Pro Football / Bob Oates : Experience Is the Most Underrated Part of Quarterback Development

With Gus Frerotte at quarterback this year, the Washington Redskins are 6-1.

With Craig Erickson, Miami has been reasonably competitive.

Ty Detmer of Philadelphia, Jeff Blake of Cincinnati and Tony Banks of the Rams are beginning to appear now and then in the NFL highlight films.

Not long ago, it was said of each of them, as it has been said often of others, “He’ll never do it.”

What’s going on here?

Well, the new people are just making an old point.

They’re reminding us that NFL experience is the most underrated element in the development of a quarterback.

Three things are all you really need at that position: an NFL arm, toughness, and years of game-day seasoning. Still, most football fans, noting that a new guy can throw the ball and take a hit, are conditioned by their impatience to expect too much too soon.

A long time ago, Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh said it for then and now: “‘Very few people fully understand the value of experience. My best year was my 12th in pro ball. My three best were the 10th, 11th, and 12th.”

Wait till Frerotte has had 12.

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Big Ten era: The main surprise of the season to many old NFL scouts has been the success of the old Big Ten quarterbacks: Jim Harbaugh, Elvis Grbac, Mike Tomczak, and, lately, Kent Grahams among others.

There have been few indications in this century that Michigan and Ohio State are quarterback factories.

Yet Michigan man Harbaugh has Indianapolis 5-2. On the 49er team, Michigan man Grbac has per-formed capably in relief of injured Steve Young, and may one day replace him. On the Arizona team, Ohio State man Graham gives the Cardinals what they seem to need at quarterback, whatever their troubles elsewhere.

And Ohio State man Tomczak could be en route with the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Super Bowl.

Though in their college days none of these played on wondrous passing teams, all displayed some aptitude for passing. And except for Tomczak--who at 200, at most, may be too frail for NFL stardom- all are robust enough to take the punishment that is a way of life for quarterbacks league that still seems loath protect them with the zeal with which it protects punters and kickers.

Tomczak, if he doesn’t have to play every minute of every Steeler game, could make it as a champion because he has the disposition, if not the constitution, of a tough guy.

To an NFL quarterback, toughness means, primarily, the durability that Rodney Peete, for one, may not have, plus the courage that Peete, Young, Harbaugh and Troy Aikman so conspicuously have.

And nothing is more essential except passing accuracy and years of experience.

The problem with inexperienced young quarterbacks is simply that they haven’t had time to absorb everything they must know, and Sow well, to lead an NFL team.

No other candidate for any other position, in football or any other sport, is required to process so much diverse information, and process it so rapidly.

More people can move fast than think fast.

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Coaching counts: The 1980s rise of Joe Montana as a champion illustrates some other truths about young quarterbacks. First, in the case of any new candidate, the most important thing to determine is whether he really has the talent. Second, the hardest thing to determine is whether he has it.

Montana was a third-round draft choice, meaning that many coaches doubted him. But he was the handpicked choice of former 49er coach Bill Walsh-as was Steve Young later-meaning that good ones can be found by those who have the talent to recognize talent.

When a young quarterback is both able and tough, as Young was and is, the tempo of his development usually depends on the system he plays in and the coach he plays for. At Green Bay, under Mike Holmgren, Brett Favre has been lucky. At San Francisco, Montana, Young and now Grbac have been lucky. At Cincinnati, Blake has been unlucky.

Most quarterbacks are so full of themselves that they don’t understand these realities. For example, Neil O’Donnell voluntarily descended from Pittsburgh to the Jets.

As the college quarterback with the most pro promise today, Arizona State’s Jake Plummer has a future that rests on the kind of NFL coaching he gets.