To all the Steelers and Saints fans talking gloom and doom because their team’s future Hall of Fame quarterback is out: Don’t give up the ship yet.
The news that Ben Roethlisberger is out for the year with his elbow injury and Drew Brees is down for 6-8 weeks due to a torn ligament in his throwing thumb certainly is a shock to everybody in Pittsburgh and New Orleans, including those in the front offices. But take it from me, a former NFL team executive who saw No. 2 quarterbacks lead our teams to great seasons on multiple occasions: It can happen.
The two keys for teams in this position are having a quality backup ready to step up and seeing that QB's supporting cast raise their game to a higher level. I learned the value of the former early in my NFL front office career.
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Mike Lynn, our general manager in Minnesota, used to tell me the second most important player on the team beyond the starting QB was the No. 2 QB. That seemed like an exaggeration until the second stringer was forced into action.
I was in my second year with the Vikings in 1977, and we were coming off a Super Bowl season when Fran Tarkenton, a Hall of Famer, broke his leg in a Week 9 win over the Bengals. Lynn and coach Bud Grant, also a Hall of Famer, were prepared with an excellent No. 2 in Bob Lee, who led us to a 4-2 record down the stretch and the NFC Central title. In the postseason, Lee played a turnover-free game in directing the Vikings to a 14-7 upset win over the Rams in heavy rain (the game was dubbed the “Mud Bowl”) in the divisional round before losing to the Cowboys in the conference championship.
Ten years later, I watched Wade Wilson replace injured starter Tommy Kramer and lead the Vikings to the playoffs and a postseason run that included road wins over the Saints and the top-seeded 49ers. Wilson passed for 298 yards and two touchdowns as he outplayed two Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Joe Montana and Steve Young in that epic upset. And Wilson came close to knocking off the eventual Super Bowl-champion Redskins on the road in the NFC title game.
Then, when I was with the Titans as team president in 1999, we were fortunate to have a former Super Bowl quarterback from his Steelers years in Neil O’Donnell backing up Steve McNair, who suffered a back injury in the opening game. McNair was sidelined for five games, but O’Donnell went 4-1 as the starter and kept us on path for a 13-3 season and an eventual trip to the Super Bowl as AFC champs.
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There are more success stories of backup QBs around the league, and three of the most famous examples involved Super Bowl champions.
During Miami’s perfect season in 1972, Earl Morrall replaced the injured Bob Griese in Week 5 and won all 11 games he started before Griese returned for the Super Bowl victory. Morrall also was renowned for stepping in for the injured Johnny Unitas with the Colts in 1968 and going 15-1 as the starter in regular season and playoffs before the Jets pulled off their big upset in Super Bowl 3. Further, Morrall relieved Unitas in Super Bowl 5 when the Colts were victorious over the Cowboys.
In 1990, the Giants’ Jeff Hostetler started in place of the injured Phil Simms for the final two regular-season games and all three playoff games, including New York’s Super Bowl upset win over Buffalo in which he passed for 222 yards and one TD with no turnovers.
Oh, and then there’s that sixth-rounder in New England who replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe in Week 2 of the 2001 season. All Tom Brady did was lead the Patriots to the division title and on a last-minute drive to upset the Rams for his first of a record six Super Bowl titles.
Like Hostetler, Mason Rudolph was a third-round pick. Steelers GM Kevin Colbert is one of the best judges of talent in the NFL today, and he identified Rudolph out of Oklahoma State as the player he wanted to back up Big Ben in case of injury and presumably to be groomed as his eventual replacement.
Rudolph’s play was adequate in his second-half relief appearance last week, but he couldn’t lead Pittsburgh to a win against a good Seattle defense. This week he takes on the unbeaten 49ers on the road — not an easy spot for the youngster who will need better play from his wide receivers, a healthy return from a knee injury by James Conner and the defense to improve upon its poor play over the first two weeks.
Meanwhile in New Orleans, GM Mickey Loomis and coach Sean Payton had enough confidence in Teddy Bridgewater to sign him for $7.25 million this season, an expensive insurance policy as one of the largest salaries for a No. 2 QB in the league. A 2014 first-round pick, Bridgewater was the starter and a Pro Bowler on a division-champion Vikings team in 2015 before suffering what appeared to be a career-ending knee injury just prior to the 2016 season.
Bridgewater did a tremendous job working his way back, but he has taken few snaps in regular-season games since his injury. He led the Saints to only nine points with no TDs against the Rams. It will be interesting to see if Payton utilizes Taysom Hill more with Bridgewater starting, given Hill’s wildcat expertise.
Again, it’s incumbent on Saints stars such as receiver Michael Thomas and running back Alvin Kamara to step up their game in support of Bridgewater and Hill.
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The silver lining — if there is one — for both the Steelers and Saints is they will find out whether their backup quarterbacks are potential future starters when the 37-year old Roethlisberger and 40-year old Brees eventually call it quits. And at least the Saints appear likely to get Brees back for the stretch run this season.
The bottom line: Give these new starters a chance before throwing in the towel. There’s plenty of precedence for backup quarterbacks delivering great seasons.
Jeff Diamond is a former president of the Titans and former vice president/general manager of the Vikings. He was selected NFL Executive of the Year in 1998. Diamond is currently a business and sports consultant who also does broadcast and online media work. He makes speaking appearances to corporate/civic groups and college classes on negotiation and sports business/sports management. He is the former chairman and CEO of The Ingram Group. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jeffdiamondNFL.
