A Relief Pitcher in Football?

A Relief Pitcher in Football?
by Bud Malmsten

How does any breakthrough occur? Someone brings an idea from one area and applies it someplace new. It might not qualify as Intentional Misunderstanding, but providing a new way to see something creates a new understanding.

Example: As long as farmers thought of dry grain as a solid, they could only move it from place to place by the shovel full or truck load. Then someone came up with the radical idea that dry grain could be treated as a liquid and pumped through large pipes. Is it wrong to see grain as only a solid? No. It just limits one’s imagination.

So, what does this have to do with Football?

Most positions are substituted freely throughout a game as the situation dictates.

Players are not offended if the coach calls for a nickel or dime defense (one or two extra defensive backs replacing one or two linemen or linebackers).

A special center is sent in to snap the ball for punts and field goals, and the regular center rarely even pouts about it.

Different running backs are regularly used in the same game, depending on which one is having the most success.

As down linemen get tired, they are replaced for a series or two, just so they can return to the game more refreshed for the finish.

It happens for every position except THE STARTING QUARTERBACK.

What if we could change the whole perception about the starting quarterback?

Think about a new paradigm.

"PARADIGM: from the Greek para-, beside + diegma, example or to show; a pattern, example, or model." (Webster’s NEW WORLD DICTIONARY)

Let us use a Baseball analogy. A professional baseball team has four or five starting pitchers and seven or eight relief pitchers, each of whom plays a particular role on the team. Some are used only in long relief; they are brought into the game in the early innings if the starter is injured or if he is having trouble right from the beginning. Others are used only in very specialized situations - to pitch to a right handed or left handed batter with runners in scoring position, etc. One or perhaps two are designated "closers." Their role is to pitch the last inning to seal a win for the team. (Talk to someone who understands baseball for more insight on this.)

The baseball manager selects his starting rotation with each pitcher planning to start a game in turn with the others. Every fourth or fifth game he is on the mound at the beginning of the game. His routine between starts is prescribed to have him ready every time he is called on to pitch.

We will use a real name here for an example. Randy Johnson was one of the most effective starting pitchers the Mariners ever had. When he was on the mound, it was almost a guaranteed Mariner win.

However, even Randy Johnson had some tough starts. On the rare occasion when the opposing team "got to him" early , Manager Pinella could be seen trotting out to the mound for a brief conversation, and sometimes Lou would bring in one of those relief pitchers.

Another time Randy would be going along just great until about the seventh or eighth inning, and he would "run out of gas." His arm or legs would be just too tired to throw strikes any more. Again the familiar trot out to talk, and again the call to the bull pen for a relief pitcher.

So, what’s the point? Just this: when the manager replaces the starting pitcher in a game, he is not removing him from the starting rotation. He is simply doing the right thing for the pitcher and the team. Four or five days later, Randy will be back on the mound for his regular turn. What does this have to do with football? Try to think of the Starting Quarterback as if he were the starting pitcher. Give a new title to the Backup Quarterback, namely relief pitcher.

Now when the coach sees his starter having trouble, getting chased all over the backfield, or being intercepted, he has another option. He doesn’t need to think in terms of "benching" his designated starting QB and going with the backup.

Instead, he can send in the relief QB for one or two series of downs, and give the starter the luxury of watching the plays develop from the sidelines, perhaps even talking to a coach in the booth while he watches. All without having 300 pound tacklers trying to grind him into oblivion.

How about the attitude of the backup. Now he wouldn’t be tempted to wish something bad about the starter so he could get his chance. Instead he would have an honorable position in the scheme of things. Former big name QB’s would be sought out for the contribution they could make to any team, and they would be worth the money.

College coaches would no longer have "quarterback controversies." Instead they would have two or three QB’s all contributing to the team in various ways.

Can this really work? It works in other sports, and even in football for all other positions. It works in business and in the marketplace. The best leaders are always looking for a fresh approach to whatever they are doing. Why not in football?