No Mo' Tebow

We’re scarcely two months into the Tim Tebow Era in New York and I can’t wait for it to end. I haven’t felt this antagonistic about a named time period since the George W. Bush Administration.

This is the point where everyone who writes about Tebow positively or negatively has to write about how this is not a reflection on his beliefs, which this is not. Nor is it a reflection on his attitudes toward Brussels sprouts, the size of his adductors, his tolerance for Blue Cheer’s version of “Summertime Blues,” or the shape of his nose. At the same time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if the combination of his religious hyper-forthrightness and his hyper-collegiate game (shades of Lee Grosscup and Terry Baker!) mixed with a heaping helping of Lolo Jones hadn’t lifted him so far above the other second-/third-string NFL quarterbacks in the public eye that it’s like ants from a Ferris wheel, with running commentary from Rich Eisen.

But speaking of Tebow, and having mentioned Baker and Grosscup, let me quickly and definitively put Tebow in perspective.

From the late 1950s through the 1960s, the passing game evolved to a much greater extent in pro football than in college football. I don’t have a huge suite of numbers to back up my assertions, but I do have these: The first quarterback from that era to win the Heisman Trophy, Terry Baker [1], threw for 1,734 yards. The last Heisman-winning quarterback from that era, Pat Sullivan, threw for 2,012 yards.

By comparison, Tobin Rote threw for 2,003 yards for the 1956 Packers; in 1967, Joe Namath threw for 4,007 yards and Sonny Jurgensen 3,747 [2].

Very few of the best college quarterbacks in football over that time were able to make the transition to the pro game, basically because their collegiate success had nothing to do with their inaccuracy and/or inactivity as passers. Consider these stats from the Heisman-winning QBs of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, and ask yourself where they’d get someone in today’s Heisman race:

They wouldn’t be able to touch Tebow in his Heisman year:

Though they’d put a scare into Eric Crouch, the last true running QB to win the Heisman:

Two Hall of Famers played quarterback and won the Heisman in the years between 1956 and 1971, but they can't really be compared. Staubach, a smart guy to start with, got smarter in his time away from the game, and Paul Hornung didn’t. He also didn’t get to Canton on his ability to fire a 40-yard buzz-bomb to Gary Knafelc with Concrete Charley Bednarik hanging all over him.[3]

Oh, and incidentally: Staubach is only true quarterback to win a Heisman and be a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Great college quarterbacks lead great college teams. They are rarely great passers as professional football defines great passers; they are occasionally exceptional runners.

Tim Tebow slots perfectly into this definition. He is the successor to Eric Crouch, Charlie Ward, Pat Sullivan, Gary Beban, Terry Baker, and Johnny Lujack.

He’s also the successor to another hotshot college QB who fell short of the Heisman.

Bobby Douglass came out of Kansas in 1968, the year O.J. Simpson won the Heisman. He was the No. 2 quarterback in the voting and seventh overall, finishing behind Terry Hanratty (another quarterback of a good college team who lacked the right stuff to make it in the NFL) and ahead of Brian Dowling, Yale’s modern-day Merriwell.

You look at the numbers in a modern-day context and wonder what the fuss was about. In his senior year at Kansas Douglass went only 84-for-168 for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns, though he did run for 495 yards and another 12 TDs. He ran a high-powered attack; the Jayhawk offense averaged more than 400 yards and 35 points a game in Douglass’ senior year – good numbers even in today’s porous Big 12. You can see why he turned some heads.

The Bears drafted Douglass in the second round and immediately anointed him the successor to no one in particular, since the quarterback position with George Halas was a revolving-door job less important than the backup-right-tackle position.

In his rookie year, sharing time with the demi-immortal Jack Concannon, Douglass passed for 773 yards and ran for another 408. He threw five TD passes, ran for two more, and threw eight interceptions. And his team went 1-6.

This cannot be entirely ascribed to Douglass, just as the Broncos’ 6-1 record in 2012 with Tebow at the helm cannot be ascribed entirely to Tebow. Douglass’ receivers were Bobby Wallace and Dick Gordon; his tight end was also (and mainly) the team’s kicker; and the once-vaunted defense consisted of Dick Butkus (between knee surgeries), Doug Buffone, Ed O’Bradovich, and the same sorts of warmish bodies you find outside a PDQ around 2 a.m. Sunday morning.

Douglass’ numbers suggest Tebow, but what really suggests Tebow is watching Douglass in action. The surviving footage engenders a feeling of dumbstruck amazement usually reserved for people who consent to have cannons fired into their abdomens. Like Tebow, Douglass was a lefty, and also like Tebow, Douglass was mechanically challenged. He couldn’t duplicate his motion if you made him play on a Xerox machine.
With that said, no matter what angle Douglass threw the ball from it could travel. There’s footage of him throwing a 60-yard dart on the run to a wide-open Jim Seymour, and in interview footage he said he could throw a football 100 yards in the air.

Tebow’s Achilles heel is direction; Douglass’ was touch. If a ball left Bobby Douglass’ hand traveling in the general direction of Austin Denney or Mac Percival, it was likely traveling at a rate of speed approaching escape velocity. Chuck Yeager piloted slower projectiles.

Douglass was also by his own admission not on exactly familiar terms with the playbook. The most popular play with Douglass at the helm was the broken play. Some of those plays turned out remarkably well, in the sense that it takes NFL Films several minutes to show a single play from start to finish; however, an offense built around the broken play is ultimately a broken offense, doomed to failure.

It also drives coaches nuts. Douglass’ career was marked by numerous benchings in favor of lesser talents who could run the plays, pedestrian as they might have been.

Douglass’ 1970 season was cut short by a broken wrist (though he did throw four TD passes with that broken wrist in the one game he played), but 1971 and ’72 represent the zenith of Douglass’ career. In those years he threw for 2,400 yards and ran for 1,200, with 25 combined touchdowns and 27 interceptions. His teams went 7-18.

Douglass sits at the extreme end of the running quarterback in the saemi-modern NFL, but it’s there where the most valuable lessons are regarding Tim Tebow. It also says something larger about running quarterbacks in general.

There have been almost 50 Super Bowls, and quarterbacks generally classified as running quarterbacks have won none. Several very mobile quarterbacks have won Super Bowls – Steve Young, Aaron Rodgers, John Elway, Brett Favre, Staubach – but no quarterback from the Randall Cunningham/Cam Netwon/Michael Vick school has won a Super Bowl [4]. The game’s continuing evolution almost assures that a runner will win a Super Bowl someday, but someday may be further off than you think.

The reason for running QBs’ lack of ultimate success can be found by watching them in pivotal games. At some point in these big games the decision for a running quarterback whether to pass or run is so equivocal, because they’re so good at both skills, that they either make the wrong choice or no choice at all. With a quarterback that only runs when forced, the decision is unequivocal. They run so they can pass. The decision is simpler, and because it’s simpler it’s made more quickly, and it’s usually the appropriate decision.

The Canadian Football League is a running-quarterback’s league, but for the last several years the most successful team has been the Montreal Alouettes, and its quarterback, Anthony Calvillo, only runs when forced. Fewer decisions equal better decisions.

So the career equation for Tim Tebow appears to be lack of pro success (because of college success not translating into pro success) + more lack of pro success (because of lack of appropriate tools to engender pro success) = early departure from the NFL. Likewise, all you lovers of Robert Griffin III’s week-one performance may want to take a seat for another decade. As my hardcore-49ers-fan friend Tom said yesterday as we were driving to the Packer game, “They have to be taught quarterback before they can win.” There’s a lot of truth to that.


[1] Paul Hornung doesn’t count, as you’ll see.

[2] I’m being selective here. By the end of the ‘60s the aerial circus that was the AFL was no more and pro football entered a sort of Dark Ages dominated by running backs. A quarterback wouldn’t throw for more than 4,000 yards until Dan Fouts in 1979. And strangely enough, college football followed that pattern right along. College football in the '70s was an endless progression of wishbones and power-I's and veers. After QBs won seven of the 12 Heismans from 1960-71, they wouldn’t win another until Doug Flutie in 1983.

[3] And don’t get me started on what did get Hornung there.

[4] You can throw Joe Kapp in there, just because.

Better, Not Best

In light of Alex Smith finally seeing the aforementioned twirling bright object, a brief appraisal of the relative merits of the 'Niners' greatest quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Steve Young.

You ready? Here it is: Montana is the best quarterback in 'Niners' history, but Young is better.

There's no question that Steve Young is a measurably better QB than Joe Montana. Measurably better. Young is fifth all-time in yards per passing attempt. Montana is 23rd. Young is second in passer rating. Montana is eighth. Young is 18th in postwar player value, meaning he was the 18th best player at any position to have played since 1950. Montana is 31st. Montana is 24th in passing yards/game while Young is 42nd, but Young has a better completition percentage, a better interception percentage and a better TD percentage.

By any measure of the things you want a quarterback to do -- complete passes, gain yards, throw TD passes, and avoid interceptions -- Young is better. So why is he second fiddle to Montana and destined to always be second fiddle to Montana? Because Montana got there first. Montana threw the pass that led to The Catch, and he led the 'Niners to their first Super Bowl win. The fact that he's a Notre Dame kid doesn't hurt, either. You can't quantify it, nor should you try.

The gulf in popular perception is so wide that it can't even be bridged by their vastly different post-football paths, where Young has shown himself to be one of the most thoughtful and well-spoken athletes to ever have received mutliple concussions, while Montana treads a line just north of Pete Rose-dom.

It's unfortunate that Young will always be 1A to Montana's 1 because it needlessly degrades Young's substantial accomplishments, but it makes a case for what "better" really means.

Packers-Niners: Twisting by the (Talent) Pool

Packers-Niners. Just the mention of those teams conjures images of California-cool quarterbacks kneeling down at the end of games. If sometimes you toy with the notion that every game that has ever been won in the National Football League has been won by one of these teams, you wouldn’t be toying alone. And yet why does this game have the feeling of anticlimax?

Could it be that it’s because it’s been done better in real life? The bookend Packers-Niners playoff games – the Packers’ win in the rain in 1996 and the Niners’ down-to-the-wire win two years later – have everything you could want in a football game, including bratwurst and large, inexpensive beers. If they don’t include every player on each all-time team they include a more-than-representative sampling, especially in the Niners’ case.

But enough dealing with reality. Let’s jump back into the unreal world and take a hard look at these two make-believe teams. The Niners have a HOFer everywhere, but not always multiple HOFers. The Packers have multiple HOFers everywhere. Advantage Packers. But in certain key areas the Niners’ HOFers are better than the Packers’ HOFers. Would you rather have Joe Montana, Steve Young and Y.A. Tittle or Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers? Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens or Don Hutson and James Lofton? Ronnie Lott and Jim Johnson or Herb Adderly and Willie Wood (and Charles Woodson)? Advantage Niners.

However, in the lines and at running back, those brutal locales not too dissimilar from eastern Colorado, the Packers dominate. Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo, Cal Hubbard, and Mike Michalske trump Bob St. Clair et al. Leo Nomellini and the interchangeable pack horses of the Bill Walsh era, Dana Stubblefield and Bryant Young cower in the massive shadows of Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, and Reggie White. Joe Perry and Hugh McIlhenny (and the criminally underappreciated Roger Craig and Rickey Watters) are strictly second-tier guys compared to Hornung, Taylor, Clarke Hinkle, Johnny Blood, Tony Canadeo, and Arnie Herber. And sorry Bill Walsh, but Vince Lombardi, Curley Lambeau, and Mike Holmgren take you down.

But it’s close. It’s very close. When you run the two-deeps on a continuum and cut off the top 15 players, they’re virtually identical. But when you get to players 47 and 48, it’s clear that the Packers have better talent.

So let’s do it that way. Let’s take the two-deep starting lineups of both teams, put them on continuums, and then see how the bottom tiers of both look.

Using a combination of Pro Football Reference’s Weighted Average Value and Elo Rater scores, here are the players scoring more than 100 on a combined index where the lower the score, the better the player:

Niners Packers


Roger Craig Dave Robinson

Bob St. Clair James Lofton

Harris Barton Jerry Kramer

Hugh McIlhenny Charles Woodson

Billy Wilson Donald Driver

Joe Perry Chad Clifton

Gene Washington Fred Carr

Brent Jones Hawg Hanner

Bruce Bosley John Anderson

Abe Woodson Bobby Dillon

Keena Turner Sterling Sharpe

Tommy Hart Lionel Aldridge

Ken Willard Mark Tauscher

Cedrick Hardman Ken Ellis

John Taylor Aaron Kampman

Dana Stubblefield Gale Gillingham

Merton Hanks Paul Coffman

Roland Lakes Mike McCoy

Guy McIntyre Willie Buchanon

Frank Nunley

Ken Norton Jr.

Eric Wright

Dwight Hicks

Forrest Blue

Woody Peoples

Kermit Alexander

Tim McDonald

Monty Stickles

Bruno Banducci

Howard Mudd

Hacksaw Reynolds

These lists don’t lack for good players, but they point up the problem with the Niners: there’s more bottom, and it goes deeper. Ken Ellis, Aaron Kampman and Gale Gillingham (and what is it with Gillingham getting nothing from history? I know the guy just died and we’re all rosy-eyed about his worth as a football player, but he was absolutely the best thing about the Packers after Lombardi left, and was every bit as good As Jerry Kramer, who gets plenty of forearm shivers from the football cognoscenti as-is) are very comparable to Hacksaw Reynolds, Tim McDonald (another head-scratcher as far as history goes), Forrest Blue, and Woody Peoples. But where the Niners offer up Bruno Banducci and Merton Hanks the Packers counter with Buckets Goldenberg and Jug Earpe – different, but better different. In this world, where a replacement-value guy is a five-time All-Pro, the Packers have better players.

Okay, so we’ve beaten that particular dead horse to death. Talent wins most but not all of these games. How does talent fare here?

Pretty well.

It’s a different sort of game, a little like a modern-day Jets-Patriots game minus the chubby guys in hoodies. The Niners want to throw it all over the field and worry about defense when they get there, while the Packers want to pound the ball and play defense and keep Brett Favre staked to the ground, Gulliver-style, on the sideline. (and yes, Aaron Rodgers is in charge of the little hammer.)

The result is much like the recent Jets-Patriots tussles, where the Patriots get the best of the stat sheet but the Jets win. In this case, as the snow swirls around Lambeau and the in-ground turf heaters create a surface of a consistency similar to those things they called “steaks” you used to get at Ponderosa, the Niners take the opening kickoff, run it out to the 47 courtesy of a great Abe Woodson return, march it down to the 24, and miss a field goal. The Packers stumble out to the 32 and punt. The Niners run the punt out to midfield, run and pass it down inside the 15, and throw an interception (Bobby Dillon). The Packers run back the interception to the 21, pound it out to the 24, and punt. The Niners take a penalty on the runback that lands them at their own 33 and fly down the field to the Packer 42, where the drive stalls and the Niners punt it into the end zone. When the quarter ends at this point it’s a mercy-killing.

Perhaps energized by the Packer band’s version of “Ride My Seesaw” at the quarter break, the Packers mount a drive … actually, they get a first down. Overwhelmed by this display of offensive prowess, Abe Woodson fumbles the ensuring punt and the Packers recover at the San Francisco 38. The Packers don’t do much with the field position; a Starr-to-Hutson square-out takes the ball down to the Niners’ 19 before the demi-drive stalls. Chester Marcol doesn’t miss, however, and the Packers take a middlingly late 3-0 lead.

At this point San Francisco has 87 yards, two turnovers and no points. The Packers have 30 yards and three points.

And the beat goes on. The Niners roll up 53 yards on a drive that ends in a field goal blocked by Fred Carr and Ted Hendricks. The Packers go three-and-out. The Niners roll up 31 yards and punt. The Packers go five-and-out. The Niners roll up 40 yards before two penalties and a sack end their drive. The Packers get the ball on their own 32 with 1:53 left in the half.

Finally, some semblance of offense. A 13-yard Tony Canadeo scamper is followed by a Starr-to-Lofton post pattern that takes the ball down to the San Francisco 22. A flare pass to John Blood McNally takes the ball down to the 5, and that’s close enough for Jim Taylor to bash it into the end zone in three tries. Marcol’s extra point makes it 10-0 Packers as the halftime gun fires.

The Niners can’t be expected to stay down forever, and they don’t. After another Green Bay three-and-out to start the second half, Steve Young enters the game in relief of Joe Montana and immediately catches fire. He hits Jerry Rice for 19 yards and Terrell Owens for 23, scrambles for 11 and hits Hugh McIlhenny on a swing pass that goes for 18 yards and a score. Tommy Davis’ extra point (at last! Something through the uprights!) makes it 10-7.

At this point, the lid is officially off and the game is officially not the game of the first half. Starr begins to click hisownself. On a 77-yard drive Starr hits Lofton for 22, Hutson for 31 and Sharpe for 11 and a touchdown. Young answers with a 73-yard drive that culminates in an eight-yard Brent Jones TD strike. On the Packers’ ensuing series, Starr audibles out of a dive play to Jim Taylor and calls an option pass. Cecil Isbell hits Sharpe in stride from 57 yards out, and suddenly it’s halfway through the fourth quarter and 24-14 Green Bay.

The Niners make it interesting. Young alternates Perry runs and passes to Rice and Jones on a 65-yard drive that takes the ball down to the 8 – field-goal range for Tommy Davis. Now it’s 24-17 and a seven-point game.

With six minutes left the Niners kick off to the Packers. The Niners get the ball back with 47 seconds left in the shadow of their own goalposts.

They don’t go gentle into that good-and-cold eastern Wisconsin night. Young’s bomb in the direction of Terrell Owens draws a pass-interference penalty, bringing the ball out to midfield. Two more passes, and the Niners are inside the Packer 30 with 25 seconds left.

With no timeouts left Young rolls right, Reggie White hot on his trail. Young underestimates White’s closing speed one last, fatal time. White closes the gap, flings a huge paw around Young, drives him to the turf and refuses to get off the quarterback until the clock reads triple zeroes. The gun fires, the game ends, and the Packers survive.

“Survive” is the operative word. The Packers are outgained by 85 yards, 462 to 377. Surprisingly, no one runs much, not even the Packers. Jim Taylor gains 71 yards in 15 carries, Canadeo 19 in six, Hinkle 14 in three, and Ahman Green 11 in one. McIlhenny gains 37 yards on six carries, Joe Perry 22 in 12, Craig 21 in three, John Henry Johnson five in three, and Young 24 on two scrambles.

Starr throws for 306 yards and two TDs, but his numbers are eclipsed by the combination of Montana (174 yards, two interceptions) and Young (179 yards, two touchdowns).

The Packers came in feeling like they had to run to win, and they won it by passing. Football is funny that way.

Determining who is best positioned to win a game is a question of talent. Actually winning a game is something else altogether.

The Ultimate Battle For The Really Big Bay

Funny how life works. Conduct your life on and off the field with the courteous restraint of a Tasmanian devil and eventually you get nailed for steroids. Match up football teams by all-time win-loss percentage and play them through a bracket, and the ‘Niners meet the Raiders in the second round.

This one shapes up as a barnburner, in part because the teams are simultaneously of an era and not of an era. Many of the teams’ best players played against each other, but the games they played scarcely resemble one another. The ‘Niners played a pass-first, controlled-passing, athletic-defense game. The Raiders ran first, beat you up in the lines, and had a passing game that could beneficently be called uncontrolled.

I know this sort of analogy descends into cliché faster than Lindsay Lohan can go from house arrest to rehab, but the two teams really reflect their communities. Oakland is gritty and nasty, a black vision of doom set to a soundtrack by N.W.A.; San Francisco has been so wide-open you’d almost expect to see Jerry Garcia rolling numbers on the sideline and Steve Young marching out of Candlestick arm-in-arm with Harvey Milk.

Furthermore, there is no clear-cut favorite between the two. Both have mystique, both have a resume, and both have a relatively limited past, so unlike the Cardinals, they can’t dredge up an Ernie Nevers to make up for six decades of Marcel Shipp and Elmer Angsman.

So let’s set the scene: The Raiders trot out an offense featuring Marcus Allen, Fred Biletnikoff, Tim Brown, and a massive line to face a defense consisting of Ronnie Lott and some bodies. The Niners counter with Steve Young, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Joe Perry, and Hugh McIlhenny (and not much of a line) versus a defense consisting of Ronnie Lott and some bodies. (Actually, Ronnie Lott does not make the all-time Raiders roster, and the bodies include Howie Long, Lyle Alzado, and the vastly underrated Greg Townsend. But it makes for nice symmetry.)

It sounds reasonable that like the Bears, the Raiders could ride their up-front superiority to a grind-it-out victory over a high-flying offense.

Well, no.

The devil for the Raiders is in the details. They have no quarterback, and you need one to win one of these games, especially when you’re playing a team where the guy holding the Sharpie cap for the guy holding the Sharpie for the guy holding the clipboard (John Brodie) threw for 12,000 more yards than the Raiders’ No. 1 (Ken Stabler).

The Raiders’ secondary is likewise a little light – el baddo when you’re playing a team like the ‘Niners that hooks up more than Bret Michaels on South Beach. It’s not that the secondary is missing HOF-quality talent; it’s that the talent outside of Willie Brown is either past its prime (Lott), before its time (Charles Woodson), not quite ready for prime time (the soonly departed Nnamdi Asomugha) or star-crossed in some other way (Lester Hayes, Jack Tatum).

Worse yet for a team playing a West Coast passing offense, the linebackers are highly suspect. It’s asking a lot of Phil Villipiano for him to chase around Brent Jones, run down Roger Craig, and basically be the guy back there.

The offensive challenges are likewise daunting. The Raiders’ long-bomb passing game plays right into the hands of a talented secondary that includes Jim Johnson, Eric Wright, Tim McDonald, Merton Hanks, and Abe Woodson in addition to Lott. The 49ers’ D-line is a potent mix of run-stuffers (Dana Stubblefield and Leo Nomellini) and pass-rushers (Bryant Young and Fred Dean). And the linebackers are rangy and athletic enough to chase down Marcus Allen (and who else? Mark van Eeghen? Justin Fargas?).

Still, the Raiders put up a good fight. They take the opening kickoff and pound the ball down the field, running Marcus Allen right and left and mixing in little bits of Biletnikoff and Todd Christiansen. The drive bogs down inside the 20 and the Raiders settle for a short Sebastian Janikowski field goal.

As it turned out, that was all the opening the ‘Niners needed.

Young marches the ‘Niners down the field at head-spinning speed, capping the drive with a short TD toss to Brent Jones. A booming Ray Guy punt pins back the ‘Niners against their goal, but Young could care less. He rolls out for 16, Perry and Craig crack off big runs, and then Rice splits the defense from 43 yards out. The first quarter ends with San Francisco on top 14-3.

The Raiders come back on a Stabler-to-Branch bomb set up by a long Tim Brown kick return, but the ‘Niners strike yet again. This time it’s Montana doing the honors, swinging one out to Perry and watching him jet it in from 27.

The remainder of the half follows the same pattern. The teams trade scores unevenly, the ‘Niners score their fourth straight TD, and the first half ends with San Francisco up 28-13.

Things change little in the second half. San Francisco’s superior depth wears down the Raiders, even Y.A. Tittle plays a few snaps, and the 49ers move on 42-23.

The stats tell the story. Marcus Allen runs for 121, but Stabler completes only 14 of his 33 passes for 278 yards, a score, and two interceptions. Young, Montana, and Tittle throw 39 passes, complete 25, and roll up 407 yards passing, with four TDs and only one pick. Rice catches 11 and Jones seven, and everyone else pitches in. Perry runs for 67 and Craig 51, and that’s more than enough.

The tough paper matchup turns out to be not so tough after all. The Raiders’ greatest weakness meshed with the ‘Niners’ greatest strength, and the result was carnage.

The Silver and Black still have their swagger (and not the Old Spice swagger, either). Nothing can take their swagger. But what they could really use is a few more good players.