I get so sick of when I hear people drop the line, “Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, but Trent Dilfer did!” Ummmm, you are selling Trent Dilfer a little short, in my opinion. In this year’s draft people are calling Matt Ryan possibly the No. 1 overall pick, but I don’t think he deserves that high a pick. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t go #1 overall because that would be too much pressure for him to live up to, when I KNOW he wouldn’t. He just isn’t a franchise QB, he is more of a Trent Dilfer-like QB. And that ISN’T meant as an insult. Let’s take a look back at Dilfer’s career…..
After rocking out at Fresno State, the Washington Redskins were looking at taking a QB at the #3 overall spot in the 1994 draft, and it came down to either Heath Shuler or Dilfer. Ultimately the team went with Shuler and Tampa Bay scooped up TD with the #6 pick. After going to the playoffs several times with the Bucs, they cut him and he only went to Baltimore and WON A FREAKING SUPER BOWL with the team. Next he went over to the Seattle Seahawks for several years, in the process winning 15 straight starts. After going to Cleveland for a season, he was traded to San Francisco to mentor #1 overall pick Alex Smith. All he did was take his job and lead the team to several wins down the stretch this year. So now, after a Super Bowl win, the guy is just a game manager that doesn’t make mistakes (in college he once went 271 straight passes with no INTs). Now 14 years after being drafted, he is STILL starting and winning games. He went to a great team like Baltimore and simply DIDN’T mess up the team, something that Elvis Grbac did one year later.
And Dilfer is still winning games, shoot, still playing games, unlike Ryan Leaf (a #2 overall) Akili Smith (a #3 overall) Tim Couch (a #1 overall), David Greene (winningest QB in NCAA history), even Heath Shuler (the guy taken instead of him by the Skins, now in Congress). Those guys were all taken SINCE him, and are all gone. He’s still here.
If I was a college QB, getting ready for the draft and someone told me, “your career will mirror that of Dilfer’s,” I would be celebrating. Give me that #6 overall money, that start on a Super Bowl Championship team, my Super Bowl winning Disney Commercial, and the fact that I would STILL be starting 14 years after I was drafted, not to mention the career as a broadcaster after my career is over! I get a ring, all that money, AND a TV gig when I am finished playing? Bring it on.
More people should aspire to be Trent Dilfer. Will you spend your entire career with one team? No, but you get to be a legend in Baltimore, where some folks are saying, “I wish he still had Trent Dilfer instead of Kyle Boller!” Matt Ryan, just know you will probably have to sit a year or two on the bench learning before you will have success, and really you SHOULD sit. Carson Palmer did it for a year. Brad Johnson (another Super Bowl Winner) did it for 4 years. Daunte Culpepper did it for 2 years. Be patient. You might even have to switch teams, but you will have success. You seem to have moxie, much like Trent Dilfer did coming out of Fresno State. Matt Ryan, I wish you Trent Dilfer’s success!
No comments:
Post a Comment