NFL QBs are losing their cool

By DANNY O'NEIL

last updated: September 04, 2008 03:28:06 AM

SEATTLE -- A trade accomplished something that injuries and 16 years worth of blitzing opponents never could: It knocked Brett Favre out of the Green Bay Packers' pocket.

The guy who spent a snowy evening last January threading passes through the Seattle Seahawks' defense and pelting teammates with snowballs was traded by Green Bay to the New York Jets for a conditional draft pick.

The Packers won 13 games last season, finished an overtime field goal away from making the Super Bowl, and yet Green Bay was so adamant about making a change at quarterback that the franchise didn't reinstate Favre as the starter after he changed his mind about retirement.

It's still kind of hard to believe, but the Packers would rather trust their season to Aaron Rodgers, the former Cal star who has never started a game in the NFL, rather than the guy with more touchdown passes than anyone else.

So the player who was hailed as America's quarterback just last season is gone from Green Bay.

He was the personification of the cowboy quarterback, someone who vouched for Wrangler jeans and had beard stubble thick enough to sand the corners off a block of wood. He was the alpha-male quarterback who hadn't missed a start in 16 years for the Packers, and now he's going to play for the second-most prominent team in town (never mind that neither the Jets nor the Giants play their home games in the city of New York.)

Favre might be the first player in American sports to move to the nation's biggest media market and somehow take a drop in national exposure, but he's hardly the only quarterback who has fallen out of the spotlight entering this season.

The 49ers will start J.T. O'Sullivan under center, not Alex Smith, the first quarterback chosen in the 2005 draft. Arizona will go with Kurt Warner over Matt Leinart, the second quarterback picked in 2006. Hey, it's the 10th anniversary of Warner's MVP award, right? What a way to celebrate.

Leinart was supposed to be one of the new-age glamour boys at the position. He was a Heisman Trophy winner at USC and a pool-party buddy of boy-band alum Nick Lachey.

The cool-guy quarterbacks seem to be an endangered species in the league. The past two Super Bowl winners are brothers who look like the kind of guys who tuck in their polo shirts while wearing shorts.

Talented? Absolutely.

Peyton and Eli Manning are capable and well-calibrated passers.

Cool? Not so much.

They filmed a commercial in which Eli is playing the video game "Dance, Dance Revolution," where the participants boogie on a plastic mat with different-colored dots. As far as Madison Avenue goes, it's not exactly Joe Namath in a fur coat.

Even Tom Brady, that supermodel-dating, actress-impregnating men's magazine cover boy, has an injured footsie this training camp, though he's insisting he'll be ready for the regular-season opener.

Thank goodness. Because there's a certain Q factor that has been missing among the league's QBs with Favre appearing out of place in the big city and the next generation of potential star quarterbacks waylaid.

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