By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
This is the Era of Optimum Conditions for NFL quarterbacks. If there was ever a time and place to be a QB, it's right here, right now. For one thing, the rules have never been more favorable to the passing game. For another, the receivers all wear gloves — tacky gloves. And if you happen to play for a dome team, well, who loves ya, baby?
In Robert Griffin III's NFL debut Sunday, the rookie quarterback transformed the Superdome's 13 acres into his personal playground as the Washington Redskins shocked the New Orleans Saints, 40-32.
It's hard to not find someone who has some advice for the new franchise QB in D.C.
As late-summer darkness blanketed Washington one night last month, the quarterback came to life. The familiar braids and right arm that hasn't unleashed a regular-season NFL pass towered 74 feet over Pennsylvania Avenue.
There's only so much a 22-year-old rookie quarterback can do. Let that be your mantra this season, Washington Redskins fans. It might help you get through, well, whatever it is you have to get through. Sixteen games can be a long time, even when you have the distraction of a Heisman Trophy-winning QB -- the most exciting edition to the franchise since Sonny Jurgensen (at least).
Welcome to April, where March Madness spills over into the NFL's own form of insanity: the walk-up to the college draft.
Picture Peyton Manning in a Washington Redskins uniform. Just entertain the possibility, even though there's no telling if it'll ever happen. Would he have to slip Terrence Austin a few bucks to gain proprietary rights to the number 18? So many thoughts rush through your head.
Quarterbacks watch so much game tape that it makes their eyeballs bleed. They're often the first players on the practice field, the last to leave. They're smart, for the most part, and they're leaders — let's not forget that. Leaders of large men in times of crisis.
Is anything in professional sports less appealing than exhibition football games? Too bad the lockout was settled so early. A better time would have been six days or so before the start of combat that counts.
In a ballroom at the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Va. Friday morning, Hall of Fame athletes like Washington Redskins legend Sonny Jurgensen and 10-time NBA champion Sam Jones were reduced to mere faces in a crowd. That's because Redskins legend Bobby Mitchell had assembled 45 Hall of Famers to participate in his 21st annual fundraiser, the Bobby Mitchell Autotrader.com Hall of Fame Golf Classic.
The Redskins rolled the dice again Thursday night in the first round of the NFL draft. The Washington Times' columnist Dan Daly runs down their greatest hits, misses and other notable first-rounders (*Hall of Famer):
Seventeen years. The Redskins have been searching for a quarterback to lead them out of the wilderness for that long. You'd think he was hiding in a mountain cave along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (where his agent had stashed him to drive up his price).
"He's got," Mr. Jurgensen said in his North Carolina drawl, "a great, great future."
"It's being in the right place at the right time. That's for everybody," Jurgensen said.
Will RG3 take his place next to Redskins' all-time greats? →
