Huey and the Blues

Is anything in this world more painful than watching Damon Huard go under center? Seriously.

Not to run amok with hyperbole, but watching Huard quarterback for the Chiefs is similar to having a crappy dentist perform a root canal procedure. The job might get done, but even if it does the process is not going to be fun. Not at all.

Last week was the worst. Huey just sat in the pocket and held onto the ball forever… And ever… And ever. I was like, dude, you backed up Tom Brady forever, you should know better than anyone that you don’t have to be athletic to have good pocket presence. Move around, use your peripheral vision, use that clock in your head that tells you it’s time to unload — do something! Anything! At least try to avoid getting sacked.

There hasn’t been this much tucking since the last National Cross Dresser Convention. Huard is like a boxer who knows he’s beaten, just covering up and trying to avoid getting KO’d. It’s brutal to watch, isn’t it?

I figured it out, though. Many of you will blame this all on the line, but I’m here to tell you that Damon Huard is just as responsible, if not more so, for his sacks than the Chris Terrys and Kyle Turleys. He has a two-receiver progression that goes something like this…

“Where’s Tony, where’s Tony… Dwayne, Dwayne… shit! That hurts.”

I hate to keep bagging on the guy, because it’s clear that he’s been asked to do a job he’s nowhere near capable of doing. Still, what irks me is his lack of guts. I understand part of it may be orders from Herm Edwards and Mike Solari. We all know that they demand two things out of Huey: A. NEVER change plays; B. NEVER throw picks. It’s bad enough that the guy has a pea shooter arm, but when he’s so scared of throwing INTs that he won’t just throw it away? Awful.

That’s not the only thing he’s scared of either. It’s painstakingly clear that Huard spent way to much time as a back-up, away from full-speed contact. He’s afraid of getting hit.

No? Then why does he look shellshocked every time he gets up from a sack or knockdown? Why is he slower getting up from the ground than any quarterback in America? Yes, that includes Pee Wee and Pom Pom. Why is his body language pathetic — is he Eli Manning’s understudy? Lastly, why does he get knocked out of every single loss? I respect you for playing behind that line, but you’re a quarterback — a millionaire quarterback. You get paid to take shots and shake them off. If you don’t exude confidence, neither will the guys around you. If you hate it that much there are hoards of Chiefs fans who I bet would take a few dead-on shots from the Shaun and Shawne Connection for that kind of dough.

Enter Brodie Croyle. He’s young. He’s exciting. He’s improvisational (no, not in the Daunte Culpepper way — in the Steve Young way). He’s tough as nails. He’s got moxie. He’s got that “it” quality. He looks like a quarterback. To me. To Chiefs fans. To his teammates. Hell, they compare his swagger to Joe Montana’s. Brodie’s even got the smokin’ hot girl that’s damn near requisite if you want to be one of the great ones.

Having Brodie has made Huard, the anti-Brodie, much more difficult to watch. maybe that is why all this hate towards Huey has manifested inside me. Every Sunday he starts I’m being forced into watching a boring, tired movie, when I know something new and exciting is playing in the theater next door.

When Brodie gets hit, he immediately pops his head up and looks to see what happened instead of saying woe is me. Brodie focuses on making things happen, not on not making mistakes. He’s our quarterback of the future, a potential winner, while Huard obviously graduated from the Trent Dilfer Don’t-Eff-This-Up School of Quarterbacking.

I don’t hate Huard the person, I hate Huard the player. I hate him because every snap he takes is a wasted one that could have been spent grooming a younger quarterback, even if it is David Greene or Tyler Thigpen. At least they have a shot at being something more than a glorified game manager someday.

So, Carl Peterson, Clark Hunt, Herm… this is me on my knees on behalf of Chiefs fans, begging you to put a stop to Damon Huard. Don’t play him any more, don’t pay him any more, cut him a check this offseason and send him packing. He seems like a much better family man than QB, so let him does what he does best.

You’ve done enough for him, you don’t owe him one red Chiefs cent. Please. It’s time to groom our own quarterback. Er, quarterbacks.