SAN DIEGO – Teams never learn. Coaches never learn. GMs? Man, they’ll always be the last to understand, are you kidding? Right now, this morning, as you read this, there are dozens of grown men scheming and plotting and dreaming of a way to bribe, beg and badger the Bengals into swapping places with them.
The Bengals, you see, have the No. 1 pick in this spring’s draft.
And this draft, as you may know, is one of Those Drafts. It’s a Coveted Quarterback Draft. This year, the Hot One is named Carson Palmer, who won the Heisman Trophy at USC, who looks like he was built from blueprints drafted at the Quarterback Shop. Tall. Strong. Big arm. Good wheels. He’s perfect.
So was David Klingler. So was Rick Mirer. So was Ryan Leaf.
“What can I tell you? We’re suckers for the perfect package,” one AFC executive told me earlier this week. “We’d rather go down with our safe pick than take a chance on a sleeper. You got 32 guys who run football teams. Put a gun to their heads. All 32 will tell you, ‘You got a chance to take the stud quarterback, you take the stud quarterback.’ “
Which brings us to this Super Bowl. Which brings us to Brad Johnson, who will quarterback the Buccaneers, who was selected with the 227th pick of the 1992 draft by the Vikings. Which brings us to Rich Gannon, who will engineer the Raiders’ explosive offense, who was selected with the 98th pick of the 1987 draft by the Patriots.
Both quarterbacks played for, and were discarded by, the Vikings. Both played for the Redskins. Both have been supplanted in their careers by quarterbacks nobody remembers any longer (Sean Salisbury, anybody? Elvis Grbac?). Both are creaky and battle tested, Gannon at 37, Johnson at 34. And yet both have an appointment tomorrow on the field at Qualcomm Stadium, while all the hotshots and the wonder boys stay home.
“People want flash,” Tampa Bay GM Rich McKay said. “They want the big arm and the quick feet. They want it all. So, when all of a sudden you have a lack of success, everybody wants to change the quarterback. That happened to both of them.”
They were teammates once, in Minnesota. Gannon was the starter, Johnson the understudy, and even then it was clear that each man saw a little bit of himself in the other guy.
“Rich really took me under his wing,” Johnson said. “You always hope for the best for other quarterbacks, especially other guys you played with. I’ve watched Rich for so many years. I’ve seen him go through all the highs and lows. It is kind of unique how things have worked out for us.”
Said Gannon: “Brad was a guy you just knew was going to be successful because he was bright, he wanted to learn, he wanted to get better all the time. It was important to him to leave a mark on this game, and that’s exactly what he’s done. It’s going to be kind of cool to know that he’s the guy on the other side, given where we both were at given points in our career.”
Where they are now is clear. Gannon, the reigning MVP, is the most dangerous quarterback in the game right now, having perfected Jon Gruden’s old offense. Gruden was sold on Gannon from the moment he became a Raider; he was less convinced about Johnson.
“All Rich needed was a shot to play, and we could give him that opportunity,” Gruden said. “Brad’s different . . . he kind of grows on you after a while. But . . . you have to look at is the bottom line, and that’s this: both guys have won-loss records that are impeccable.”
He’s right about that. Johnson, as a starter, is 51-27 in his career. Since 1997, when Gannon led Kansas City to a 5-0 record in relief of an injured Grbac, through his four seasons as a Raider, Gannon is 46-23.
Not bad for guys who’ve lugged the label “journeyman” around with them for years. Not bad for guys who play ahead of Rob Johnson (Bucs) and Mirer (Raiders), who were cast out of that “perfect” QB mold.
“I wouldn’t say we’re journeymen,” Johnson said. “We’re survivors. It’s very hard to get a chance in this league. We’ve both come through when we’ve needed to.”
Today, one will walk off with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, not a terrible end to a journeyman’s journey.