Ten Foot Mailbag: All-Time Ginger Quarterback Power Rankings
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) So… that Bears/Packers game, huh? Yeah…
Looking at the schedule before the season began, most rational fans had to have had this one chalked up as a loss, so while the 24-hour panic cycle in the aftermath of that embarrassment is sort of expected after any Bears loss, it isn't completely warranted. The Packers are better than the San Francisco game showed, and the Bears can't do every game what was done to the Colts. Somewhere between lies a happier medium, and I still think the Bears are a playoff team.
That being said, let us never speak of last night again.
On to your questions. All emails and tweets are unedited. Just two this week because the latter requires so much in-depth exploration (no offense, to the former).
how would you feel if the bears or cubs left in the same way that the browns left. Ill hang up and listen for my answer—@ericcollins1981
I'd be crestfallen, devastated. Had. Took. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok.
But as a I sense that you're referring to what I told Cleveland fans to do last week, if a team I rooted for moved but a new franchise was later granted to Chicago, I'm fairly certain I'd cozy up to the new team just fine, understanding that sports are ultimately a business. I'm silly that way.
What I wouldn't do is harbor morbid feelings about a guy for 17 years (maybe two or three) even after a new team had been playing in my town during that time. It'd be like being married during that time and still wishing a shark attack on an ex who left you for someone else in 1995. At some point you'd have to move on and accept that maybe it was partly your fault, too, just as it was partly the city's fault the Browns skedaddled. And Cleveland even got its franchise back and got to keep the name and the records and stuff!
The next #TFMB needs a ginger QB power rankings.—@ryanivey5
You're damn right it does. The list of all the Ginger QBs in NFL history of any note is a long one—eleven, by my count. Four are currently aflame in the league. Football has not been kind to us Gingers, particularly at signal-caller. It's as if the league is, dare I say, racist toward us? Or it could be that due to our aversion to natural light we just don't partake in outdoor sports very often. That or our lower pain tolerance.
But a few mutants have somehow defied the odds and the melanoma to make it to the NFL. I am pleased to present to you now the All-Time Ginger Quarterback Power Rankings.
1. Sammy Baugh One of two Hall of Famers on the list, Baugh is often credited with spearheading the use of the forward pass as more than a gimmick in the league. At one time he held 13 different records at three different positions. He also ironically played for the Redskins. So when you see the various aerial assaults around the league this season, please think of a Ginger.
2. Jeff Garcia a four-time Pro Bowler, 161 career TD passes, an 87.5 passer rating (15th best ever), very mobile, and, most importantly, having hands down one of the hottest wives in athlete history. Look at him in that pic. He's saying, "Yeah, a Ginger got this." That gets a guy such a position on the list just on its own.
3. Sonny Jurgensen Another Red(head)skin and Hall of Famer, Jurgensen is arguably one of the top pure passers in pro football history. Kind of tough to throw for over 32,000 career yards otherwise, though. The man led the league in passing at age 40! And he hates these damn kids these days and their damn hippity hop!
4. Brad Johnson "Brad Johnson, Super Bowl-winning quarterback." Say that a few times to yourself. Kind of tastes like a whole mouthful of cherry Nerds, eh? Or milk. Johnson played 15 years in the NFL, if you can believe that, and has a better career passer rating than Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Warren Moon. Also, he along with Garcia are the only Gingers to win the prestigious NFL Quarterback Challenge, the klunky skills competition that slightly more people used to watch on Pro Bowl weekend than the actual Pro Bowl.
5. Carson and Jordan Palmer He probably won't make any other "Top" lists years from now, but Carson Palmer has always been a solid QB—when healthy. He helped make the Bengals relevant last decade after they were long a laughing stock of the league. Lucky for him his freakish Ginger owner helps deflect the screams of young children away from Palmer. His little brother, Jordan, is the Little Pete to Carson's Big Pete and has never done anything of significance in the league other than get cut a lot, but a Ginger brother NFL duo (which counts as one Ginger, unless you want this list longer, which you don't) definitely pushes them up the list.
6. Billy Joe Tolliver Fitting that Tolliver should lead off the proverbial Back 9 of this list since he's much better at golf than he ever was a football player. To be honest, I'm just happy as hell I got to make a Billy Joe Tolliver reference.
7. Andy Dalton The Ginger Ninja could end up having a really solid career or better when all is said and done. His rookie campaign, even though overshadowed by Cam Newton's historic year, was actually kinda pretty good. I mean, how many guys can say they started all 16 games their first season, threw for more than 3,000 yards and 20 TDs, and led their team to the playoffs? Without looking all that up, I'll say zero. Actually, screw Billy Joe Tolliver—put Dalton ahead of him.
8. Greg McElroy He's the current Jets QB that no invertebrate loves or cares about, but he hasn't screwed up yet, so that's worth something. Also, he was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist but not winner. He's like the Tim Baffoe of the NFL, really.
9. Brandon Weeden What. The. Hell. Was. That. Weeden? He was so bad at professional baseball that I guess he figures he needs to give Ginger cancer to pro football too, I guess. That explains why the hell he's a 28-about-to-be-29-year-old rookie. We all need to give the city of Cleveland a hug and let it have itself a good cry.
10. Todd Marinovich Any list o' Gingers needs its Danny Bonaduce. I would hang a picture of Marinovich in my classroom as a warning to those students of mine who overdo it, who have been harshly programmed by awful parents to believe that anything less than absolute perfection is failure. And it may shock you to believe it, what with the stereotype this generation of kids falls under of cluelessness and laziness, but the polar opposite of that exists in spades. Thing is, I bet not one of my students knows who Marinovich is.
11. Cade McNown All I will say about Cade McNown that the link doesn't is that I hope that at least once a day he falls down a flight of stairs. And that there is someone around to point and laugh.
Thanks for emailing, tweeting, and reading. If your question did not get answered this time, that does not necessarily mean I am ignoring it. It may be saved for the next mailbag. Hopefully you're a slightly better person now than you were ten minutes ago. If not, your loss.
Want your questions answered in a future Mailbag? Email them to tenfootmailbag@gmail.com or tweet them with the hashtag #TFMB. No question, sports or otherwise, is off limits (with certain logistical exceptions, e.g. lots of naughty words or you type in Portuguese or you solicit my death). If you email, please include a signature.
Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.
