New York Giants Not Part of Current Quarterback Carousel
I must admit that it’s pretty nice knowing that the New York Giants have a reliable quarterback leading the way for the team in Eli Manning. I say that as I sat back and watched all the hoopla that surrounded the Peyton Manning chase and how many other teams out there are/were in need of a starting quarterback.
Take a look at this brief off-season quarterback carousel just so that you can understand where I’m coming from:
- The Indianapolis Colts cut Peyton Manning so they can draft Andrew Luck.
- Peyton Manning signs with the Denver Broncos after putting the NFL on a three year waiting list. Wait, what? It wasn’t three years? Sure seemed like it.
- The St. Louis Rams got a fortune in return from the Washington Redskins so they can take RG3 right after the Colts select Luck.
- Matt Flynn signs with the Seattle Seahawks after being Aaron Rodgers’ backup.
- Jason Campbell leaves Oakland after having his starting job taken away and signs with the Chicago Bears to become Jay Cutler’s backup.
- Kyle Orton does the same thing and goes to backup Tony Romo in Dallas after starting for two teams last year: the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos.
- Denver Broncos’ third string QB Brady Quinn moves to Kansas City to become that team’s newest backup QB.
- Chad Henne left the Dolphins to challenge for the starting QB job with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
- The New York Jets brought in Drew Stanton to be Mark Sanchez’s new body double.
- David Garrard comes back to the league after a one year absence to join the Miami Dolphins.
We have backups becoming starters, starters becoming backups, rookies being drafted presumably to start from day, guys out of the league for a year and one of the greatest QBs to ever play in the NFL cut for a player to have never played a down of professional football before. Confused yet? That’s because it is confusing to keep track of which quarterback is on which team now in the new quarterback driven NFL.
With the signing of Manning to the Broncos there is now another starting quarterback that could be had for the right price: Tim Tebow for a 5th round pick, presumably. The two teams with a most glaring need at a QB, if the 49ers don’t bring back Alex Smith, that is, are the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. You have to include Miami because a Matt Moore/David Garrard combo doesn’t scare anyone.
The Browns were never in the hunt for Manning but aren’t enamored with incumbent QB Colt McCoy and lost out on the RG3 sweepstakes. The Dolphins went all in on Manning but came back empty handed; then their second choice Flynn spurned them for the Seahawks. That leaves the potential of either one of those two teams signing Alex Smith, he of the 49ers, who has no idea of his job status thanks to the Peyton Derby, and the aforementioned Tebow.
Plus there are other potential first round quarterbacks besides Luck and RG3 that could be taken by the Browns or Dolphins like Ryan Tannehill or Brandon Weeden, both of whom, if you ask me aren’t worthy of being selected in the top ten of the draft but might be taken that early because the Dolphins (picking 8th overall) and the Browns (picking 4th overall) won’t have any choice other than dangling a future first round draft pick in order to trade back into the latter part of the upcoming 2012 NFL Draft.
By my calculations we might have a total of 11 teams with a new starting QB/quarterback question marks entering next season:
-Redskins – RG3, Vikings – Ponder/Webb?, Jaguars – Gabbert/Henne? Or maybe even Tebow?, San Fran – Smith/Kaepernick/Josh Johnson?, Arizona – Kolb/Skelton? Cleveland – McCoy?, Seattle – Flynn/T-Jax? Titans – Locker/Hasselbeck?, Indy – Luck, Miami – Moore/Garrard? and Denver – Peyton Manning.
11! That is a ridiculous amount of turnover at the most important position in football.
Now you can see why I’m pretty happy that the Giants have Eli Manning and we didn’t have to put up with the Peyton circus and the revolving game of quarterback musical chairs that teams like the Redskins and Dolphins plus players like Tebow and Smith have had to put up with this offseason. Heck, the Giants are even keeping their back-up QB David Carr.