Death of the Game Manager

The term ‘game manager’ has been thrown around for years as the NFL’s most backhanded compliment. It’s a term used to describe quarterbacks who win games without putting up gaudy stats, who avoid turnovers and other negative plays to let their team win on the strength of its defense and running game. The hallmarks of a good game manager are a low sack rate, few interceptions, and usually a low yards per attempt. They specialize in screen plays and checkdowns, throwaways and crossing routes. They live by the old adage that any drive that ends with a kick is a successful drive, even if that kick is a punt.

The term took new life around the beginning of the new millennium. In a three year span the Super Bowl was won by the Ravens, Patriots, and Buccaneers—teams quarterbacked by Trent Dilfer, the first year of Tom Brady as a starter, and Brad Johnson. They all featured top ten defenses and middle of the pack offenses. And yet at the end of the year they were crowned champions despite the mediocrity at the quarterback position.

Since then, the following quarterbacks have won Super Bowls: Tom Brady (2), Ben Roethlisberger (2), Peyton Manning, Eli Manning (2), Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Joe Flacco. We can debate the relative merits of all the quarterbacks in this group, but one thing is perfectly clear: not one of them is a game manager. Every single one of them can make plays with his arm, and every one of them did so on the path to the Super Bowl.

This has led to the claim that only teams with elite quarterbacks can win the Super Bowl. A few years ago that appeared true, but since then we have seen that this is not the case. Joe Flacco is far from elite, and after this season you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to put Eli Manning into that category. Even Roethlisberger has had enough ups and downs that it is hard to put him on the same level as the other four. Half of the Super Bowls over the past ten years have been won by one of these three quarterbacks.

These three are part of a new breed of quarterbacks who have taken over the league and effectively replaced the game manager. I will call them ‘erratic quarterbacks.’ Unlike those on the elite level, erratic quarterbacks regularly play terrible games, games where they perform so poorly they cost their team any chance of winning. But unlike game managers, they are also capable of putting together sensational passing performances and carrying their team to victory.

It is because of the structure of the NFL playoffs that an erratic quarterback can lead a team to a championship. To win the Super Bowl a team needs only to win three or four consecutive games. An erratic quarterback needs only to put together three or four good performances. We saw the best example last year with Joe Flacco, an up and down quarterback who rolled through four playoff games throwing eleven touchdowns against zero interceptions. We’ve seen it twice now with Eli Manning, who just finished his third season leading the league in interceptions. The NFL playoffs constitute a ridiculously small sample size, and with players of high variance like the erratic quarterbacks I’ve listed, it is not improbable to get such stunning results.

The truth is, you don’t need an elite quarterback to win a Super Bowl. But you cannot win with a game manager. The changes in passing rules have made the quarterback position much more valuable than it has ever been in the past, increasing the cost of carrying a mediocre quarterback. In addition to this, offenses are now built to service the passing game. Lineman are drafted for their pass blocking skills, and there are any number of offensive lines in the league with major deficiencies in the running game. Offenses can no longer survive with a run first system. The rushing game has to be an alternative, a change of pace to the passing game that is the primary motor of the offense.

This is why game managers are on the way out, and this is why erratic quarterbacks are taking over. In many cases a game is decided based on which team’s quarterback plays at a higher level. Over the course of the season it is not unreasonable to expect a game manager to outplay an erratic quarterback on an average level, but in a one game sample size an erratic quarterback has the ability to overwhelm a more consistent game manager. A team with a game manager has to hope it faces four straight opponents with an erratic quarterback playing poorly, has to hope it doesn’t go head to head with an elite quarterback. Because an erratic quarterback is capable of playing at an elite level, they can match the consistently great performance of an elite quarterback. This is how Flacco’s Ravens knocked off Manning’s Broncos and Brady’s Patriots last season. This is how Eli Manning’s Giants have defeated Brady twice in the Super Bowl.

This past weekend we witnessed two events that signaled the end of the game manager. The first was the collapse of Andy Dalton. In past years, Dalton would have fit into the Bengals as the perfect game manager. Behind a dominant offensive line with an impressive cast of skill position players and one of the best defenses in the NFL, he would have happily remained the same safe, conservative player he was his first two years in the league. But each of those years the Bengals made the playoffs only to lose in the first round. Each of those years, Dalton came up short.

So this year, the Bengals tried to turn Dalton from a game manager into an erratic quarterback. And it actually worked. In a four game stretch to begin October Dalton was incredible, throwing for 1246 yards, 11 touchdowns, and only 3 interceptions. He was named AFC Offensive Player of the Month as he led his team to four straight wins. The rest of the season he was less spectacular, accumulating a total of 33 touchdowns to 20 interceptions through all sixteen games. On five separate occasions he threw multiple interceptions. He was inconsistent, but he was no longer incapable of elite play.

Dalton failed again this weekend, but don’t take his dismal performance to be a failure of the project. Those sort of games are inevitable from an erratic quarterback. It remains to be seen whether Dalton can be a long term solution in Cincinnati, but he showed enough this season that they cannot justify moving on from him. They need another season to see if he can replicate his October peak, and if he can then he is absolutely a quarterback capable of winning a Super Bowl down the road.

Contrast this with Sam Bradford, who has been solid but unspectacular since being taken by the Rams first overall. In past eras such a player would have likely carved a long career in the league as a game manager, perhaps even winning a Super Bowl if he was put in the right situation. But this is a different league now, and Bradford has shown no ability during his career to play at an elite level for any stretch of games. Because of this (and his outrageous $17 million cap hit next season) it is possible that the Rams could move on from Bradford during this offseason.

 

The other case from this past weekend I want to discuss is Alex Smith. Over the past three years Smith has been the most obvious example of a game manager starting in the modern league. Over his last year and a half in San Francisco he went 19-5-1 as a starter thanks to a dominant defense and a good running game. In those 25 games he threw only ten interceptions. When the 49ers decided to move on from him to Colin Kaepernick, he was given the starting job in Kansas City. There he turned in a similar performance, leading them this season to a record of 11-5 (11-4 during games he started) thanks to Jamaal Charles and a talented young defense. He threw only seven interceptions in his 15 games.

There is no denying that Smith was a game manager this season, and there is no denying that he had success. But take a look at the quarterbacks of the teams he defeated: Blaine Gabbert, Tony Romo, Michael Vick, Eli Manning, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Terrelle Pryor, Case Keenum, Jason Campbell, Jeff Tuel, Robert Griffin III, and Matt McGloin. This is a solid mix of erratic quarterbacks who were down most of the season and quarterbacks who are just plain terrible. Compare that to the quarterbacks who defeated the Chiefs this season: Peyton Manning (2), Philip Rivers (2), and Andrew Luck. Manning is definitely elite, Luck deserves to be in the discussion, and Rivers is an erratic quarterback who was playing at an elite level the entire season.

The Chiefs and Smith are a clear example of what I said before: more often than not, the team with the best quarterback will win. Over the course of a sixteen game regular season, a game manager will face enough quarterbacks playing at a poor level that his team can win enough games to make the playoffs. But one he makes the postseason, he will be forced to face quarterbacks who are capable of playing at a significantly higher level than him. With the season on the line, it only takes one elite performance from an erratic quarterback to knock a game manager out of the playoffs.

This is where Smith is an interesting case. Because this past Saturday against the Colts, he did not play like a game manager. He was a completely different quarterback from the regular season, finishing the day with 378 yards and 4 touchdowns on 46 pass attempts. During the regular season he completed only a single pass greater than 60 yards in length. During this game he completed two such passes. The Chiefs had to open it up more than normal due to the loss of Jamaal Charles to a concussion during their first series, but it was clear from the start that they came in with an offensive strategy of attack.

This wasn’t a first time occurrence. Smith put together a similarly spectacular performance in the 49ers’ playoff victory over the Saints two seasons ago. It is as if he and his coaches have realized what I have said above, that a game manager can take a team to the playoffs but will not be able to lead a team to a Super Bowl victory. And so when the postseason arrives, they completely change the way Smith plays the game. They go for a higher variance strategy, knowing it might backfire but also understanding it is the only way for them to have success.

There is precedent for a team winning the Super Bowl this way. In 2005 Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a championship in his second season. Many remember him as a game manager whose team won despite a miserable performance from him during the Super Bowl, and that is not entirely off base. During the regular season he was absolutely a game manager, and their defense was the reason they beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. But people forget about the three game playoff run before that, when the Steelers’ coaches asked Roethlisberger to open the game up and beat the opposition through the air. With him managing the game they had lost in the AFC Championship the season before, and so when it came time for this playoff run they knew they needed him to open things up. The Steelers won the Super Bowl based on Roethlisberger’s ability to fundamentally change who he was as a quarterback when the postseason came around.

It will be interesting going forward to see if Smith can have success and whether other players will attempt to duplicate this strategy. It didn’t work out for Smith this weekend because of the brilliant performance by his opponent Luck (plus several devastating injuries to Chiefs’ players) but against any other team this weekend it likely would have been enough to advance to the next round. He will have another chance next year, and we should all be watching with interest as this experiment continues.

It is easy to say that teams need to find an elite quarterback, but it is much more difficult to actually pull this off. The past twenty drafts have produced fewer than ten such players. More likely than not, the best a team can hope to do is to get an erratic quarterback they can build a solid team around. As useful as an erratic quarterback is during the small sample size of the playoffs, they can be a problem during a long regular season. To be successful an erratic quarterback needs a team around him that can win over bad teams even when he plays poorly. This is why the Ravens and Bengals have been able to make the playoffs while teams like the Cowboys, Lions, and Bears have fallen consistently short. Romo, Stafford, and Cutler are among the best erratic quarterbacks in the league, but they lack the supporting casts of Flacco and Dalton. It is an oversimplification to say that teams make the playoffs while quarterbacks win championships, but it is not as absurd as you would think.