But his decision to bench veteran Jake Plummer heading into Sunday night's showdown with Seattle and replace him with untested rookie Jay Cutler reeks of desperation. Even worse, it defies the irrefutable laws of the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
Nobody will argue that Plummer is having a great season – or that he's the future of the Broncos. He's near the bottom of the league with a 70.5 passer rating and is one of the few veteran starters in football with more interceptions (12) than touchdowns (11). He has also completed just 55.6 percent of his passes.
But he is the immediate future of the Broncos. And to give up on him now is to give up on the 2006 season. It's too bad. If the season ended today, the 7-4 Broncos would have a spot in the playoffs as a wild-card team.
The Cold, Hard Football Facts show that the season can only get worse with Cutler taking the snaps. After all, the NFL is extremely hostile to rookie quarterbacks – even the best. And Plummer's pedestrian performances still make him more productive than the most celebrated rookie passers this season.
- Tampa's Bruce Gradkowski, an unheralded sixth-round pick out of Toledo, is the NFL's highest-rated rookie QB (70.1 passer rating). Yet he has tossed just 9 TDs with 6 INTs, and has completed just 53.7 of his passes. He's 3-5 as a starter.
- Arizona's Matt Leinart, a first-round pick and former Heisman winner, is fresh off a 405-yard passing performance. He also gets to throw the ball to big-time wideouts Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald. But he has more INTs (9) than TDs (7), with a 55.0 completion percentage and a 69.6 passer rating. He's 1-7 as a starter.
- Vince Young is a tremendously gifted athlete and a college national champion. He's also flying high after leading one of the biggest comebacks in NFL history last week. But he has just 8 TDs with 8 INTs, has completed less than 50 percent of his passes, and has a passer rating of 63.9. He's 4-4 as a starter.
Maybe Shanahan has been swayed by the way new starters like Tony Romo in Dallas and Philip Rivers in San Diego have lit up the opposition recently. But Romo is in his fourth season as a professional. Rivers is in his third year. Both have had plenty of time to learn the intricacies of NFL offenses and defenses. It's the mental preparation that seems most important, since the NFL is filled with talented athletes at quarterback. It seems the ability to process the speed of the league and the complexities of an NFL playbook is what separates great quarterbacks from the merely ordinary.
And it takes time to develop that capacity.
The struggles of rookie QBs this season are not an anomaly. They are in keeping with the Cold, Hard Football Facts of NFL history. The truth is that the NFL has always been tough on rookie starters. Just look, for example, at how these modern Hall of Fame quarterbacks (those who were given significant playing time as rookies) fared in their debut seasons:
- Dan Fouts completed 44.8 percent of his passes, with 6 TDs, 13 INTs and a 46.0 rating. He played in 10 games (aging Johnny Unitas was also on the team) for a 1973 Chargers squad that went 2-11-1.
- Troy Aikman played in 11 games for the 1989 Cowboys. He completed just 52.9 percent of his passes, threw 9 TDs with 18 INTs, and had a passer rating of 55.7. The Cowboys went 1-15.
- John Elway also tossed twice as many INTs as TDs (14-7) in 11 games for the 1983 Broncos. He completed just 47.5 percent of his passes and posted a 54.9 rating. The Broncos went 9-7 and lost in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Even a future Hall of Famer like Peyton Manning, the most productive passer of his generation, fought through a difficult rookie year: He started all 16 games, but threw more INTs (28) than TDs (26). He also posted the lowest completion percentage (56.7) and passer rating (71.2) of his illustrious career. The Colts went 3-13.
Notice a trend here? Even the best rookie QBs share several things in common:
- They usually throw more INTs than TDs.
- They struggle to complete 50 percent of their passes.
- They struggle to win games.
Only one Hall of Fame quarterback walked into the NFL with no professional experience and immediately proved he belonged: Dan Marino took over the Dolphins offense midway through the 1983 season and went on to throw 20 TDs with just 6 INTs, while generating a remarkable 96.0 passer rating.
But he was the exception, not the rule. Of course, Marino had the luxury of taking over a team that was in the Super Bowl the season before and that fielded the No. 1 scoring defense in football his rookie year. Rookie quarterbacks who start usually do so because they're on bad teams. That's certainly the case this year with Gradkowski, Leinart and Young, just as it was the case in past years with Fouts, Aikman and Manning.
In terms of team support, Cutler finds himself more on the side of Marino. The Broncos have the No. 5 scoring defense in football (15.0 PPG). They have the No. 8 rushing attack (132.8 YPG). And they have a winning record (7-4).
Cutler is a highly touted prospect out of Vanderbilt, where he put up phenomenal numbers. Some believe he was the best quarterback in the draft this year, and the Broncos grabbed him with the No. 11 overall pick.
But it's a lot to ask of Cutler to come in and play like a rookie Marino – especially when it won't be good enough to play like a rookie Aikman, Elway or Manning.
