Armchair Quarterback: Aging QBs hang on with new teams
Old quarterbacks don’t die, they simply fade away.
Well, actually, before they fade away, they sign on with another team to tutor a younger quarterback, imparting their years of knowledge before taking a sports anchor desk or opening another auto sales yard.
It seems like the big tearful retirements of greats like John Elway, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly and Troy Aikman are a thing of the past. These are quarterbacks who left while still somewhat on top, even though their skills may have tarnished a bit with age. They were able to leave on their own terms, before they were actually forced into retirement and before their legacies were tarnished by their languishing in a limbo between star and has-been.
These are also quarterbacks who played their entire careers with one team. None of them became nomads, desperately grasping for one more taste of the glory days like a punchy prize fighter looking for that one more knock out. They knew when it was time and didn’t give themselves excuses to stay in the league for one more year. Look at Marino and Kelly, both left without attaining a Super Bowl championship, yet they will still be remembered as greats, Marino holding every record in the book and Kelly as the man who led his team to four straight AFC championships, denied a ring only by a errant Scott Norwood field goal against the Giants.
Nowadays things are changing in the NFL. Athletes are playing later and later. You don’t have as many stars retiring when their skills diminish as they try to push one more year out of an aging body. While this may work in basketball and baseball, football is a different, more brutal animal which tends to break down a man. Sure, basketball is a contact sport, but football is a collision sport, with some hits packing as much force as an automobile. It’s not an easy game on the body.
Today we have several examples of the never-quit mentality. Look at the all-time leading rusher. Emmit Smith left the Cowboys where he attained greatness only to suffer through injuries his year with the Cardinals. Even though everyone was saying he should join Aikman in retirement, he felt he could still compete despite his falling numbers.
More recently we have the fairytale story of Kurt Warner, working himself from grocery clerk to Super Bowl MVP. He signed this week with the Giants after losing his job to Marc Bulger in St. Louis. This loss came after two dismal seasons, the last one which ended scarcely after it began with a concussion and six turn overs on opening day last year. Warner wants to take one more run, yet his future is written on the wall in New York as Eli Manning is the successor to the throne there, no matter how well Warner does. Warner will merely be a wet nurse for Manning, just as Jon Kitna, despite two great seasons in Cincinnati, was for Carson Palmer, who will now take his job. The most Warner can hope for is one season to prove himself to the rest of the league again.
When you get down to it, there’s no expiration date on athletes so it’s hard for a person to know when it’s time to retire. Look at the great Joe Montana, finishing his career in KC and Tony Dorsett, ending with a yelp in Denver. I guess sometimes it comes down to whether you want to preserve a legacy by retiring in your prime or whether you want to hear the roar of the crowd one more time.