The quarterbacks pass the ball
Sean Payton to the Broncos? Aaron Rodgers to the Jets? Jimmy Garoppolo to the Raiders?! Aaron Rodgers to the 49ers?! It is not yet the 2023 offseason, yet the rumors about what moves we might see in the coming months are swirling like dandelion seeds in a gust. At least one of these rumors has already become a reality.
Although it’s natural to look ahead and exciting to speculate about who might end up where in 2023, we still have one game left to play in the 2022 season — a sporting event you might have heard of called the Super Bowl, taking place in Glendale, Arizona. Depending on when this magazine arrives and when you open it, you’ll know the result already as you read this, or you’ll be using it to wipe the wing sauce off your fingers. The sport’s ultimate contest pits the Kansas City Chiefs, led by superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, against the team that has played the best of anyone this year, the Philadelphia Eagles. The matchup is intriguing for a lot of reasons. Andy Reid, Kansas City’s head coach, is facing off against the Eagles he coached for 14 seasons.
But most portentously, Super Bowl LVII features the youngest combined age of starting quarterbacks ever. In the 1984 season, when the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins met in Super Bowl XIX, Joe Montana and Dan Marino were a combined 51 years and 350 days old. The combined age of Mahomes and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts at kickoff this year is 51 years and 337 days. This is a statistic that reveals that we have finally arrived at the moment in football we’ve been anticipating for nearly a decade: a changing of the guard at quarterback, the most important position in all of American sports.
The sun now sets on an era in football distinguished by a level of brilliance at the quarterback position we have rarely seen in NFL history. From the intelligence of Peyton Manning to the precision of Drew Brees, from the grittiness of Ben Roethlisberger to the wizardry of Aaron Rodgers, we have been blessed to watch quarterbacks take the sport to new heights.
And on top of them all was Tom Brady, who announced his retirement on Feb. 1. Last year at this time, Brady announced his retirement, only to unretire for one more season 40 days later, costing him his marriage. Champions can’t help it. Last week, Brady declared that this time he is retiring “for good.” And now, at 45 years old, and after actually looking like it in his final game this past season, it is hard to imagine that Brady will come out of retirement a second time.
Brady’s accomplishments as a football player were Herculean. He finishes his career as the NFL’s all-time leader in touchdown passes and passing yards. He won five Super Bowl Most Valuable Player awards. How many players ever even get to play in five Super Bowls? Brady played in 10. His seven Super Bowl victories as a starting quarterback, more than any single NFL franchise, is likely insurmountable. Now, he is gone, joining Manning, Brees, Roethlisberger, and perhaps soon Rodgers on the proverbial and often literal golf course.
Accordingly, this season marked the first time in over two decades when neither Manning, Brees, Roethlisberger, Rodgers, or Brady was the quarterback of one of the final eight playoff teams. Instead, a new quarterback generation has at last dawned, led by Mahomes, who at 27 is the youngest quarterback to reach 10 postseason wins. Yet the baby-faced Mahomes is somehow the oldest of this new quarterback generation, which is heralded by Hurts (24), Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow (26), Buffalo’s Josh Allen (26), Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence (23), and LA Chargers’ Justin Herbert (24). Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett (24), who in his first season as a starter almost led the Steelers to what would have been an exceedingly surprising playoff appearance, led all rookie quarterbacks in QBR, or quarterback rating.
The next great may not even be obvious. Let’s not forget the San Francisco 49ers’ rookie Brock Purdy (23), who guided the Niners to six consecutive wins to close out the season, followed by two more victories in the playoffs, before injuring his ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow against the Eagles in the NFC championship game. What made Purdy’s storied run all the more shocking is that, unlike the other next-gen quarterback talents, Purdy was selected in the seventh and final round of the 2022 NFL draft. Those who are chosen last in the NFL draft each year are usually awarded the dubious distinction of being called “Mr. Irrelevant,” a moniker that Purdy quickly transformed into “Mr. Relevant” with his poised pocket presence, competent game management, and cool, unruffled ability to make the right play in crucial situations. The AFC championship game gave us a great battle between Mahomes and Burrow. Though it’s unfortunate that we were deprived of seeing a full contest between Hurts and Purdy, if San Francisco sticks with their rookie sensation instead of trying to trade for Rodgers, we may be seeing Hurts vs. Purdy in the playoffs for many more years to come.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and the author of Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Wonder and Religion in American Cinema and the novel A Single Life.