Their Loss=Our Gain

John McClain:

Looking back at March 22, the day Matt Schaub was acquired by the Texans, I'll never forget the haunting words of one member of the Falcons organization: "We just traded the wrong quarterback."

Little did he or anyone in Atlanta understand just how prophetic those words would become.

Before the Texans made the trade, Schaub got strong endorsements from two coaches Kubiak knows well from working with them for so many years at Denver.

Bill Musgrave, who coaches quarterbacks at Atlanta, tutored Schaub last season and at the University of Virginia. Alex Gibbs was a Falcons assistant during Schaub's first three years. They told Kubiak that Schaub was just about everything he wanted in a quarterback and that he would make a smooth transition into the Texans' system.

As a Texans fan, this is a development of such proportions that one tends to get a bit giddy at the prospect of the team's performance in the next few years. It also is an example of such bitter irony for the Falcons organization and their fans that you can't help but feel some empathy. How can you giggle behind a bunched hand or chuckle to yourself mentally at the man who gets clocked by a falling safe in the middle of a meadow?

While the statement from the Falcons representative quoted above does indicate the knowledge of potential issues with Vick both on field and off, there can't be any way of foreseeing the firestorm that is in motion and will most likely end in jail time and the end of his NFL, if not his entire professional football, career. However, the statement seems to cut in another direction, this one strictly football related.

The running quarterback's days are numbered. This is not to say that we are looking at a return of the proliference of the classic immobile pocket passer in the NFL, but more to the passing quarterback with good pocket instincts--the ability to feel pressure and avoid it long enough to gain a small amount of yardage or avoid a large loss fifty percent of the time or more. Yes, this is a lot to ask, but players can be developed (and can develop themselves) to meet this criteria.

The classic running quarterback (notice I didn't say 'scrambling') is a dying breed mainly due to his own attractiveness in two ways: the potential for yards and touchdowns both through the air and on the ground, and the potential gate and television revenue generated by an exciting player who can potentially provide an amazing play worthy of Sunday night highlights and play of the year accolades at every snap of the ball. Based on the value attached to those two attractive possibilities, owners such as Norman Braman, Zygi Wilf, and Arthur Blank secured running quarterbacks Randall Cunningham, Dante Culpepper and Vick with huge contracts and signing bonuses.

However, this strategy soon came to reveal itself as a sharp double edged sword. Along with the gate value and improvement that this new generation of QBs brought to the team, it also exposed them to more serious types of injury more often than the classic pocket QB. Another, perhaps even more serious issue that reared its ugly head was the matter of conditioning that showed itself in the tendency of these quarterbacks to fade a little or succumb to more minor injuries that they might have been able to play through earlier in the season in the last quarter of the season or (worse) during the playoffs.

This has proven itself to be a recurring factor in the late season and playoff performances of the Eagles in the eighties and nineties with Cunningham, and again here in the aughts with McNabb, the Vikings in the nineties with both Cunningham and Culpepper, the Steelers in the late nineties with Kordell Stewart, and the Falcons in recent years with Vick. Contrast that with the QBs who have made it deep into the playoffs and to the Super Bowl and won it such as Brady, Manning, Warner, Elway, Favre, and Aikman. The only two examples of classic running QBs who made it to the Super Bowl are McNair with the Titans in the 1999 season, and you can hardly pin the outcome of that game on his ability--the entire team played their hearts out and almost snatched that game out from under Kurt Warner and Dick Vermeil's noses, and McNabb with the Eagles two years ago--and that loss can be attributed more to the questionable late game play calling of Andy Reid than McNabb's performance, the inane comments of Terrell Owens not withstanding.

You have to think that GM's and coaches pay attention to these results and act accordingly. David Carr was an above average QB at Fresno State, but the NFL isn't the WAC and the schedule is a bit more intense than what he experienced in college. The sieve of an offensive line that he had to work with for most of his career also had a lot to do with it, but McClain also makes these good points:

Schaub gets rid of the ball fast. He's been sacked once in three games. Kubiak wants the Texans to have fewer than 30 sacks, which would be a franchise-record low.

Schaub feels pressure and knows how to sidestep it. Sage Rosenfels, who's capable of being a starter in Kubiak's system, also has that pocket presence coaches talk so much about.

Schaub makes good decisions. In other words, he doesn't throw the ball to the wrong spot or step into sacks. He's authoritative in the huddle, it's clear he's in charge, and no one else talks.

Schaub doesn't say the wrong thing. He listens and soaks in everything he hears that might benefit him. He doesn't make excuses. He takes the blame whether he deserves it or not. He accepts criticism. When he makes a mistake, he gets angry at himself, not anyone else, and vows not to make the same mistake again.

Sorry Falcons. You pay your money, you take your chances...