Where have all the quarterbacks gone?

   If you watch any NFL football on TV, you will definitely hear one of the commentators talk about how the NFL is a quarterback league. You can't win without a quarterback. The quarterback position is more important now than it has ever been. Blah, blah, blah. They'll talk about how more college teams are throwing the ball all the time, and quarterbacks are being better prepared for the NFL. You'd think if quarterbacks are as important as all the experts say they are, then teams would be exhausting all options to find, develop, and build around great quarterbacks.
  
   Well, something has gone drastically wrong. Have you looked at the guys playing quarterback in the NFL right now? It's a league full of guys who are supposed to be good but are playing terribly and other guys who are just terrible.
 
    Let's get the good ones out of the way quick. Any category you look at, the best QBs in the league are Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees. Leading the league in yards - Brees, Brady, Rodgers. Touchdowns - Rodgers, Brady, Brees. Completion percentage - Rodgers, Brees, Brady. Quarterback raiting - Rodgers, Brady, Brees. You get the picture. They're really good. When you look at quarterback rating, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger are ranked 6th and 7th. Both have also won Super Bowls, so we can put them in the next category right behind the best three. Tony Romo is ranked 4th in quarterback rating and has had statistically good seasons for a few years in a row now. He still hasn't won anything important and will probably choke again the playoffs, but he's the best of the rest, and that's not good.

Even Alex Smith himself has to
wonder how he's ranked in the top 10

   Let's take a look down the list of highest ranked QBs based on quarterback rating. The quarterback rating system has its flaws, but for our purposes it will be good enough to show which QBs are playing better than the others. Alex Smith of the 49ers is currently the 8th rated passer in the league, and he has just 13 touchdown passes in 11 games this year. And he's the 8th best NFL QB this year? He was benched for Troy Smith just last season. In his first three seasons, he threw 19 TDs and 31 interceptions. After Smith, Lions QB Matt Stafford and Falcons QB Matt Ryan are ranked 9th and 10th. They're both having decent statistical seasons, but are a long way from being great QBs. Ryan and the Flacons haven't even beaten a single team with a winning record all season.
  
   This is where it gets really ugly. You'll never guess who's ranked as the 11th best QB in the league. It's the Dolphins Matt Moore. Seriously. I don't even think I have a joke for that because I'm not sure who Matt Moore is. Following Moore, Jay Cutler, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jason Campbell, Matt Hasselbeck, and Donovan McNabb make up spots 12 through 16. Yikes. Cutler and Campbell are injured for the season, and McNabb was benched weeks ago. Campbell and McNabb haven't played a single down in over a month, and they're still in the top half of best QBs in the league.
 
    Beginning the bottom half of quarterbacks in the league, rookies Cam Newton and Andy Dalton are ranked 17th and 18th. Maybe one of them will be serviceable in the future but not yet. Newton has thrown more INTs than TDs, and Dalton has racked up his stats against bad teams and gone just 1-4 against teams with a winning record.
  
   Here's where the list gets really depressing. These next four guys were supposed to be in the upper tier of QBs. Instead, they've sucked. Mark Sanchez in ranked 19th, but he's completed just 56% of his passes, hasn't beated a single team with a winning record all year, and has looked generally lost throughout most of the year. Philip Rivers, who many argued was one of the best 6-8 QBs in the entire league is currently rated as the 20th best right now. He has thrown more picks than TDs, and has made more cry-baby faces than both combined all the while letting his team lose 6 straight games. Mike Vick is next on the list, and he might be having an even more disappointing season. The Eagles were dubbed the Dream Team before the season then Vick turned in this nightmare of a performance. After Vick, Joe Flacco continues the ineptitude. He's completing just 56% of his passes while throwing just 13 touchdowns this season despite playing in all 11 games, and his measly 6.6 yards per attempt is 9th worst in the league. Although in his defense, his bushy eyebrows probably make it difficult to see farther down the field to throw it deep.
  

   The rest of the list is just downright pathetic. I mean Tarvaris Jackson, Colt McCoy, and Christian Ponder are actual starting QBs in the NFL right now. Young Josh Freeman followed a promising season last year by throwing 16 INTs in just 11 games so far this year. Sam Bradford has impressively thrown just 6 TDs in 9 games. And Jags QB Blaine Gabbert has hit new levels of suckiness as he has completed just 48% of his passes, is last in the league in averaging just 5.1 yards per attempt, and remarkably played two entire games in a row where he failed to throw for 100 yards.
 
  The QB situation in the NFL right now is not pretty. It has gotten so bad that the Houston Texans, who are winning their division and may get a 1st round bye in the playoffs, just signed Jake Delhomme out of retirement to be their QB. In his last two seasons, Delhomme threw 10 TDs and 25 INTs. For those of you not good at math, that's two and a half times as many interceptions as touchdowns. And, a division-leading playoff contender decided he was their best bet.
  
   The Redskins are having a QB controversy between Rex Grossman and John Beck. I think that's more of a QB tragedy than controversy. That's like having small pox and malaria. You don't want either, and both could kill you.
  

  The Bears are fighting for a playoff spot, but lost Jay Cutler to a broken thumb. Their replacement? Caleb Haine. He sounds like he should be an Amish butter farmer not an NFL QB.
  
  The Cardinals have started Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, and Richard Bartel at QB this year. None of them have thrown more TDs than INTs.
  
  The Colts' Peyton Manning might still be a top-5 QB even with a broken neck or whatever is wrong with him. Instead Kerry Collins and Curtis Painter have been so bad for Indy that this week they named Dan Orlavsky as the new QB. He's the same famous Orlavsky who accidentally ran out of the back of the endzone without knowing it while trying to throw a pass a few years ago.

  The Chiefs have actually been playing with Tyler Palko has their QB. Now, he's just making all the Chiefs fans drop F-bombs, but not out of pride.
  
   The one name you might have noticed I haven't mentioned yet is Tim Tebow. I just don't know where to start. I didn't mention him when I was talking about the quarterback ratings because he hasn't thrown enough passes to qualify to have a rating. Yes, he's started and played 5 entire games and still hasn't thrown enough passes to qualify as a real quarterback in the eyes of the NFL stats people. He has thrown 8 TDs and just 1 INT, but he has also completed just 45% of his passes. There's been 3 games where he's had more rushing attempts than completed passes. He's also 5-1 as a starter, but he's been playing so ugly that the NFL experts' heads are going to explode soon if he keeps winning like this because they say quarterbacks aren't supposed to win by throwing so poorly. None of it makes sense. But judging from the terrible QBs we discussed above, maybe Tebow isn't that bad of an option. Those other guys are sucky throwers too, but they don't run as well or love God as much as Tebow.
   Any way you look at it, all the people they pay to be on TV to tell us about football say that the NFL is all about quarterbacks. If that's true, the NFL might be in trouble because the league is full of truly bad quarterbacks.

Manly Man of the Week - Joe Kapp
Joe Kapp used to play quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings in 1960s. More recently, he was the head football coach at California University. Before all that, he also played in the Canadian Football League. This week he was on stage at an event before the Grey Cup (Canada's Super Bowl) with another former player, Angelo Mosca. Apparently the two did not get along dating back to the 1963 Grey Cup. The two 73-year olds got into an argument that broke out into a real sloberknocker. Mosca swung and hit Kapp with his cane, and Kapp responded by punching Mosca square in the face. After he knocked Mosca to the ground, Kapp added a little kick for good measure. It was the most awesome old man fight I've ever seen. And, there's nothing more manly than an angry old man beating someone's ass. It's awesome. Watch the video. Apparently Canada doesn't like this so they keep taking down the video on Youtube but then new one's get put up. Just search for it if mine doesn't work. It's worth it.