Moronic Observation of the Day
By Dan Zinski
I was clicking around looking for post fodder (Jared Allen hasn’t said anything dumb today so I was a little hard-up) when I came across a small head-scratcher from some fellow named Bill Barnwell, a contributing editor at footballoutsiders.com. Barnwell was speaking to the Dallas Morning News about the Dallas Cowboys‘ QB situation, which right now boils down to a choice between former Vikings back-ups Brad Johnson and Brooks Bollinger. Barnwell said the Cowboys probably wouldn’t be any worse off with Bollinger in there than Johnson – more an indictment of Johnson than an endorsement of Bollinger. He then went on to draw a parallel between the Cowboys’ QB issues and the Vikings’ situation – a parallel that to me makes no sense whatsoever. Here’s what he said:
"I think at this point, both our data and my eyes say that they couldn’t do any worse with Bollinger out there. I think the only real fear is that the Cowboys might get in a situation similar to the one that’s developed in Minnesota, where the Vikings went from Tarvaris Jackson to Gus Frerotte, realized that they were both terrible, and ended up with two quarterbacks with no confidence."
I have no idea what this fool is talking about. First of all, though we all agree Gus Frerotte is no Tom Brady, I doubt many people believe he’s been “terrible.” Yes, he stunk up the joint against the Bears with all those interceptions – but he almost single-handedly won the Saints game, and on the whole has been a steady hand at the tiller. But the assessment of Frerotte’s performance isn’t really the bothersome part of the quote, it’s that bit about two quarterbacks with no confidence. Now I ask you, Vikings fans – whatever else you may think of Frerotte, does he strike you even slightly as a guy who’s lacking confidence? I’d say, if anything, he has too much confidence at times, and heaves the ball deep when there might be a better underneath route to check down to. And that doesn’t bother me because, frankly, I’d rather lose firing the ball around than go out the T-Jack way – death by a thousand short-hopped dump-off passes and misbegotten bootleg plays. I don’t think Barnwell knows the first thing about what’s going on with the Vikings’ quarterbacks.