Why Is Damon Huard the Third-String Quarterback?

Damon Huard, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, is one of the most underappreciated players in the NFL. Huard may not have the best physical abilities, but he knows how to play the game. 

There have been many quarterbacks that had all the physical tools but didn’t make it in the NFL—Ryan Leaf, David Carr, and Tim Couch, just to name a few. The problem with the NFL is that coaches and general managers focus too much on physical abilities.

Jerry Rice only ran a 4.71 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. Could you tell how good Jerry Rice was by his 40 time?

Besides Huard being generally underappreciated, what really upsets me is the fact that Huard lost his backup job this preseason to second-year player Tyler Thigpen because he was getting outplayed in practice.

I play Division One soccer, and I’ve noticed that there are people who play well in practice, but when they get in to games, they don’t. There are also those other people who don't play that well in practice, but when you put them in a game situation, they play very well.

Huard is one of those people that you can’t tell how good they are until the play in an actual game.

How could the Chiefs have demoted Huard, a proven veteran, for an inexperienced player because of the way they were both playing in practice? Now, I didn’t write this article to say Huard should be the backup. I think Huard should be the starter.

Huard isn’t going to blow you away with a five-touchdown performance, but the man doesn’t make many mistakes and knows how to get the job done and win. If you look at Huard’s stats from 2006, when he came in for the injured Trent Green, he had a quarterback rating of 98.0 (second in the NFL) with 11 touchdowns and one interception in 10 games.

After Green was knocked out with a concussion in the Chiefs' first game, the team went 5-3 in Huard’s eight starts. Huard and the Chiefs were starting to roll. However, when Green came back from his concussion, Huard went back to the bench. Green started eight games that season, with seven of them coming after Huard went back to the bench.

Green went 4-4 in those eight games and had a quarterback rating of 74.1 with seven touchdowns and nine interceptions. It was obvious who the better QB was to the public, but Herman Edwards apparently thought he knew better. The Chief’s magically made the playoffs at 9-7 and Trent Green and the Chiefs played the Colts in the first round.

Trent Green went 14-24 with 107 yard, one touchdown and two interceptions in the game, and the Chiefs lost 8-23. Green played poorly and everybody, including the commentators, thought Herman Edwards should have put Huard in at halftime.

However, he stubbornly didn’t, and the Colts won and went on to win the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs re-signed Huard for the 2007 season, but still the Chiefs didn’t guarantee him the starting job. He had to compete with Brodie Croyle, a second-year player, for the job in preseason. The Chiefs made it obvious that Croyle was their quarterback of the future.

Croyle is known for having a great arm and being able to make any throw on the football field. But like I said earlier, great physical tools don’t always make a great quarterback. If you read into what Herman Edwards was saying in preseason, the Chiefs' management was rooting for Croyle to win the job.

The only reason Croyle didn’t win the job was because he played extremely poorly in the exhibition games, and the job was given to Huard by default. Will Shields retired before the 2007 season, and the Chiefs tried to fix the holes in their offensive line with aging and ineffective players such as Chris Terry, John Welbourn, Damion McIntosh, and Kyle Turley.

The Chiefs' offensive line was putrid. From the very beginning of the 2007 season, there was a tight leash on Huard. It was well known that if Huard had a horrible game, the Chiefs were going to put Croyle in. In every game Huard started in 2007, he was hurried relentlessly and knocked down over and over again.

I remember reading an article in the beginning of the 2007 season that said that there was no way Huard was going to last the season considering how much he constantly was getting pounded. The coaches didn’t help with their play calling. Herman Edwards almost always ran on first down, and would generally run on first and second down.

Because of this, Huard was constantly passing on 3rd-and-long situations. In Week Three against the Vikings, the Chiefs ran it 24 times for 42 yards. Now, what head coach would allow their team to continue running it over and over again, knowing that nothing was being gained from it?  

Larry Johnson and the running game did not help Huard last season. L.J. ran for 55 yards or less in four of his eight starts. The Chiefs led the NFL in sacks allowed in 2007 with 55.

However, even with an incapable offensive line, Huard miraculously managed to go 4-3 in his first seven starts. He almost went 5-3, but with the Packers trailing 22-16 with less than four minutes left, Brett Favre threw a 60-yard bomb to Greg Jennings.

Then, during the next week against Denver, Huard had that game I talked about earlier that would get him benched. Huard was constantly pressured and went 6-15 with two first-half interceptions. Huard was benched for Croyle in the third quarter. The Brodie Croyle era had officially begun.

After Croyle became the starter, the offense suddenly starting opening up more. The Chiefs finally started throwing on first downs and started mixing up their predictable offense. This was proof to me that the Chiefs’ management never trusted Huard and never really wanted him to succeed.  

Croyle went on to win zero games last season and the Chiefs finished 4-12. Now, Huard statistically did not have a great season, but he did the best with what he had. With that atrocious offensive line, I don’t know if there are any quarterbacks that could have succeeded.

I believe Huard is a very good quarterback and if given a somewhat capable offensive line, he could do very well. Although I think Huard should be the starter this season, I know Brodie Croyle is going to be the starter, no matter what happens this preseason.

But if I had to guess, I would say that the injury-prone Brodie Croyle is not going to last the whole season. When he does get injured, the Chiefs better show Huard some respect and put him in the game.