QB Competitions

[Marino613]

A question for the football historians (relevant to the phins' situation, but a general NFL question)

My question is regarding the the history of QB competitions and their outcomes. By QB competition, of course, I mean a situation where during the course of training camp and the preseason, the coaches do not have a clear intended starter for the position, so they give relatively equal reps to at least 2 different QBs with the first team to see who can win the job.

Does anyone know the answers to the following?

1) Has there have been an elite QB in NFL history not to have been groomed, or come in after injury (ala warner/brady) or terrible play by the assumed starter? That is to say, has an elite QB ever come out of a situation where he had question marks going in but won the starting job in a true QB competition by showing his abilities in camp over the competitors?

2) Same question but replace elite with good/competent starter.

3) If the answer is yes to 1 or 2, is that a common phenomenon or is it rare.

4) If the answer is no or rare (I can't really think of any in recent history, but I can easily be wrong), why do you think that is? I had 2 thoughts on the matter. The first is that more reps with the first team does lead to more success, but I am hesitant to accept this answer because it does not explain the backup coming in after injury situation. I also wonder if the reason might be a correlation between QB competitions and a general lack of clear talent at the position. If you have a QB competition, that means you have no clear starter which often means that no one shows clear ability, so almost by definition you are generally dealing with mediocrity at best. I am not comfortable with this explanation either because, again, the backup coming in due to injury to take the starting spot shows that the coaches don't always know what they have and one would assume that these unknown diamonds in the rough (like a brady if he had been in a competition) would show some of that ability with the first team in camp in the competion.

With all that, if the answer is rare or no, are there still reasons to have a QB competition?

Thanks!

 

[m i n o]

this is not recent history but there was the case in dallas a long time ago with(bear with me im not a cowboys fan) ah was it roger staubach who came out then immediately went into the army for four yrs and when he got back dallas had a pretty good qb(name escapes me)to the point that the coach played them both during the season for a while before finally giving it to staubach.
also i think mcnaab came in and took over for ron jaworski(sp) fairly quickly.
i believe it is rare but i think the qb comp nowadays is more for the second and third stringers.

 

[Marino613]

this is not recent history but there was the case in dallas a long time ago with(bear with me im not a cowboys fan) ah was it roger staubach who came out then immediately went into the army for four yrs and when he got back dallas had a pretty good qb(name escapes me)to the point that the coach played them both during the season for a while before finally giving it to staubach.
also i think mcnaab came in and took over for ron jaworski(sp) fairly quickly.
i believe it is rare but i think the qb comp nowadays is more for the second and third stringers.

Thanks for the reply. I will look into it more.

My anecdotal view on it is that you are right about the 2nd and 3rd stringer part, but that only depresses me as it may often mean that when we are talking about the opening spot being up for the competition, that all the team has are 2nd and 3rd stringers.

 

[satz]

What about anderson of the browns last year. him and the other guy they traded after week 1 got equal snaps last year.the other guy the starter laid an egg in week 1 and anderson went off like no one expected.

tom brady was the 4th QB in 2000 . his play was so good that that is only year patriots every carried a 4th qb fearing that someone might pick him up.He won the 2nd spot in the following preseason .Its very rare for the top spot every being open.

 

[SpaceMountain16]

Staubach went to Navy first of all, and he didn't play with Dallas until he served four years in the Navy, which i think they make you serve when you graduate from the Naval Academy. When he came back to Dallas the Cowboys had Craig Morton, who was a fairly good QB himself. Tom Landry eventually used the Quarterbacks in the same game on different series. A very rare thing, a rotating QB offense. Staubach eventually took over and eventually won a Super Bowl.

And Donovan McNabb was drafted second overall in the 1999 NFL Draft. Ron Jaworski retired in 1987. The Quarterback McNabb took over for was Doug Pederson i think halfway through the season? McNabb i'd say was groomed, and Pederson sucked anyway.

As for your questions:

1) The guys who play are usually the high draft picks, and when they fail (because of poor play) you see guys come in who often times end up being "elite". Sometimes the high picks are groomed like a Carson Palmer and sometimes it takes an injury to find a guy like Brady. I cant think of an elite QB who just won the job in camp and became elite. I'm sure there are guys though.

2) Same as 1

3) N/A

4) I think the "QB competition" tends to be over rated unless your a team that just doesn't have a good starting Quarterback. If you're team with Brett Favre, obviously it's not going to matter how the competition behind you plays out because you're going to start no matter what. So if you get hurt, your backup steps in and ends up being amazing, it's not that the coaches didn't notice your ability in camp, they just were convinced they were set a certain position and there was nothing they could really do.

 

[burger13]

Jay Fiedler?

j/k

poor attempt at humor aside, I think that David Garrard falls into the second category.

 

[SpaceMountain16]

But Garrard took over for an injured Leftwhich at first and then relieved him for poor play.

 

[Marino613]

4) I think the "QB competition" tends to be over rated unless your a team that just doesn't have a good starting Quarterback. If you're team with Brett Favre, obviously it's not going to matter how the competition behind you plays out because you're going to start no matter what. So if you get hurt, your backup steps in and ends up being amazing, it's not that the coaches didn't notice your ability in camp, they just were convinced they were set a certain position and there was nothing they could really do.

Thanks. I came to a similar (sad) conclusion, but if there were any exceptions I missed, maybe there was an alternative explanation.

 

[Marino613]

What about anderson of the browns last year. him and the other guy they traded after week 1 got equal snaps last year.the other guy the starter laid an egg in week 1 and anderson went off like no one expected.

tom brady was the 4th QB in 2000 . his play was so good that that is only year patriots every carried a 4th qb fearing that someone might pick him up.He won the 2nd spot in the following preseason .Its very rare for the top spot every being open.

Frye and Anderson did split snaps. What's weird is that Anderson lost the battle in preseason and really wasn't all that spectacular (but neither was frye). I suppose it just means that the QB competition lasted into the regular season when he got hot (not unheard of - I think of the Bills who should have started Flutie all along). I didn't realize they split snaps in camp before. I thought this was more of a "came in because the starter stank" situation, but I suppose with only one game in the season before the change I shouldn't have been so naive.

I have to think more about that...