Is the pressure too much?
Sam Calvert The average age of an NFL starting quarterback is 28. Nine starting quarterbacks out of the 32 teams in the NFL are 25 years old or less. At the same time, nine are 30 years old or more. Of the nine that are 25 or less, two are only 21 years of age (Matthew Stafford of the Detriot Lions and Josh Freeman of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and one is 22 years of age (Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets.) There are only six wins among these three quarterbacks, and four of them go to the eldest, Sanchez. With these facts presented, let me just pose a question: Would you entrust the title of CEO of a Fortune 500 company to a 21 year old, or even a 28 year old? According to Forbes, the average age of a CEO in 2001 was 48.8 years, with the average of 45.2 years old in the field information technology being one of the younger averages. If we accept these figures to be true, then the answer to my question is no. And yet we put these quarterbacks in a leadership position very similar to that of a CEO, but with one minor caveat-- millions of people are watching these men do their jobs each and every Sunday. The pressure is enormous, and yet these are men who are barely out of college. Even the starters who we consider veterans, who have been around for a while, are not that old. Take Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers, for example. He is only 27 years old, and yet he has been playing in the NFL for six years. Since he was 21! And the "old players," conversely, are not very old. Often I hear people talk about Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles and Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks, using phrases such as "He's getting too old" and "He's seen better days." These two men are 32 and 34 respectively. By Forbes' standards, these men are not even old enough to be expected to be the CEO of a company, and yet they are already "too old" to lead their team. It is also no coincidence that some of the best teams in the league are led by older quarterbacks. The only two teams left undefeated at this point in the season are the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Peyton Manning of the Colts and Drew Brees of the Saints are 33 and 30 years of age, respectively. Tom Brady is considered by some to be the greatest quarterback in the league right now, and he's 32 years old. The Minnesota Vikings only have one loss, and their quarterback, Brett Favre, is 40 years old. While much of this has to do with athletic ability and its direct association with age, we still need to remember that these quarterbacks are just kids in most respects. When Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears had his debacle with the Denver Broncos and their head coach, Josh McDaniels, Cutler was made out to be a "cry baby" and "selfish." While these things may have been true, we must remember that he is only 26 years old! By society's standards, he still has a lot of growing up to do, and his behavior might have been dismissed as a guy in his mid-twenties, not quite mature and wise enough to handle himself in that situation. But since he is the starting quarterback of a team that millions of people watch on a week-to-week basis, he is held in a different light and expected to behave perfectly every time. I do not foresee the average age of the starting quarterback getting any younger in the coming years, but I do think that we should keep in mind that these players are really only 10 years into adulthood. It's a reality check-- one that is much needed in this age of pressure on sports franchises to compete at the highest level possible.
