Dean Juipe:It’s nostalgia that’s behind NFL QB talk

Wednesday, Oct. 16, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

TIME PASSES and nostalgic tendencies interfere with basic thought processes. It gives the impression that any and everything from 30 years ago was better than it is today.

The relevancy: There was no Golden Age of NFL Quarterbacks two, three or four decades back. And the quarterbacks of today, despite a lament receiving widespread publicity of late, are just as good or better than the quarterbacks of any other era.

The prehistoric quarterbacks -- i.e., before they played with face masks -- were just as fallible as their contemporaries. Same for the guys who quarterbacked as the NFL rose to prominence in the 1960s.

The impression that the modern-day quarterback is suddenly inept is an inaccurate one, despite the mileage that premise is receiving in the media and on sports-radio talk shows.

The mid-'90s NFL quarterback may have had the rules altered for his protection, yet he's facing weekly barrages of complicated defensive looks and schemes. It is not as easy as it once was to see the field and recognize coverages.

For every quarterback who struggles on a given Sunday, another one prospers. Young and old quarterbacks alike are up and down, up and down, over the course of a season.

The point is, every quarterback struggles at times. They always have and always will. Time may dim the specific memories, but be assured Otto Graham struggled, Bobby Layne struggled, Y.A. Tittle struggled. They played when the NFL was conservative and the coaches weren't inclined to pass 40 times a game, let alone do anything risky, and they still had their lousy afternoons.

Jim Kelly, 36, an 11-year veteran who has taken the Buffalo Bills to four Super Bowls, is struggling right now.

He looked pathetic Sunday against Miami, getting sacked seven times, fumbling early, taking a costly, late-game penalty for intentional grounding, and throwing three interceptions in a 14-point loss. His totals for the year: 11 interceptions, two TDs.

He's a veteran and he's having a hard time, so why be so derisive toward every 25-year-old quarterback in the league who looks out of kilter as he tries to resurrect some bottom-rung team, as is the case with Trent Dilfer and the Tampa Bay Bucs?

In spite of what you may have read or heard, there are some good, young quarterbacks in the league. Agreed, not every high draft pick has worked out, yet some mid-level ones -- Brett Favre of Green Bay is the best example -- have surprised and established themselves.

The young quarterbacks aren't failing at any greater rate than young linemen, it's just that they're more visible and therefore more susceptible to unfair attack.

Those in the attack mode have lost sight of the past. They forget that the NFL of the 1960s was populated by a number of consistently mediocre quarterbacks who did little more than hand the ball off, play after play.

Today the NFL is pass happy, up-tempo and more demanding than ever.

It's foolish to buy into the blanket generalization that quarterbacking has slipped.