Are we near the end of the Forever Quarterback era?

The past is a foreign country. It will take a long time explain Eli Manning to those who were not there. Manning beat a team of giant patriots in the Super Bowl twice. He was a first overall choice. He has made $ 252 million over the course of his career, more than any NFL player in history, and four million more than his brother, Peyton. He was a darling of television regularly placed in front of prime time viewers. If that's the end for Manning, he had a good football life. It was also pointed out, it seemed overwhelmed for big games games. He has a career record 116-116. He has never made an All-Pro team. His playing style seemed obsolete for most of his career. Two years ago, the Giants put him on the bench for Geno Smith. coach Manning accumulates more juice. His output has been, at best, average for important periods of his career. His ability to endure the last 15 years in New York is so remarkable that Robert Caro should rush to East Rutherford to write about Manning's understated power. In 20 years, when a young person asks you questions about Manning, the best way to explain it is to say that he beat Tom Brady twice. This will be easy to understand as Brady has just won another Super Bowl.

The Giants put Manning on the bench Tuesday for rookie Daniel Jones. It's hard to say no matter what It's the end for Manning, but it's like that. Add to that a late-season elbow injury with Ben Roethlisberger, and you'll get the impression that the famous 2004 draft-quarter class, including Manning, Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers, is nearing the end of his reign. Drew Brees, written three years earlier, is missing six weeks with a hand injury. Manning, Roethlisberger and Brees are among the top five winners in the history of the sport – a testament to their longevity, success and fame – and none of them will play this weekend. It looks like the end of Something.

This is not the time to make an obituary. We have seen Manning come back from a bench, Roethlisberger could be ready to take over next year, and Brees could bring back the Saints when he returned in mid-season. But unlike any other time in the NFL, a generation of young quarterbacks is pushing an older generation to lose its relevance. When we look at Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson, especially in comparison with Manning and Roethlisberger, it's hard not to see what happened to this sport.

I nicknamed this the era of the Forever Quarterback: every week, a new record is set by an older elite quarterback. The problem, of course, is that when you have a signal calling group playing at an unprecedented age, you never know when it will end. There is no quarterback group like the one in the early 2000s, so there is no guide on how teams should manage them as they get older. The Steelers have just signed a new deal with Roethlisberger that will bring him $ 45 million in cash this year, which more American sportsmen and five million more than Warrior goalkeeper Stephen Curry will do with next season.

The Steelers have gone short-term by swapping a first round choice for Dolphin safety, Minkah Fitzpatrick, signaling at least some confidence in saving Mason Rudolph to save this season. The Saints made Teddy Bridgewater the best-paid back of the league in March, partly in case Brees would be injured, but also for Bridgewater to potentially be the apparent heir to Brees – a solid plan, it seems -he. The Giants have planned their departure by taking Jones in the first round of this year's draft, but the team has pointed out that it wants to follow the "Kansas City" model in which Mahomes spent his rookie season playing behind Alex Smith before take over the Second Season position. Giants owner John Mara said he hoped Jones would "never see the pitch" as it would mean Manning had a good year. Reader, Manning has not had a good year. And that's how it ends, not with a bang, but with Daniel Jones.

Forever Quarterbacks are a historically productive group. The enduring success of this generation was logical: it was a talented culture that arrived several years before the league's collective agreement in 2011 changed the rules of practice by limiting the teams to 14 padded practices. regular season and eliminating the training of two days a day. camp. These changes have benefited them on two fronts: first, shifts that have entered the league after CBA have received significantly fewer hours of useful NFL practice. Secondly, the new rules have helped preserve the corps of the quarters already in the league. They spent seven years getting as many reps as possible and then, once they were eliminated, the league changed the rules so they would not have to endure exhausting training. The scale was lifted as soon as they perfected their craft.

Other rule changes have also favored players like Manning, Roethlisberger and Brees, including stricter protections for quarterbacks and rules limiting defenses. Roethlisberger led the NFL with 5,129 passing yards last year, 500 more than any other league team in 2004, the year he was drafted. Football in 2019 is a different sport from the one played by these quarters when they entered the league because, in the midst of all these rule changes, the sport has changed. again. The league has moved to more prevalent concepts stolen from the university. There was a real war in the NFL – stubborn old coaches resistant to change, against younger, more innovative coaches – and young quarterbacks like Mahomes and Mayfield helped win the war for the youth movement. Strangely, the tension between old school tactics and new ideas has helped the older generation of quarterbacks. NFL coaches have basically failed for many years as a quarterback by not knowing how to build on the patterns they learned at the university. If they had succeeded, the eternal generation might have aged more quickly. That's not to say that the old quarterbacks can not be productive at this time – Brees and Brady, among so many others, have been great – it's just to say that they're not going to be productive at that time – have not grown up playing in the modern aggressive schemes that you see today in the NFL, and despite With innovative coaches, they are no longer at the forefront of the sport. Manning and Roethlisberger changed with sport – all those who existed at the time of the economic boom had to do it – but the sport has changed too often to be able to follow.

In organizing the 2016 Eagles, I met representatives of the Eagles organization to choose Carson Wentz and how, internally, they viewed these Forever Quarterbacks as a model: Yes, there is a lot to trade for a quarter of a franchise, but once you have one, you can enjoy it for more than 10 years without having to worry about it. A franchise quarterback is a long-term problem solver. Despite some of the low levels that teams have experienced with their franchise quarters, they have had more highs than, say, a team like the Jets, who have spent 15 years in the wild quarter.

There will always be old quarters. Rivers is still in progress. Brady will play forever. Brees will be back. Aaron Rodgers looks set to lead another competitor. But Manning and Roethlisberger may be about to come out. Fifteen years old, it is long to succeed in the sport. This makes you think about who will be about 15 years old: Mahomes, surely, Mayfield and Jackson, presumably. And Tom Brady.