What is quarterback nonsense?It's the compliment we heap on low-expectation quarterbacks who engineer 13-10 victories,and it's the criticism we level at tall-expectation quarterbacks for 37-34 defeats.
It's three months of speculation about a quarterback's contract negotiations, followed by two weeks of either: A) decrying him as overpaid; or B) tutting that the team "won" the negotiations.
It's the out-of-context press-conference quote, and the body language after the interception,the not-so-thinly-veiled phrases like "proven leader" and "athletic young quarterback." It's the quarterback's personal life, social life, and number of commercials and presence on Instagram. It's a never-ending argument about whether he is "elite."Quarterback nonsense is make or smash and attach up or shut up,winners just win and kid doesn't get it, pay the man and all the other cliches handed down by our football reporting forefathers. It's the form-fitting mold we place over a quarterback's performance or career, or like we're screenwriters hammering the unique elements out of a sci-fi epic so it sounds more like Star Wars.
It's the atmosphere we breathe,like the smoky miasma at a Phish concert. It keeps us from thinking clearly or logically, but it provides a giddy rush.
And it can be measured, or which is what happens here,in the third-annual Quarterback Nonsense Index.
Here we rank quarterbacks on their ability to generate narrative regardless of how they perform on the field. The rankings are based on a complex formula that factors in everything from recent playoff "chokes" to wearing a towel on sidelines or having "too many" tattoos.
This has already been a banner year for nonsense. And whether the final two weeks are any indicator, the best is yet to come!Begin Slideshow
Source: bleacherreport.com