Yeah, there’s definitely a big battle at center right now between Maurkice Pouncey and Justin Hartwig, but everybody is talking about a potential Byron Leftwich and Dennis Dixon battle at quarterback. Leftwich was thought by most to be the Steelers week one starter, but he didn’t impress Saturday against Detroit ( 6/10, 43 yards, 70.0 rating). Dixon, on the other hand, shined with both his arm ( 6/7, 128 yards, 158.3 rating) and his legs (6 carries, 31 yards).
To be honest, I’m not too interested in this controversy at this point for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is simply that we’ve only seen one preseason game. It’s an extremely small sample size (just four series for Letfwich) and it ispreseason football, not real, true NFL ball. Let’s put it this way: If Peyton Manning put up a 70.0 QB rating in his first preseason game while Curtis Painter tossed three touchdowns would there be a QB controversy in Indianapolis? Of course not. That’s an extreme example, but when you look through the lens of only one game, it is really easy for things to become distorted. No player should ever be evaluated after one game.
Dixon also had the benefit of playing with the second team offensive line which performed much better than the first team in Saturday’s game. Poor Leftwich barely had time to throw and didn’t have the support of any running game to speak of. Dixon was playing the bulk of his snaps with Isaac Redman, who averaged 4.0 yards/carry compared to Leftwich’s backfield mate Rashard Mendenhall who was held to two yards rushing on five carries. Ugh. Any quarterback would have struggled behind that offensive line.
The two quarterbacks play pretty opposite styles which is naturally going to cause people to stir up a debate between the two. Leftwich has a strong arm and lots of experience, but lacks athleticism big time. Dixon has all of the physical gifts, but struggles in the pocket and doesn’t have much experience. As Brian brought up to me, it is a classic conservative/aggressive argument. We all know what we are getting out of Leftwich at this point. He probably won’t lose the game for you, but he’ll make a few mistakes here and there. Dixon is much more of an unknown. He could be Kordell Stewart in 2001. Or he could be Kordell Stewart in 2002. Most running quarterbacks seem to fall into the boom/bust category. They will blow your mind with an amazing play and then turn around and make the worst decision you’ve ever seen. Nobody knows how good of a quarterback Dennis Dixon is right now.
As I’ve been preaching for a while, I’d like to see both get substantial playing time come the regular season — regardless of preseason play. Mike Tomlin has the luxury to roll with the hot hand for four weeks. He also has the luxury of being able to sub quarterbacks in and out during the same game without shattering any egos. It doesn’t matter who plays how many snaps at quarterback, the Steelers just need to get through the first four games .500 or better and Ben Roethlisberger will be back.
So while it is easy to get caught up in a quarterback controversy…and thank God we haven’t had a real one in a long while… I don’t think it serves much purpose. It’s doubtful either guy will be terrible enough during the next three preseason games to say that he shouldn’t get any snaps come week one. Both should get their chance to perform during the regular season and only after that would talking a lot about any controversy be worthwhile. Most importantly, this will all be moot once Roethlisberger returns. After the season is over I just don’t think the choice of who got under center for the first snap of 2010 will be all that important.
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