Quarterback Carousel

Tomorrow, four teams will run new quarterbacks out to lead the offense, including the Tim Tebow Era beginning again in Denver. I've written at length about the reasons why I thought Denver needed to make a change, and why I think Tebow will be good for the team and for fans. But every situation is different.

Quarterback is the most visible, most high-pressure position on the field. The quarterback is often given too much credit for wins and too much blame for losses. And, it's been said, the most popular person on any team is usually the back-up quarterback. That's because the back up provides a sense of promise in potentially hopeless situations. That's what we're going to be seeing tomorrow.

It's interesting to think about the three other teams (besides Denver) that will be going in a different direction tomorrow. First we have the Oakland Raiders. At 4-2, the team is doing well. And had Jason Campbell not broken his collarbone, ending his season, last Sunday, who knows what would have happened for the Raiders. Now, it seems certain the team is going in another direction.

Oakland has two other quarterbacks on the roster — veteran Kyle Boller and rookie Tyrell Pryor, for whom the team sacrificed a third round draft pick in next April's draft. But the Raiders decided they couldn't bank on those two players and, with the team in playoff contention for the first time in nearly a decade, they mortgaged two first round picks, potentially, and at least on first round pick and one second round pick to bring in Carson Palmer.

Palmer was a great college quarterback for USC, and he had a great early career with the Cincinnatti Bengals. But over the past few seasons, he seems to have lost a bit of his stride. Blame the conditions, the team, and his teammates for some of it, but Palmer hasn't been the same. Now, in Oakland, he's being given a second chance but by being put in a position to be the savior of the team both this season and for years to come. Oakland mortgaged its present and future to bring Palmer in, so he has to deliver.

In Minnesota, the future seems to be a lot of the reason that Christian Ponder displaced Donovan McNabb. McNabb was regarded as a great career quarterback in Philadelphia, having led the Eagles to four straight NFC Title Games at one point and a Super Bowl. But he never won the big game, and in the last two years his career fell off the shelf. His time with the Washington Redskins ended badly, as his play was awful and he was benched. His move to the Vikings was supposed to undue that, but it's only further tarnished his legacy. Once, McNabb was considered a possible Hall of Fame quarterback, but it's hard to see that happening now.

So the Vikings turned to the rookie Ponder, hoping for a spark, to develop for the future, and to answer fan outcry, such as the outcry that Kyle Orton faced in Denver.

In Washington, D.C., it's time for John Beck, who supplanted Rex Grossman. This is perhaps the most interesting quarterback switch. At 3-2, the Redskins as still near the top of their division. Grossman "won" the starting job during the preseason, but no one was ever sold on him. Still, he guided the team to first place then had one bad game. Now it's on to the next one. The problem for the Redskins is that they don't have a great team identity and they lack depth and skill. This isn't a problem that can be fixed by moving John Beck, who hasn't started a game since 2007, into the starting lineup. It just isn't.

It will be interesting to see how all of these new quarterbacks fair in their debuts tomorrow, and in the weeks to follow.