A uniquely an American Game

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The NFL Quarterback

The successful NFL QB's I have been around were among the 3 or 4 smartest players on the roster - the mind of the successful QB moves at a rapid pace, he gives the coverage a presnap read that has about 2.7 seconds to make a throwing decision before the rush starts to try and put him on injured reserved. All have very good arms, but you can be a great QB without having a great arm. Joe Montana was probably the most effective QB I coached against, he did not wow you with his arm strength, but he had incredible ability to get the ball to the guy who you couldn't cover. Joe also had the leagues’ best QB coach in Bill Walsh (Bill and I both coached at Washington High School in Fremont, California). QBs are all good athletes and yet in most cases they don’t have the agility and speed of a corner, wide receiver or running back. They need agility and balance in a small area so they can slide away from the rush and buy time. It helps if they can run well enough that when forced to run, they can be a threat. If they have great running skills, they force the defense to play almost exclusively zone, so underneath coverage can keep their eye on the QB.

Smart, athletic, very good throwing skills, mentally tough and great leadership skills – only 32 start in the league and only 12 take their team to the play off each years – there are only about a dozen back ups good enough to replace the starter without significantly hurting a team effectiveness. Every team carries a 3rd QBs and most have a 4th on the practice squad – that’s only 128 guys getting a game check each Monday for being an NFL QB – a unique group of people and the ones I knew were good guys.

A few thoughts from the Coach

Our President was 100% right in firing McCrystal - The President leans way to far left for me, but he's our President and he received 53% of the popular votes. I think it's critical for the Republicans take back congress in November so we can put the brakes on the President, modify or repeal health care - we are a moderately right leaning electorate (where I live I would remove the word moderately) - we need to force the President to work with a congress much like Clinton was forced to do from 1994 on.

Our labor unions now represent a small % of today's work force, but they destroyed (with the help of management) the industrial Midwest.

The teacher's unions are now protecting incompetent teachers at the detriment of our kids. My kid’s all got excellent education, but fortunately they didn’t have to go to school in an inner city schools. How can we continue you to be a strong country where many kids at no fault of their own are getting such substandard teaching?

Where I live we have to great school systems and we are fortunate to have excellent teachers, but I have been in inter city schools where they are warehousing children, largely because the union control over the systems and parents and the public can’t seem to do anything about it.

The President claims he knows the condition of our schools and promises he is going to do something about it. Mr President please fight the teacher’s union which help get you elected if you do and are effective you will leave a lasting legacy in the lives of the kids. This something I would hope the republicans in congress would jump aboard on.