Who Anointed Gary Kubiak A Quarterback Guru?

Dan Orlovsky entered the Texans/Saints game in the second quarter. He did his best Rex Grossman at one point when he threw wildly for an interception. And he didn’t really look that good throughout the game. But Joel Meyers and Spencer Tillman, the TV announcers on KTRK — by the way, nice job on not being able to get the HDTV to work for the second game a row there, guys — told me not to worry about Orlovsky because everything’s going to be okay.

And it’s going to be okay because Gary Kubiak’s in charge.

Yeah, that’s right, those two spent most of Orlovsky’s time in the game talking about Gary Kubiak being the QB Guru responsible for many great quarterback careers. Supposedly, Orlovsky is going to be okay because he can be “coached up,” and the one who is going to coach him up is Gary Kubiak.

But what they never told anybody — and what nobody has ever said — is just who it is that Kubiak has supposedly “coached up” and turned into a decent quarterback. Sure, he coached John Elway and Steve Young. But does anybody out there really think that Kubiak is the one who is responsible for making Elway and Young two of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history?

Elway was on his way to the Hall of Fame before Kubiak even became a
coach. Remember who John Elway’s backup was? Yep, Kubiak. Kubiak was
lucky to step on to the field to hold for a point after. Elway was
leading one of the greatest comebacks in NFL playoff history while Kubiak was wearing a baseball cap and carrying a clipboard on the
sidelines. So only someone who doesn’t know much about football would
buy into Kubiak “coaching up” John Elway.

And by the time Kubiak
showed up in San Francisco as an assistant coach, Steve Young had been
a pro quarterback for nearly a decade. He’d been a backup to Joe
Montana, and he’d been coached for a majority of his career by Bill
Walsh, one of the true geniuses of football — how many offenses has
Gary Kubiak helped to invent, after all. So it’s really hard to believe
that Kubiak “coached up” Steve Young.

But while the likes of
Meyers and Tillman always bring up Kubiak coaching Elway and Young,
they never bring up the names of all of the other QBs had the chance to
coach up. You know, Jake Plummer. Brian Griese. David Carr. All of
those guys had the same tools that Orlovsky supposedly has. But they
didn’t turn into the players like Elway and Young. Kubiak definitely
didn’t coach them up, and it can be argued that, when it comes to
Plummer and Carr, he coached them down instead.

I know that the
preseason broadcasters are charged with team propaganda. But is it
really asking too much for them to make the propaganda somewhat
believable?