Word: plunkett
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Something between Joe Theismann and Jim Plunkett...
...Heisman winner was Jim Plunkett of San Jose, Calif, and Stanford, a blind news-vendor's son, quiet-spoken but strong-armed, as husky as a linebacker. In today's terms, he was not only John Elway, the top draft choice, but also Dan Marino, the rookie of the year. The Heisman runner-up or, the way he looked at it, the "loser," was Joe Theismann of South River, N.J., and Notre Dame, a mouthy wraith. He still says, "The classic line of the No. 2 guy is that it was enough just to be considered. That...
Like Elway in Denver, Plunkett was thrown instantly into the fire with the New England Patriots, but it was slow burning. "I'd have gone crazy if I didn't play right off," he says, "and it went well the first year. I quarterbacked with reckless abandon, ran a lot, scrambled around, threw on the run. But we just didn't get any better as a club. The second year was miserable. I had never been on a losing team in my life, or experienced such negativism all around me." In the dreary seasons following, Plunkett suffered...
That year, Plunkett was released by the San Francisco 49ers, who had fetched him home to the Bay Area two seasons earlier, a reclamation project partially sentimental. Plunkett describes the sensation as "carrying the weight of the world," and says, "I thought about quitting." Rather, he moved over to Oakland, and sat around behind Ken Stabler for two full years and Dan Pastorini for part of another. He says, "I asked to be traded at the start of the 1980 season," but did not get his wish. It was the year he was the Most Valuable Player in the Super...
...When a quarterback has been around," says Plunkett, "booed, cheered and benched, he can feel good. He has lasted. Because every lasting quarterback experiences all of that in some order." Plunkett was benched for a while again this season (in favor of Marc Wilson, who promptly broke his shoulder). One criticism of Plunkett is that he finds risky passes irresistible. "A long pass is a beautiful thing to watch," he agrees...