By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
There's a lot of excitement in Denver and in the Carolinas because of their young quarterbacks, Tim Tebow and Cam Newton. They are phenoms, Tebow compiling a 6-1 record and dragging the Broncos back in the playoff race, and Newton rushing for more touchdowns than any quarterback in the history of the game in one season (13). ¶ Both are trying to make it in a league that does not easily put up with the kind of unorthodox play each has shown so far. If anyone should know, it is Kordell Stewart. He was a much better version of Tebow. Newton is more accomplished as a passer than Stewart and is big enough to take a pounding by running. But this is a league that does not know how to deal with a quarterback who runs.
Kevin Gilbride, the Steelers' offensive coordinator at the time, once took Stewart to task along the sideline after he ran off the field following an exciting touchdown run. Gilbride told him he should have thrown it instead. Think any coach went to Newton on any of his 13 touchdown runs and scolded him for not passing?
Stewart, by the way, may have been a better runner than Newton. He rushed for 11 touchdowns in 1997, when his longest run was 74 yards. He ran for an 80-yard touchdown in 1996.
For Tebow's sake, John Fox had better have a lot more patience with him and use him to his best abilities. Bill Cowher and his offensive coordinators lost their patience with Stewart.
"He was passing, running. I think he had more than two completions," Hines Ward said the other day when asked to compare Tebow to Stewart. Ward believes Stewart was a much better quarterback.
Ward said there is one thing above all else when judging a quarterback, one stat that is not counted in the complicated formula that makes up the passer rating: Wins and losses, and for that reason he's a Tebow fan.
"Tebow reminds me of no one. He's just Tebow," Ward said. "Regardless of the critics, the haters, all the guy has done is won. He may do it in an unorthodox way, but in this business at the quarterback position, that's how you measure it, on wins and losses. He may not put up the numbers as other guys, but he's winning games.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11345/1195877-66-0.stm?cmpid=steelers.xml#ixzz1gCbTfYoH
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Speaking of Tebow, I heard an NFL "expert" on ESPN radio the other day compare him to Big Ben. He talked about how Ben threw only about 15 passes during his first season, but he managed the games and won. I neither like nor dislike Tebow. I couldn't care less. But I find it funny that just a few weeks ago he was considered the worst starting QB in NFL history. And now he's being compared to Ben. Pffffffft. This is the same kind of "expert analysis" we heard from Deion Sanders the other day when he said we'd be OK without Ben because we've got Leftwich.
