Looking for Mr. Right

Jun 26, 2008, 5:00:54 AM by Jonathan Rand - FAQ

Brodie Croyle will have plenty of company this season. Coaches, teammates and fans in about a third of the NFL’s cities will be counting on quarterbacks no more experienced than Croyle to turn their teams around.

Eleven of these quarterbacks could, or definitely will, start. None has been in the NFL more than two seasons, and only one, Tennessee’s Vince Young, plays for a team coming off a winning season.

Croyle, entering his third season with the Chiefs, could be among six young passers starting for teams that won only one to five games in 2007.

Rebuilding teams and young quarterbacks are natural soul mates. If you’re planning for a brighter future, you start with the quarterback. Because championship quarterbacks seldom float around in free agency, the best way to find one is to grow your own.

Young quarterbacks are especially popular in the AFC West, where the starters are likely to include Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell, in his second season, and third-year players Jay Cutler in Denver and Croyle. Cutler doesn’t quite fit the mold of the other youngsters – he’s been starting since late in 2006 and took over a winning team.

For a rebuilding team, there’s no point picking up a middle-of-the-road veteran quarterback and letting a well-regarded youngster languish on the bench. By the time a quarterback approaches free agency, a coach needs to know whether he’s a franchise player. Young quarterbacks and new coaches often sink or swim together.

That’s why three rookie head coaches are giving strong consideration to rookie quarterbacks – Joe Flacco in Baltimore, Chad Henne in Miami and Matt Ryan in Atlanta. If Henne isn’t ready to start, second-year player John Beck probably will. Ryan is expected to step right in.

Also given a fair or better chance to start, despite no more than two years’ NFL experience, are Arizona’s Matt Leinart, Buffalo’s Trent Edwards, Minnesota’s Tarvaris Jackson, and the New York Jets’ Kellen Clemens. The most scrutinized new quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, who replaces Brett Favre in Green Bay, already has three years under his belt.

Rodgers, who’s studied his craft while sitting behind an all-time great before taking the keys to one of the league’s strongest teams , has served the kind of ideal apprenticeship that’s rarely available. Young quarterbacks typically are thrown into the fire, and usually without the solid surrounding cast critical to their success.

But that’s the lay of the land in the NFL and a young quarterback hoping to keep his job better find a way to win, no matter what kind of running game, protection or receivers he has at his disposal. Croyle, 0-6 as a starter, will be expected to become a leader and find a way to win.

“It’s his team,” coach Herm Edwards said of Croyle at the end of off-season workouts. “Now he knows to really win ‘em over, he’s got to win. We’ve all got to win. We went through a very difficult season last year and the guys that are back don’t want to go through that again.”

Both Super Bowl XLII quarterbacks, the Giants’ Eli Manning and New England’s Tom Brady, answered the bell early in their careers.

Manning, the first pick of the 2004 draft, took over late in his rookie season. He’s held the job ever since and hit his best stride late last year. Brady, a sixth-round draft pick in 2000, took over early in 2001 and led the Patriots to their first of three Super Bowl titles.

For a coach who can find the right quarterback, the possibilities are endless. Which is why Edwards and so many of his peers are willing to take a fling with youth to find their Mr. Right.

The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

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A former sportswriter and columnist in Kansas City and Miami, Rand has covered the NFL for three decades and seen 23 Super Bowl games. His column appears twice weekly in-season.