a pro-style offense.
Cutler had to make only a short drive from the Vanderbilt campus, where he was a four-year starter, for several workouts at the Titans' Nashville practice facility.
"All three are great players," says Fisher, who rates them the best group of rookie quarterbacks in his 12 seasons as head coach. With Young, "We didn't have any concerns about him, or we wouldn't have taken him where we did."
Handicapping the field now is like predicting the Kentucky Derby outcome the second the field breaks from the gate, but Young (7-4) is leading if wins are the top criterion.
After leading Texas to the college championship last season, Young has the Titans on a five-game winning streak for the first time since 2003. His young team that started 0-5 remains alive for a wild-card playoff spot, giving teammates a good feeling about their future.
"All you need to do is get baby sharks to taste blood," is how it's sized up by Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck.
If Tennessee wins out, Young will tie for third-most victories by a rookie quarterback since 1970.
His 462 rushing yards are the most by a rookie quarterback in the Super Bowl era, and Young earned a Sports Illustrated cover with his overtime-ending 39-yard TD run against the Texans in his hometown of Houston on Dec. 10. It is the second-longest TD run by a quarterback in overtime, behind Michael Vick's 46-yarder in 2002.
Young is the only rookie quarterback to rally his team to victory from a 21-point deficit, squeaking past the New York Giants 24-21 on Nov. 26. A week later he became the only rookie quarterback to stage consecutive comebacks from at least 14 points down when the Titans upended the AFC South champion Indianapolis Colts.
That also gave Young back-to-back wins against the Manning brothers, Eli and Peyton.
But Young shies from ranking the achievements.
"I don't know. I'm not finished yet," Young said amid the glare of national media exposure after the Houston game. "These questions, I kind of feel like you think I'm on top right now. I've still got a lot of work to do."
Titan indeed
Titans owner Bud Adams lives in Houston and had been interested in Young since he dominated prep competition there.
Young's primary mentor since high school? Former Titans quarterback Steve McNair.
Fisher has been particularly pleased to see Young post a 63.5% completion rate in his last four games after 45.7% in his first seven.
Leading into the draft, most questions about the 6-4, 233-pound Young centered on his college history as primarily a shotgun-formation quarterback and his unorthodox throwing motion. He releases the ball from a three-quarter position, not sidearm but definitely not overhand.
"I feel like everybody has their own opinions," Young says of his doubters. "If they say Vince can't do this and Vince can't do that, I don't feed into that."
So far the lone notable gaffe by Young was missing Tennessee's Nov. 18 charter flight to Philadelphia, which he blamed on getting stuck in traffic behind a funeral procession. He caught a later flight and began the winning streak the next day.
Bulluck says Young had no difficulty winning over the veterans.
"He came in real humble," Bulluck says. "He just wanted to come in and take over where (McNair) left off."
Bulluck says the only chip on Young's shoulder is "he just doesn't like to be called a rookie."
Young has echoed McNair's fierce running and spontaneity. But where he differs from the 2003 co-NFL MVP is that McNair was a quiet force in the Tennessee locker room while Young is a jokester who describes himself as downright silly.
"He is a silly kid," Titans center and 13-year veteran Kevin Mawae says. "I think it's him relaxing himself. I think he's grown and matured in the sense that he doesn't let the game overwhelm him as he probably did in the beginning. But he's still a kid out there."
During the comeback against the Giants, Titans wide receiver Brandon Jones says, Young "was cool like it was a regular day. … He was like, 'If you guys don't want to play, then you need to get out of the huddle.' "
Why wait?
Rookie quarterbacks traditionally are brought along slowly. Consider the stalwart class of 2000 that included three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, 2006 MVP candidate Drew Brees and the New York Jets' Chad Pennington. None got a start that season (Brees' first appearance was in 2001); they threw a combined 35 passes.
Fisher believes the fast-forwarding of this year's rookie class — plus the 13-0 record Ben Roethlisberger had as a rookie starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2004 — might change that conservative thinking.
"People in the league have a tendency to … look at what happened in the past and make decisions," he says. "This may have an impact on those future quarterbacks that do enter the league" in that teams "will be a little more inclined to play them earlier."
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Bruce Gradkowski, a sixth-round pick out of Toledo, has started 11 games this season but will give way Sunday to seven-year veteran Tim Rattay. Tuesday, rookie Vikings coach Brad Childress announced he was benching 38-year-old Brad Johnson to go with second-round draft choice Tarvaris Jackson out of Division I-AA Alabama State.
Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells says the onslaught of rookies was perhaps foreseeable at the NFL's most demanding position.
"I'm not that surprised," he says. "The ones who show an inclination to be able to play it are going to be put in there pretty quickly, because there's not enough to go around."
Still, there's no guarantee of success. Barring injury, Young, Leinart, Cutler and Gradowski each will have at least five starts. The Elias Sports Bureau says the last time rookie quarterbacks saw that much action was in 2002, not that it produced a flood of household names.
David Carr had 16 starts for expansion Houston, Joey Harrington 12 for the Detroit Lions, Chad Hutchinson nine for Dallas and Patrick Ramsey five for the Washington Redskins. Only Carr is still starting for the same team.
But Denver coach Mike Shanahan believes the 1983-born group has a chance to match the Class of '83 quarterbacks. He traded up in the draft to get Cutler with the 11th overall pick, a move made in part because of a recommendation from his close friend Fisher.
Shanahan focused his scouting on Leinart and Cutler and concluded, "Hey, these guys are both slam-dunks in my opinion."
Cutler's 21-for-31 effort for 261 yards Sunday against Arizona yielded a 101.7 passer rating. Early in the game he dropped back and hit Javon Walker in stride for a 54-yard touchdown, on a pass that sailed about 60 yards in the air. Leinart had won his previous two starts.
"It's nice to see three young guys succeeding. It erases the old cliché that (young) quarterbacks struggle," Leinart says. "Obviously, there are struggles, but all three of us are doing very well."
Shanahan says Cutler "has a big-time future with us." He could also be speaking for Tennessee and Arizona when he addresses the future.
"There will be some growing pains," he says, "but I'll enjoy those pains as time goes on."
Just win, baby
Most victories by a starting rookie quarterback since 1970:
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh 13 (2004)
Kyle Orton, Chicago 10 (2005)
Joe Ferguson, Buffalo 9 (1973)
Chris Chandler, Indianapolis 9 (1988)
Dan Marino, Miami 7 (1983)
Kerry Collins, Carolina 7 (1995)
Vince Young, Tennessee 7 (2006)
Source: Tennessee Titans
Stat scan
Comparison of starting rookie quarterbacks -- Denver's Jay Cutler, Tampa Bay's Bruce Gradkowski, Arizona's Matt Leinart and Tennessee's Vince Young:
G-GS W-L Cmp.-Att. % Yd. TD Int. Rushes Rating
Cutler 3-3 1-2 48-82 58.5 592 6 3 8-20 90.1 :strong:
Gradkowski* 13-11 3-8 177-328 54.0 1,661 9 9 41-161 65.9
Leinart 11-10 3-7 205-364 56.3 2,385 10 12 22-49 71.7
Young 13-11 7-4 156-301 51.8 1,789 10 11 73-462 65.9
*Will be benched Sunday for seven-year veteran Tim Rattay, who has started in 16 of his 34 NFL games.
Source: NFL.com
***
Those superstars are long retired, yet 1983 is resonating again at the NFL's prestige position because that's the year this season's three most prominent rookie quarterbacks were born — 19 days apart.
The Tennessee Titans' Vince Young, the Arizona Cardinals' Matt Leinart and the Denver Broncos' Jay Cutler— the first quarterbacks selected in the 2006 draft — have taken over as starters and figure to be part of a who's-the-best? debate for years. Young has the most wins (seven), Leinart has thrown for more than 200 yards in eight of his 10 starts (405 at the Minnesota Vikings) and Cutler got his first win Sunday in outdueling Leinart and the Cardinals.
"There's no question in my mind that it's not going to be a two-out-of-three thing, as far as all of them hitting," says Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher, whose team studied the quarterbacks intensely given its No. 3 pick in the draft and expectations all three would be available.
Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow coached Leinart in his Heisman Trophy season of 2004 at Southern California, where the two-time national champions ran a pro-style offense.
Cutler had to make only a short drive from the Vanderbilt campus, where he was a four-year starter, for several workouts at the Titans' Nashville practice facility.
"All three are great players," says Fisher, who rates them the best group of rookie quarterbacks in his 12 seasons as head coach. With Young, "We didn't have any concerns about him, or we wouldn't have taken him where we did."
Handicapping the field now is like predicting the Kentucky Derby outcome the second the field breaks from the gate, but Young (7-4) is leading if wins are the top criterion.
After leading Texas to the college championship last season, Young has the Titans on a five-game winning streak for the first time since 2003. His young team that started 0-5 remains alive for a wild-card playoff spot, giving teammates a good feeling about their future.
"All you need to do is get baby sharks to taste blood," is how it's sized up by Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck.
If Tennessee wins out, Young will tie for third-most victories by a rookie quarterback since 1970.
His 462 rushing yards are the most by a rookie quarterback in the Super Bowl era, and Young earned a Sports Illustrated cover with his overtime-ending 39-yard TD run against the Texans in his hometown of Houston on Dec. 10. It is the second-longest TD run by a quarterback in overtime, behind Michael Vick's 46-yarder in 2002.
Young is the only rookie quarterback to rally his team to victory from a 21-point deficit, squeaking past the New York Giants 24-21 on Nov. 26. A week later he became the only rookie quarterback to stage consecutive comebacks from at least 14 points down when the Titans upended the AFC South champion Indianapolis Colts.
That also gave Young back-to-back wins against the Manning brothers, Eli and Peyton.
But Young shies from ranking the achievements.
"I don't know. I'm not finished yet," Young said amid the glare of national media exposure after the Houston game. "These questions, I kind of feel like you think I'm on top right now. I've still got a lot of work to do."
Titan indeed
Titans owner Bud Adams lives in Houston and had been interested in Young since he dominated prep competition there.
Young's primary mentor since high school? Former Titans quarterback Steve McNair.
Fisher has been particularly pleased to see Young post a 63.5% completion rate in his last four games after 45.7% in his first seven.
Leading into the draft, most questions about the 6-4, 233-pound Young centered on his college history as primarily a shotgun-formation quarterback and his unorthodox throwing motion. He releases the ball from a three-quarter position, not sidearm but definitely not overhand.
"I feel like everybody has their own opinions," Young says of his doubters. "If they say Vince can't do this and Vince can't do that, I don't feed into that."
So far the lone notable gaffe by Young was missing Tennessee's Nov. 18 charter flight to Philadelphia, which he blamed on getting stuck in traffic behind a funeral procession. He caught a later flight and began the winning streak the next day.
Bulluck says Young had no difficulty winning over the veterans.
"He came in real humble," Bulluck says. "He just wanted to come in and take over where (McNair) left off."
Bulluck says the only chip on Young's shoulder is "he just doesn't like to be called a rookie."
Young has echoed McNair's fierce running and spontaneity. But where he differs from the 2003 co-NFL MVP is that McNair was a quiet force in the Tennessee locker room while Young is a jokester who describes himself as downright silly.
"He is a silly kid," Titans center and 13-year veteran Kevin Mawae says. "I think it's him relaxing himself. I think he's grown and matured in the sense that he doesn't let the game overwhelm him as he probably did in the beginning. But he's still a kid out there."
During the comeback against the Giants, Titans wide receiver Brandon Jones says, Young "was cool like it was a regular day. … He was like, 'If you guys don't want to play, then you need to get out of the huddle.' "
Why wait?
Rookie quarterbacks traditionally are brought along slowly. Consider the stalwart class of 2000 that included three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady, 2006 MVP candidate Drew Brees and the New York Jets' Chad Pennington. None got a start that season (Brees' first appearance was in 2001); they threw a combined 35 passes.
Fisher believes the fast-forwarding of this year's rookie class — plus the 13-0 record Ben Roethlisberger had as a rookie starter for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2004 — might change that conservative thinking.
"People in the league have a tendency to … look at what happened in the past and make decisions," he says. "This may have an impact on those future quarterbacks that do enter the league" in that teams "will be a little more inclined to play them earlier."
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Bruce Gradkowski, a sixth-round pick out of Toledo, has started 11 games this season but will give way Sunday to seven-year veteran Tim Rattay. Tuesday, rookie Vikings coach Brad Childress announced he was benching 38-year-old Brad Johnson to go with second-round draft choice Tarvaris Jackson out of Division I-AA Alabama State.
Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells says the onslaught of rookies was perhaps foreseeable at the NFL's most demanding position.
"I'm not that surprised," he says. "The ones who show an inclination to be able to play it are going to be put in there pretty quickly, because there's not enough to go around."
Still, there's no guarantee of success. Barring injury, Young, Leinart, Cutler and Gradowski each will have at least five starts. The Elias Sports Bureau says the last time rookie quarterbacks saw that much action was in 2002, not that it produced a flood of household names.
David Carr had 16 starts for expansion Houston, Joey Harrington 12 for the Detroit Lions, Chad Hutchinson nine for Dallas and Patrick Ramsey five for the Washington Redskins. Only Carr is still starting for the same team.
But Denver coach Mike Shanahan believes the 1983-born group has a chance to match the Class of '83 quarterbacks. He traded up in the draft to get Cutler with the 11th overall pick, a move made in part because of a recommendation from his close friend Fisher.
Shanahan focused his scouting on Leinart and Cutler and concluded, "Hey, these guys are both slam-dunks in my opinion."
Cutler's 21-for-31 effort for 261 yards Sunday against Arizona yielded a 101.7 passer rating. Early in the game he dropped back and hit Javon Walker in stride for a 54-yard touchdown, on a pass that sailed about 60 yards in the air. Leinart had won his previous two starts.
"It's nice to see three young guys succeeding. It erases the old cliché that (young) quarterbacks struggle," Leinart says. "Obviously, there are struggles, but all three of us are doing very well."
Shanahan says Cutler "has a big-time future with us." He could also be speaking for Tennessee and Arizona when he addresses the future.
"There will be some growing pains," he says, "but I'll enjoy those pains as time goes on."
Just win, baby
Most victories by a starting rookie quarterback since 1970:
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh 13 (2004)
Kyle Orton, Chicago 10 (2005)
Joe Ferguson, Buffalo 9 (1973)
Chris Chandler, Indianapolis 9 (1988)
Dan Marino, Miami 7 (1983)
Kerry Collins, Carolina 7 (1995)
Vince Young, Tennessee 7 (2006)
Source: Tennessee Titans
Stat scan
Comparison of starting rookie quarterbacks -- Denver's Jay Cutler, Tampa Bay's Bruce Gradkowski, Arizona's Matt Leinart and Tennessee's Vince Young:
G-GS W-L Cmp.-Att. % Yd. TD Int. Rushes Rating
Cutler 3-3 1-2 48-82 58.5 592 6 3 8-20 90.1 :strong:
Gradkowski* 13-11 3-8 177-328 54.0 1,661 9 9 41-161 65.9
Leinart 11-10 3-7 205-364 56.3 2,385 10 12 22-49 71.7
Young 13-11 7-4 156-301 51.8 1,789 10 11 73-462 65.9
*Will be benched Sunday for seven-year veteran Tim Rattay, who has started in 16 of his 34 NFL games.
Source: NFL.com
***