latest joke of a column by william c.

I'm a Saints fan, so I saw Aaron Brooks play a hell of a lot. His play got worse the longer he stayed with the team. He was widely seen as having a bad attitude (he would throw an interception and walk back to the sideline, grinning like he just saw Beyonce naked) and he had a rep for being fairly dumb. Add in the fact the way he stunk up the joint for Oakland last year, and it's no surprise he's staying at home. Those are a lot bigger factors than the comments he made after Hurricane Katrina.

 

Aaron Brooks doesn't have a job because he does not help teams win. Period. It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with his comments.

He's a locker room cancer (he was seen laughing on the sideline when the Saints were getting crushed on more than one occasion) and is a turnover machine good for at least two or three fumbles plus a couple of mindless interceptions into triple-coverage per game. He had one good season with the Saints, when he guided them to their first playoff win.

But once defensive coordinators watched enough film of him and figured out his tendencies, he was toast.

He's a classic example of an athlete with all of the physical gifts, but none of the mental fortitude and leadership exemplified by McNabb, Peyton, Brady, etc.

His tenure in Oakland playing on a horrific team was even worse. Surrounded by a decent team in New Orleans (except for 2005 when Katrina hit), he was, as Stephen A would say, T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. But on the Raiders, he was abysmal.

 

I'll bet stakes the case is sui generis. You're just upset the kid hasn't been lynched yet.

 

Fenian_Bastard, if what was said about Brooks could be said about 50 other unemployed quarterbacks, why not include one or two in the article, including a token white one? That keeps the race card out of play. In this case, it's squarely in play, and quite opaque at that.

 

When NFL GM's are looking for quarterbacks midseason, they are looking for a guy who won't lose them the game. They want someone who will come in, pick up the offense quickly, manage it efficiently, provide some veteran leadership, and then fade quietly into the background once the starter returns.

Unless you did not watch the NFL from 2003-05, you'd realize Aaron Brooks is not this quarterback.

 

Perhaps you could point out what on the resume of the illustrious Todd Bouman indicates that he is that kind of quarterback. Or Tim Rattay, or several other QBs I could probably think of if I tried. Create any kind of job description you want, it still doesn't explain why some NFL teams have all but pulled in guys off the street as backup QBs and Brooks can't get a sniff. I'm just saying that's curious.

IU90, no, I don't believe Rhoden would have written this column about a white quarterback. But that's a different thing from saying he wrote about race. He didn't, but that's the impression you would get from reading most of this thread. He writes a lot about race, but I've always thought that the reputation he has on this board is misleading. It's not that he writes exclusively about racial issues, it's that those are the only columns that ever get mentioned on here. Even when the column is only tangentially about race as in the Brooks column, he gets ripped for playing the race card. That's unfair.

 

It's "squarely in play" and "opaque"?
Wow.
Rhoden's a better writer than I thought.
It's "there" because folks like you want it to be, and I take nobody seriously who calls Bill Rhoden, who is as decent and honest a person as I've ver met, a racist. They have their own damn issues with it..
Brooks is out, in part, because of what he said, not how he played. That's all the column said.

 

Read the column and honestly thought it was a good one. Rhoden raises an interesting question as to why Aaron Brooks is not in the NFL. Unlike many well documented columns of past, Rhoden did not drop the race card as possible reason.
In past Rhoden's ill played race cards have taken what could have been good columns and turned them into junk.
Perhaps this column marks the new Bill Rhoden - one of restraint.