Quarterbacks Get Dealt In Again

It is still not entirely safe to watch the NFL playoffs--the Ravens avoided the wooden stake again and are (shudder) the only team to have defeated Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh this season--but there is encouraging news to report in the wake of wild-card weekend:

Quarterbacks are back.

Twelve months have passed since Trent Dilfer and Kerry Collins didn’t in Super Bowl XXXV. The dark ages of professional football history, those four quarters were.

In a copycat league, quarterback-free football threatened to consume the NFL in 2001-02, with such old-time powerhouses as Dallas, Washington and Buffalo quickly adopting the same approach.

But the first four playoff games of the new tournament have done great things for our severely shaken fundamental value system.

In all four games, the team with the better quarterback won.

You have to go back to the last millennium to find another postseason weekend for which that claim could be made.

Saturday, it was Donovan McNabb over Brad Johnson in Philadelphia and Rich Gannon over Vinny Testaverde in Oakland, pretty much as expected.

Sunday, in a quarterback matchup that rekindled memories of Bart Starr versus John Brodie (i.e., Starr usually won), cagey veteran Brett Favre outsmarted Jeff Garcia, who will soon play in his second Pro Bowl but was making only his first NFL playoff start.

And, in something less than that, in Miami, Elvis Grbac was better than Jay Fiedler. Not much to base a playoff portfolio on, perhaps, but it’s more than Grbac had before Sunday: eight years in the league, 0-1 in the playoffs.

One good weekend begets another, and beget a load of this:

Next Sunday in St. Louis, Favre squares off against Kurt Warner, indoors, on artificial turf. The two best passers in the sport, training-camp teammates once upon a time, with two Lombardi trophies and five league most-valuable-player awards between them. What’s the over-under on touchdown passes in this one? Six or seven?

As a Saturday appetizer, the Oakland-New England second-rounder will bring together two more Pro Bowl quarterbacks, Gannon and Tom Brady. On paper, it’s an appealing matchup--late-bloomer Gannon against out-of-nowhere Brady--and we’d like to ask Drew Bledsoe to handicap it, but he’s too interested in Philadelphia at Chicago. If Jim Miller loses that one, Chicago will probably go quarterback hunting, which means Bledsoe will probably go house hunting in Chicago.

The fourth game, Baltimore at Pittsburgh, pits Grbac against Kordell Stewart. Not quite the same juice as Favre-Warner, but the thought of Grbac and Stewart trying to operate with a frozen football amid snow-plow conditions does make for imaginative entertainment possibilities.

For the first-round losers, learning the hard way, the message was similar if worded a bit differently:

Quarterbacks, you might not be back.

In San Francisco, Garcia is safe, although Terrell Owens is calling out for a different game plan. Limited to four receptions for 40 yards in the 49ers’ 25-15 loss at Green Bay, Owens blamed the play-calling, angrily telling reporters, “If I’m the best player on the team, why can’t I get the ball? That’s all I ask. Give me an opportunity and give the offense an opportunity to get some points on the board. I didn’t get enough opportunities to get the ball. There were times I was beating my guy all day.”

Is Terrell Owens the best player on the team?

Why can’t he get the ball?

Was he beating his guy at times, or was he beating his guy all day?

Take time to discuss, 49er fans. You have six months.

Elsewhere among the eliminated, consider the fallout, coming or expected:

* Jets: Vinny Testaverde could be out, Chad Pennington could be in.

* Buccaneers: Brad Johnson could be out, now that Bill Parcells, who has probably seen enough, is coming in.

* Dolphins: Fiedler could be out, because Miami management has the option of buying out the final year of his contract. And coming in? Would you believe ... Troy Aikman?

ABC News Radio reported Sunday, shortly after Fiedler had finished off a 20-3 loss to Baltimore, that Aikman was “99% sure” of attempting a comeback next season and would like to do it in Miami, provided Coach Dave Wannstedt, Aikman’s defensive coordinator in Dallas, can hire Norv Turner, Aikman’s offensive coordinator in Dallas.

Monday, Wannstedt tried gamely to deflect the Aikman speculation, insisting that the Dolphins were intent on re-signing Fiedler. But talk is cheap and with Fiedler due to make $1.2 million next season, these numbers are expensive: 15 for 28 for 122 yards and an interception against Baltimore, consecutive playoff defeats by a cumulative score of 47-3.

Quarterbacks are certain to be flying in and out of Washington, now that Steve Spurrier has signed on to replace Marty Schottenheimer. With any luck, camera crews will be on hand when Spurrier gathers the Redskin quarterback incumbents for their first off-season workout.

“Tony Banks?! Says here you’ve played for three teams since January 2001. That’s wrong. Must be a typographical error. After today, it’s four.

“Kent Graham?! You have got to be kidding me. Next!

“Sage Rosenfels?! For the love of.... You know, I do owe Rex Grossman an apology.”

Quarterbacks are back, and if you don’t have one, you need to act quickly. Mel Kiper Jr. just rejiggered his 2002 draft handicap for ESPN Insider and, for the next 10 minutes, until he rejiggers again, has two quarterbacks going in the top four picks: Oregon’s Joey Harrington to the expansion Houston Texans, Fresno State’s David Carr to the Buffalo Bills.

Football remains an 11-man game, despite the grim predictions after last year’s Super Bowl, when both offenses played a man down and appeared to be pot-holing a road to the future. Fortunately, that too did pass.