NFL fans, remember to set your DVRs for football history Thursday night. Scratch that, take the entire day off. It should be a national holiday.
Drew Stanton vs. Blaine Gabbert on Thursday Night Football is exactly what’s wrong with the modern day NFL. The quarterback matchup is the equivalent of a Brewers-Twins matchup in late August. If you have an eight-year-old son interested in the sport of football, please keep him away from the television on Thursday night.
Unless you obsess about fantasy football and punting, there’s no real reason to watch the Cardinals take on the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. Go take the family out for ice cream. If you’re single, go try and mingle at your local dance club.
Carson Palmer is out with a concussion, and sadly, there are no other competent quarterbacks to make the game competitive and watchable.
Some will argue the trend is bucking in 2016. Several quarterbacks with poor track records and reputations are off to hot starts. Sam Bradford’s Vikings are 4-0. Broncos first-year starter Trevor Siemian is 4-0. Case Keenum’s Rams are 3-1. What’s the common denominator here? All three have defenses that can win games by their lonesome.
And there are other superstar quarterbacks with 1-3 records who have been plagued by surroundings. Cam Newton can’t control that his front office let Josh Norman walk. Andrew Luck might as well not even have an offensive line. The Saints would probably be the worst team in the NFL — worse than the Browns — if they didn’t have Drew Brees.
Remember when games used to be old school, defensive slugfests, when a 17-13 score with Trent Dilfer vs. Kerry Collins actually produced a good football game? Those types of gems don’t really exist anymore. You either have a quarterback who can sling the rock and make plays with his feet, or you have nothing. There’s nothing really in between.
There’s a lot of blame to go around here. College football has become much more of a “pitch and catch” game. With only a few hours of practice each week — instead of 40 hours at an NFL facility — game plans for college quarterbacks are bite-sized. When they get to the NFL, the combination of speedy defenders and 17-word play calls undo the best of the best. Usually, only one or two quarterbacks per draft class become 10-year starters in the NFL. These guys are almost impossible to find.
Every now and then a backup quarterback will rise from the ashes. Once a grocery bagger, Kurt Warner’s story might be the most improbable in league history. Jeff Hostetler won a Super Bowl with the Giants while filling in for the injured Phil Simms.
But there’s a clear correlation in the league’s lowest rated passers. Stanton will enter the game with a QB rating of 3.6, after tossing two interceptions in just 15 attempts of relief work last week vs. Los Angeles. The only full-time starting quarterbacks rated behind Gabbert have thrown a buffet of interceptions — Ryan Fitzpatrick (10) and Jameis Winston (8). And Gabbert’s coming off his best game of the season.
Obviously, the 49ers benefit from Palmer’s concussion. The playing field is as level as it’s going to get. Once circled as one of the harder games on the schedule, this matchup now becomes a coin flip at home.
But NFL fans do not benefit from this quarterback play. It hurts the league. It’s a problem that won’t be solved anytime soon.
And it creates situations like this: a dud of a Week 5 game on primetime television.