In the Year of The Backup Quarterback, the Bears should start Steve Stenstrom Sunday out of curiosity.
Backup quarterbacks are like Christmas presents. Wrapped, they mask the possibility of disappointment. But this year they have played better than starters.
Quarterbacks who opened the season on the bench have a combined 34-27 record, compared with the 86-93 record of the quarterbacks who opened the season as starters.
The New York Jets’ Vinny Testaverde is 5-0, more perfect than Buffalo’s Doug Flutie (3-0) or Oakland’s Donald Hollas (3-0).
Minnesota’s Randall Cunningham was flawless until last week. He is 5-1, but the Vikings’ first loss was hardly his fault. He was 21 of 25 with two touchdown passes against Tampa Bay.
Kansas City’s Rich Gannon is 3-1 and Denver’s Bubby Brister is 2-0.
The winning may be a product of team play, but the backups have been individually spectacular.
Cunningham leads the league in passer rating. Flutie is second. Testaverde is third. Cincinnati’s Neil O’Donnell, who arrived in the preseason as a backup, is fourth. Carolina’s Steve Beuerlein is eighth. Dallas’ Jason Garrett is 10th.
All of them rank higher than Dan Marino, just to drop a name.
There are other common denominators. All the aforementioned backups are in their 30s. All are with their second or third team at least. All have more experience than Steve Stenstrom.
Of all the backups in the league at the beginning of the season, Stenstrom had the least experience. The Miami Dolphins lost Craig Erickson to injury and have a second-year free agent, Damon Huard, backing up Marino.
The Philadelphia Eagles lost Rodney Peete and have Koy Detmer and Chuck Clements backing up Bobby Hoying. Everybody else has been around longer or played more games than Stenstrom.
The Bears didn’t intend for this to happen. They believed Rick Mirer could be a capable backup for Erik Kramer. When Mirer forced the Bears to release him because he refused to take a salary cut, the Bears still believed Stenstrom would be adequate in an emergency.
They had brought in Ty Detmer, three years younger than Kramer, who turns 34 Friday. Detmer knows the system as well as offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh and could have succeeded and maybe supplanted Kramer. He chose to back up Steve Young in San Francisco instead.
The Bears also considered Erickson, Testaverde, O’Donnell and Dave Brown during the off-season, although none of them visited.
The Bears were among 25 teams who changed their quarterback roster this year. In the scramble, they left themselves with the most inexperienced backup situation in the NFL in Stenstrom and rookie Moses Moreno.
There are eight ex-Bears quarterbacks on other NFL rosters at the moment. Can you find them? Baltimore’s Jim Harbaugh has been both starter and backup this year. All the others are or were backups: Flutie; Green Bay’s Mirer; Cincinnati’s Paul Justin; Tampa Bay’s Steve Walsh; Carolina’s Shane Matthews; Tennessee’s Dave Krieg; and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomczak.
The Bears are a veritable cradle of quarterbacks. If Stenstrom starts his first game Sunday, they will be robbing their cradle. But they must find out what they have.
If they draft a rookie quarterback next year as expected, they still want Kramer to start. Taking a cue from Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, they would rather not throw a new quarterback into the fire.
Eventually they will need a competent, proven backup for the new guy. Kramer isn’t old enough and might not be willing to accept that role in Chicago, not when he looks around and sees 35- and 36-year-olds Cunningham, Testaverde and Flutie tearing up the league.
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Testaverde, dumped by Baltimore last June, and Flutie square off Sunday in a battle of ex-Heisman Trophy winners seeking redemption.
“When you’re in your 30s, you have an opportunity to look around the league and see what teams have the ability to win and what teams don’t,” Testaverde said.
“As we’ve gotten older, guys like Randall and myself and Doug have gravitated toward teams we feel have an opportunity to win.”
Tomczak, last of the 1985 Bears, has been so impressive as a backup with the Steelers you can’t help wonder whether he has a future as a starter somewhere. After all, he’s only 36.
The 14-year veteran had not thrown a pass this season until he entered Sunday’s game against Tennessee with 10:17 left. The Steelers trailed 41-15 after Kordell Stewart’s third interception of the second half was returned for a touchdown.
Tomczak completed 15 of 17 passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns, and threw two two-point conversion completions. His only incompletions came on a spike to kill the clock and a dropped pass on the final play.
With an injury to Doug Pedersen in Green Bay, Mirer is operating as Brett Favre’s backup. Maybe Tomczak and Mirer will meet on Monday night.
“I like what Rick’s been doing (in practice), I really do,” Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren said. “At the same time, I hope I don’t have to use him.”
Who knows? This year he might turn out better than Favre.