The idea has been passed down from one football generation to the next like some treasured heirloom — to be protected, nurtured and then sent on. The idea is that football is the ultimate team game, with the needs of many outweighing the needs of one.
“But quarterback is just different,” Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey said. “So when you find one, it’s great, and when you’re looking for one, everybody’s watching you do it. And when you change one, everybody wants to know why.”
While switching out the left guard is a ripple on the pond, coach John Fox made the biggest of splashes when he benched Kyle Orton and put Tim Tebow in the starting lineup, starting with Sunday’s game at Miami.
“It’s the toughest (position) to make a change,” said Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, whose team tried to acquire Orton in a trade before the season. “I think the quarterback position comes with a large responsibility, and whether most quarterbacks are or are not leaders, they are assumed leaders because of the position they play and the responsibility they carry.”
In his 14-year tenure as Broncos coach, Mike Shanahan made two highly publicized moves at quarterback, picking Brian Griese over Bubby Brister in 1999 and moving Jay Cutler in front of Jake Plummer in 2006. The first of those divided the locker room. Griese called it “a difficult situation for all involved.”
Of the second move, Shanahan has said he weighed the pulse of the locker room when he chose Cutler and summed it up: “You can’t make the change until the team is ready for you to make the change.”
In the wake of Shanahan’s firing after the 2008 season, there were people inside the Broncos’ Dove Valley complex who said the locker room was divided by the change to Cutler, just as it had been in 1999. The team wasn’t ready for Plummer to be moved aside and appeared headed to the playoffs when Shanahan made the move.
“But I don’t think this is anything like that one, not even close,” Bailey said. “We were in a different place at that time. Our record was better, and I think a lot of people just didn’t think Jake lost his job. It was that (Shanahan) just made a change.”
Plummer said, looking back, he believes the change was really set the minute the Broncos moved up in the 2006 draft to select Cutler with the 11th pick overall and that the threat hung over his play through that season’s first 11 games.
“Really that final year, I was thinking the whole time: When is it going to happen?” Plummer said. “This kid wasn’t drafted to just sit around. It was a real uneasy kind of feeling. Every time I had a bad game, I was thinking, ‘I wonder what Coach is thinking’ or is Jay sitting there thinking ‘Man, I can do better than this.’ “
Teams always hope that the quarterback being moved aside will conduct himself professionally and that the quarterback taking the job is ready for the challenge.
“If you’re a competitor and it matters to you, you want to be in that situation,” Griese said. “It’s more excitement when you get the opportunity. It’s ‘Finally, I will get to find out how good I am or whether I can play in this league.’ “
The danger for any team executive or head coach that makes the highly publicized change at quarterback is that the team in the locker room picks sides between the new guy and the benched guy. There also is the issue of the quarterbacks still working together, in the same meeting room, as the 2 4/7 drama of their story is played out in the public eye.
An issue in the Broncos’ change to Cutler in ’06 was the fact the Broncos were 7-4 at the time of the switch, had put together a five-game winning streak with Plummer earlier that season and had been to the AFC championship game the season before. As a result, Plummer had plenty of support in the locker room.
Fox resisted talk of a quarterback change throughout training camp and the first month of the season. He has since presented this change, even with Orton’s popularity among many of his teammates, as a byproduct of the team’s struggles.
“We’re a 1-4 team,” Fox said. “We’re 1-4 coaches. We’re always going to do the things we think will help us win games. It’s my broken record, but we’re in a production-based business.”
The somber mood in the Broncos’ locker room during the bye-week practices was in stark contrast to the public celebration at Tebow’s promotion into the starting job. Many Broncos veterans said they understood why a change was made but thought Orton had taken a disproportionate amount of the criticism for the team’s slow start. It was difficult for them to watch the veteran being singled out with such a public move.
“If you play that position long enough, you realize there are so many unique dynamics to it,” Griese said. “If the team doesn’t play well, the quarterback becomes the scapegoat. He just has to understand and know that.”
“I think what’s tough is people just decide it’s all him, that’s why we’re 1-4,” Bailey said. “That’s not the case, it’s not just him. It’s that praise/blame thing with the quarterback. They get it all sometimes, whether it’s right or wrong. They know that, it comes with the territory. It’s tough territory, though, you know?”
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
Make a change
Since their back-to-back Super Bowl victories in 1997 and 1998, the Broncos have made four high-profile changes at quarterback. Here’s a look:
1999
John Elway retired after the 1998 season. Mike Shanahan picked Brian Griese, who was the team’s third-round pick in the ’98 draft, over veteran Bubby Brister. Brister had gone 4-0 in place of an injured Elway during ’98.
2006
Although the team was 7-4, Shanahan benched Jake Plummer after a Thanksgiving night loss at Kansas City and inserted Jay Cutler. Cutler went 2-3 as a starter, and the 9-7 Broncos missed the playoffs.
2009
Newly hired Josh McDaniels traded Cutler to the Chicago Bears just weeks after Cutler played in the Pro Bowl. The Broncos received Kyle Orton as part of the deal and finished 8-8 after a 6-0 start.
2011
After opening the season 1-4 with an immensely popular backup quarterback, John Fox benched Orton at halftime against San Diego, then named Tim Tebow the team’s starter during the bye week.
Jeff Legwold, The Denver Post
