Commentary: Forget the Veteran Quarterback Option

Andy Dalton doesn’t give us the best chance at winning now. I’m not one that thinks you have to spend years upon years like Cleveland trying to put together a playoff team. Let him develop under a veteran for one year. You don’t throw a shortened off season, a brand new playbook, and a team learning a new system at a rookie QB that no one said was pro ready to begin with.

I’m glad you mentioned Volek, a name that isn’t being tossed around much. Without bothering to look at any of his numbers, I’m going to say I like the guy, and that’s largely just because he was such a hot commodity about 6 years ago when teams were clamoring to get him as their starter. He’s that Steve Beuerlein mirage I’d definitely go after if I were GM. I still think Dalton needs someone to lean on, and as much as I wanna believe JPalm can do that, I simply can’t see it.

I like McNabb for a year. He’s a solid vet who is familiar with the WCO & is also familiar with Urban. I think he would be a good mentor for Dalton as well. Like him or not…he’s won a lot of games in the league, is a class guy, and has played in plenty of big games. He would be my guy for 2011.

The rumor from negotiations today is that they’ll go back to players being unrestricted FAs after FOUR years… Doesn’t this mean JJoe AND Leon will be free agents when the lockout is over?! I hope to god there’s some angle I’m not thinking of and this isn’t true…

The only thing I’m 100% sure of is that Jordan Palmer IS NOT the answer. On one hand I want to see what Dalton is made of and how he fares against NFL competition so he knows where he needs to grow and improve to become a successful starting Quarterback for the future. But on the other hand I don’t want him to get thrown in the jungle without a clue of knowing what to do and ultimately hurting him physically or mentally from growing into a productive Cincinnati franchise QB. I may be over-reacting a little bit but I’m sure it would be tough for him and the fans to believe in him if he went out starting as a rookie and went 4-12 with twice as many picks as TD’s. In a perfect world, I would like to see them bring in a vet, have him start the first couple games for them until the WHOLE organization and team is comfortable with starting Dalton for the remainder of the year. We gotta keep in mind that this whole lockout thing is doing nothing but making the learning curve for any rookie 100x harder. Starting Dalton game 1 might be a mistake that could hurt Cincinnati in the long term.

Dude seems to win (especially against the Bengals), especially with subpar offensive talent. The Bengals would give him a lot of weapons that he hasn’t had before. I still would prefer McNabb or Hasselbeck though.

since the 90s is when the bengals started a rookie qb and let him get sacked savagely to the point any chance of a NFL career ended before his third season started. being sacked 58 times for the 1st 2 years of a nfl career tends to make any young qb hear footsteps.

meet the 90s. meet david klingler.

http://bengalsworld.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14168 it’s, basically, the same poll with different sides to the argument.

They tried this in the Nineties with a string of retread/vet/who? QBs (Paul Justin, anyone? Gus Frerotte? Neil freakin’ O’Donnell?) and it didn’t work.

Bringing in mediocre vet QB’s in the 1990’s didn’t work not because of the QB’s, but because the team in general was just awful. Gus Frerotte & Neil O’Donnell were a lot better than Akili Smith and David Klinger.

or the worst season of payton mannings career? his rookie season when he started.