NFL QB Battles: Tampa Bay Buccaneers pay McCown to snub Glennon
By Dan Salem
Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Which quarterback will lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? It’s a classic veteran vs young gun with Josh McCown and Mike Glennon. Two NFL studs, one starting job. Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in part two of this week’s TD Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate the NFL and sports.
[Part one – Oakland Raiders right with Schaub]
DAN:
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are an interesting case at quarterback. Josh McCown feels like the starter, was a starter for eight games last season with the Chicago Bears, and can definitely lead this team. But he’s also entering his thirteenth season and has never started a full sixteen games. His peak was with Arizona in 2004, when he played for fourteen games.
McCown has nice numbers and enters the year on a high note. Yet so does Mike Glennon. He started thirteen games for Tampa Bay last season in his rookie year and performed admirably. A quick glance at the 2013 stats for both men leaves this conversation at an impasse.
Josh McCown (2013 stats): 1800 yds, 13 TDs, 1 INT, over 8 games
Mike Glennon (2013 stats): 2600 yds, 19 TDs, 9 INT, over 13 games
Does Tampa Bay continue to groom Glennon into their long-term answer at quarterback? Is that even realistic? Or do they hand the starting QB job to McCown in an attempt to win behind veteran leadership? Both sound like good answers on paper. Neither leaves me feeling satisfied if I’m a fan of the Buccaneers.
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TODD:
Tampa Bay probably has the most interesting QB battle of any team in the league to me. They brought in Josh McCown off of, as you said, half of one season. The incumbent meanwhile, Mike Glennon, was drafted by a previous regime who is no longer employed by the team.
On the surface it seems blatantly obvious that the new crew in charge didn’t trust Glennon as their guy and didn’t want their season riding on him. They paid McCown to come here and be the starting quarterback, not just to compete. But just because this seems so straightforward doesn’t make the situation any less enticing to follow. The real conundrum comes when debating whether this series of decisions was correct.
I say no.
McCown has been in the league for 11 years. His best season, really his only good season he’s ever put together, was last season in Chicago. He just so happened to have the best wide receiver combo in the league at his disposal, along with a superb running back and offensive system around him. There is nothing in his past to suggest this was anything other than the situation around him that led to this fluky season, which included an unsustainable 0.4 interception percentage. It’s hard to throw picks when Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall snatch every ball away from opposing defensive backs.
Meanwhile, Glennon had a pretty solid year last year even though he was a rookie and the situation around him was a disaster. It seems likely that he will do nothing but improve if given the chance to start. Considering the weapons brought in through the draft to help this offense, Glennon’s success behind center could be exponentially better than his first year’s attempts.
Of course, Glennon is on a third-round rookie deal, and McCown was given a flashy free-agent contract to come to Tampa. It doesn’t make sense to me, but McCown is the guy for the Buccaneers.