After Kordell Stewart visited the first day of the Buffalo Bills' initial mini-camp under Mike Mularkey, the would-be quarterback and new coach said all the right things, as did President/General Manager Tom Donahoe.
All the same, there seemed to be no great urgency to get a deal done.
This, even though the Bills created a distinct hole in their quarterback depth chart a week earlier, when they released Alex Van Pelt after a decade in Buffalo.
From a financial perspective, taking a lackadaisical approach to upgrading the position makes plenty of sense, since the market could be flooded with veteran quarterbacks after the June 1 cut-down date. From a football perspective, it makes none.
There's little argument that the No. 2 quarterback is the most important non-starting job on a football team, often wielding greater impact than the starters at other positions.
Buffalo's weakness there became glaring during the last season, when Bledsoe suffered through the most ineffective stretch of his career as the Bills staggered to a 6-10 finish and the end of the Gregg Williams Era. As badly as Bledsoe played, pulling him was never a serious option.
Van Pelt was always a good quote and a better teammate, the guy who linked such disparate position-mates as Jim Kelly and Todd Collins, Rob Johnson and Doug Flutie. He spent much of his career as Buffalo's No. 3, the Designated Clipboard Holder, and it says here he was one of the best ever to remain in that role for any period of time.
If you needed a guy who could come in for a few series, maybe even a half, Van Pelt was an excellent guy to have around. If your third-stringer has to play for much longer than that, you're in very serious trouble. And when the Bills did have to rely on him for anything more, they were.
He ascended to the second spot behind Johnson after Flutie departed after the 2000 season. Taking over after RoJo's inevitable season-ending injury, he capably played out the string while guiding the Bills to two wins -- one more than Johnson in 2001.
Van Pelt made a few cameos at the tail end of a few games over the last two seasons, none when the outcome was still in doubt. Last year, he threw 12 passes, completing five to his teammates and three to opposing defenders. In nine full seasons with the Bills -- he was signed to the practice squad late in 1994, but never played that year -- he threw more than 18 passes only twice, in 1997 and 2001, when Buffalo had no other viable option.
Certainly not Travis Brown. He's shown little in limited action other than an inability to look to more than one receiver and an awkward, slow release on his throws. The former coaching staff said going into last year's training camp that Brown would get every opportunity to prove that he was more than a third-stringer. And he ended the season as a third-stringer.
Which brings us back to Stewart. The quarterback formerly known as Slash had some maddeningly inconsistent seasons in Pittsburgh, and washed out quickly in Chicago last year.
He also led the Steelers to home-field advantage in the playoffs twice, though Pittsburgh lost the AFC title games after the 1997 and 2001 seasons. As for his miserable stint with the Bears, a clone derived from the DNA of Brett Favre, Tom Brady and Michael Vick couldn't have won with that miserable excuse for a National Football League offense.
Chicago's brass wanted Stewart to carry an offense lacking a quality running back, threatening wide receivers, decent tight end or adequate offensive line.
The Bills have some of those elements, but what they don't have is just as important: expectations. If there's been any thread of consistency in Stewart's career, it's that he plays the best when the least is demanded of him.
After two seasons as a wide receiver/running back/goal-line quarterback, Stewart's first season as a starting quarterback was little less than spectacular -- 21 touchdown passes and 11 more on the ground.
But a year later, new offensive coordinator Ray Sherman tried to rein in Stewart's instincts and mobility, trying to turn him into a pocket thrower. It didn't work. Neither did Kevin Gilbride's attempt to do the same a year later.
Only when Mularkey began as Pittsburgh's offensive guru did Stewart start to turn it around. His 2001 campaign wasn't as stunning as his 1997, but he threw only 11 interceptions and led the Steelers to a 13-3 mark. The Bills will be running the same system Stewart learned and thrived in that year, with a few flourishes added by offensive coordinator Tom Clements and quarterback coach Sam Wyche.
That familiarity may be one justification for Donahoe's lack of urgency when it comes to Stewart, since he would figure to need less time to acclimate himself to a system he already knows. It's no reason to risk losing out on him, though.
Stewart offers the Bills a backup with the ability to not just fill in if something happens to Bledsoe, but a guy who has won in the NFL.
He also presents the viable alternative Buffalo has lacked since the days of Johnson and Flutie.
But unlike that doomed duo, he and Bledsoe are mature veterans. They've shown they can win, and have been humbled by losing. Neither is an unproven kid or a career underdog desperate to get the shot he feels was withheld from him.
From a purely strategic standpoint, you can't name two quarterbacks more different in style. A defensive game plan built to stop Bledsoe's downfield throws would bear little resemblance to the one needed to contain Stewart's athleticism.
And there's not a whole lot else out there in the way of potential backups, particularly now that Billy Volek decided to stay in Tennessee. Atlanta's Doug Johnson was also in town last week, but the Falcons were just 1-7 in games he started in place of the injured Michael Vick last year.
The Bills have plenty of other things to worry about. Like what to do with the 13th pick in next month's draft, who to select as their "quarterback of the future" and whether to trade for Philadelphia wide receiver James Thrash, to name three.
Donahoe can, and should, cross "find a backup quarterback" off the to-do list immediately. He's not going to find someone better suited to the job, or the situation, than Stewart.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 30 2004 |