The fools in Section 207

The NFL establishment doesn't like quarterback controversies, but in St. Louis and Minnesota, the fans might have a point.

By King Kaufman

Nov. 12, 2002 | If you want someone to call you an idiot, the quickest way to go about it is to suggest that an NFL team's backup quarterback should play. The guardians of right-minded football thinking will lump you in with the mouth-breathing, radio-talk-show-calling set faster than you can say, "We'd have won if the refs didn't have it in for us!"

There are three quarterback controversies brewing in the NFL this week. Two of them represent the two basic versions of these things, which in an effort at ironic retro-hipness I have named after old Disney movies:

That Darn Starter: The Minnesota Vikings benched struggling Daunte Culpepper Sunday and brought in his backup, Todd Bouman, who played pretty well, though the Vikes still lost to the New York Giants. Just two years ago, Culpepper, a 6-foot-4 260-pounder who can run and throw, was a sensation, the Future of NFL Quarterbacks, as he led Minnesota to a 13-3 record. He's been in a slump for a year and a half, though, and the Vikings, 5-11 last year and 2-7 this year, have gone south right along with him. The fashionable view among the typing classes is that Culpepper needs a change of scenery to get his swerve on again.

Backup Goes Bananas: Injured St. Louis Rams superstar Kurt Warner says he's ready to come back from a broken pinkie after five games on the sideline. Trouble is, Marc Bulger, who started the season as the Rams' third-stringer, has been fabulous in relief. And Warner wasn't so hot before he went down. The Rams went 0-4 as Warner, who has won two of the last three Most Valuable Player awards, threw one touchdown pass and eight interceptions and earned a passer rating of 66.4. Backup Jamie Martin made one start, another loss, but he got hurt too. Bulger then came along and the Rams have won four straight, including Sunday's 28-24 victory over San Diego in which Bulger drove the team for two touchdowns in the final four minutes. His passer rating is 107.4, higher than anyone in the league who has thrown more than two passes.

The third controversy, in which the 2-7 Chicago Bears keep going back and forth between dull journeymen Jim Miller and Chris Chandler, is so dull that I'll comment on it no further than naming it "Last Year at Marienbad," just to give some poor film major out there a chuckle.

An interesting, different case can be made for both Bouman and Bulger. But try making them. Even the words "quarterback controversy" will get you banned from the best NFL parties. Have you noticed how TV announcers will shy away from that phrase? One will say something nice about a backup, the other will say, "Now, you're not trying to start a quarterback controversy, are you?" and the first will back off. "Not me, no way."

Nobody wants to be mistaken for that idiot in Section 207 chanting the backup's name every time a pass gets dropped.

"It doesn't matter where you are in the NFL," Bouman said after Vikings fans went crazy upon his entry into Sunday's game, "the backup quarterback is always the most-liked guy, for some crazy reason."

That's actually only true if the starter isn't playing well. There aren't a lot of people in Green Bay chanting Doug Pederson's name on Sunday afternoons. But the paying customers do tend to have a pretty loose definition of not playing well. Sometimes three or four bad passes in a game, or even one key interception, are all the fans need to start clamoring for the guy with the clipboard.

The reason for that isn't crazy, it's human nature. The grass is greener and all that. Backup quarterbacks almost never play, so they remain unspoiled in the minds of the fans. As soon as things start turning sour, the face-paint types start yelling for the one guy who hasn't screwed up yet. It's as much a reflex as yelling "Go for it!" on fourth and anything. No thought is required beforehand.

But it's a mistake to assume, as football people seem to, that the only way to arrive at the conclusion that the backup should play is not to think about it. In fact, sometimes the starter benefits from the no-thought crowd.

During Sunday's Rams-Chargers telecast, CBS play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson gently brought up the idea that maybe, just maybe -- just, really, maybe -- Bulger, who was in the process of completing 36 of 48 passes for 453 yards and four touchdowns, ought to stay in there even when Warner's ready to come back. He wasn't making the argument. He just wanted to kick around the idea. His partner, former player Brent Jones, shot him down. "I'll tell you why not," Jones said, and drew "MVP" over Warner's face with the Telestrator.

Thanks, Brent. That was an enlightening discussion.

Next page: How long should an injured starter's immunity last?