Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are great quarterbacks, but they are technicians, modern managers who execute a coach’s game plan with cool efficiency. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that they are probably the rather colorless wave of the future. All but gone are the days of the gunslinger—the dramatic hero who in the persons of Layne, Unitas, Namath, Tarkenton, Staubach, Stabler, Bradshaw and Elway once governed the gridiron, and turned the NFL into the most popular sport in America.
Anyone interested in seeing what may well be the last of that line should look to Green Bay, where 38 year-old Brett Favre is playing quarterback with a spirit and verve that has nearly been cooled out of the position. On Monday, a couple of hours after he had completed a 78-yard touchdown pass, Favre dropped back on the first play of overtime and completed an 82-yard TD. Over the years we’ve seen Favre play spectacularly and blunder less frequently but just as spectacularly, but this year, in what is almost certainly his last time, (or second-to-last time, or third-to-last) he is playing as brilliantly and dramatically as ever. He may not be the only NFL quarterback worth paying the price of admission to see, but he’s the only one worth staying up past bedtime to see what he’s going to do with the ball.
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If there's an heir apparent to Favre in the league, it's gotta be Tony Romo. Not to say Romo's anywhere near Favre status yet, but the signs are good that he's the next exciting, reckless NFL gunslinger. Manning and Brady have played this year like corporate CEOs coldly trying to steer their ships to profitability. Romo's out there having fun. He shrugged off five picks against Buffalo to lead a win, and then when a reporter asked him about the "five" picks, he joked, "Is that all?" His best play to date isn't some surgical strike or genius audible. It's that crazy, awkward, comical botched snap scramble against St. Louis that covered 70 yards but netted only 4 yards, and a key first down. And speaking of botched snaps, that botched snap in the playoffs last year that cost the Cowboys the game against Seattle could have destroyed Romo's confidence. Instead, he apparently shook it off with no ill effects, judging by this year's stats. Now he's gone from the league's only starting quarterback still holding for extra points (!) to making $30 mil guaranteed. Sure, he's no Favre yet, but like Favre, you get the feeling he'd play the game for a whole lot less money than what's he's (now) paid. And that, as they say, is priceless.