As I watched Ben Roethlisberger (he of a more unenviable last name spelling wise than my own maiden name) win the AFC championship game two Sundays ago, I wondered to myself, “what ever happened to the quarterback as hero?”
When I was growing up, the group of elite NFL quarterbacks included two men who promoted advocacy for two diseases that were woefully under funded at the time (cystic fibrosis and Krabbe’s disease), a law school student, and men who worked to be the face of a franchise and never would dream of leaving.
I am not saying they were saints (for example, Jim Kelly’s wife’s recent book shatters most of our good conceptions of Kelly thanks to his infidelities), but we were shielded from it while they played. Instead of talking about their most recent rape charge at a stoppage of play, they would talk about Boomer Esiason’s son’s progress as he battled cystic fibrosis, something Dan Marino did for the community, or Steve Young’s bar card. We only knew Joe Montana as Joe Cool, not the anti-social teammate who laughed at his tough-but-tiny teammate at Notre Dame, the one and only Rudy. We bought candles to support Kelly’s son Hunter as he battled a rare disorder. Drew Bledsoe was a good guy from Washington state, and John Elway made Colorado relevant beyond skiing. Quarterbacks weren’t bad – they were golden.
In comparison, today’s elite quarterbacks are well known more for their misbehavior, lousy personalities and poor choices than anything else. Roethlisberger and Mark Sanchez have been accused of raping women, but are in the process of “overcoming” those charges (whatever that means.) Peyton and Eli Manning are stereotyped as angry, egotistical daddy’s-boys. Vince Young has more problems than Boston public transportation on a subzero day. Michael Vick pitted dogs to the death against each other for his own enjoyment. Tom Brady had a kid out of wedlock and married a supermodel who refuses to be paid in US dollars. Cutler “isn’t tough” and sits out the second half of the NFC Championship game due to an injury my athletic trainer friend has seen 14 year olds play on. And Brett Favre – the quarterback who straddles the line between the generation of “well behaved” 90s quarterbacks and today’s troublesome terrors – sends women photos of his private parts and propositions them, all while his wife was battling cancer. They are all good quarterbacks, but their athletic performances are no longer the first thing we think of when we hear their names.
The quarterbacks of my youth may have been horrible, but we didn’t necessarily know it while they were active. Plus, the media is looking for, expecting the negative when it comes to a quarterback. What changed? When did quarterbacks go from being treated as well-meaning leaders to being horny representatives of all that is stereotypically wrong with athletes? Was it the invention of the Internet and the never ending news cycle to fill? Was it that the current free agency model doesn’t endear cities to their players and players to their cities, thus giving the athlete no accountability and the fans no reason not to turn them in to TMZ? Is it that people en masse are behaving much worse than ever before, and the microcosm of NFL quarterbacks represent that?
Or did just all of us 1990s football fans grow up and learn that no one is perfect?