Friday, October 05, 2007

To Heck With Those Wins - I Want To Play!

I’m a little late to the party with this one, but it’s too good to pass up. Peter King does a great job of skewering Matt Leinart for his idiotic comments following Arizona’s victory over the Steelers, but given that Leinart came from USC, I’m declaring him ripe for another skewer.

Here’s the money quote: Leinart expressing frustration with the admittedly unusual but thus far highly effective one-two quarterback punch (Leinart as starter, Kurt Warner as reliever):

"If I'm the franchise quarterback, play me and let me stumble, because I'll fight through it, and that will help me and our team in the long run. I know coaches want to win now, and they have their reasons. But I don't understand, and this switching back and forth is almost worse than getting benched.''

Yeah, funny thing about those coaches, wanting to win games all the time. I’d be willing to be that there’s a few thousand football fans in Arizona – long suffering, no doubt – who’d be willing to put up with a few wins if the only cost is Matt Leinart’s pride.

Don’t get me wrong – I think that Leinart is going to become a top-rate NFL quarterback, but for right now he deserves the lambasting he’s receiving for his comments - which sound exactly like a guy who has never had to face adversity in his life, on or off the football field. Get used to it, dude. This isn’t USC, where a “me first” attitude can work because the Trojans are just so much better than most of the competition. This is the NFL, where they eat quarterbacks like Matt Leinart for breakfast.

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