The Giants know the way much fun a crowded quarterback room could be, perhaps as much as anyone. Back in 1961, “Chuckin’ ” Charlie Conerly was well entrenched because the team’s QB1, but he was going to show 40 two days after the season opener against the Cardinals, and will sense the pull of time.
Then the Giants traded for Y.A. Tittle — not exactly a child at 35 — and for what became a first-place team, first-year coach Allie Sherman allow them to battle it out for reps. They each played in 13 games. Tittle began 10 of them, went 8-1-1. Conerly began 4, and so they went 2-2. Together they threw for 40 touchdowns.
“It was like sitting in a room with two geniuses,” Sherman recalled years later. “These guys had IQs of 10,000 apiece. I assumed I used to be the neatest guy in most rooms when there was a discussion about offense. But when those two talked, all you would do was listen. They helped one another. They battled one another. They fed off one another. It was glorious.”
The Giants know the way much misery a crowded quarterback room could be. In 1983, his first yr as a head coach, Bill Parcells saw Scott Brunner and Phil Simms play daily in training camp, and he picked Brunner. Eight years later, Ray Handley had two quarterbacks who’d won Super Bowls in that room — Simms and Jeff Hostetler — and picked Simms.
The Giants know the way much fun a crowded quarterback room could be, perhaps as much as anyone. Back in 1961, “Chuckin’ ” Charlie Conerly was well entrenched because the team’s QB1, but he was going to show 40 two days after the season opener against the Cardinals, and will sense the pull of time.
Then the Giants traded for Y.A. Tittle — not exactly a child at 35 — and for what became a first-place team, first-year coach Allie Sherman allow them to battle it out for reps. They each played in 13 games. Tittle began 10 of them, went 8-1-1. Conerly began 4, and so they went 2-2. Together they threw for 40 touchdowns.
“It was like sitting in a room with two geniuses,” Sherman recalled years later. “These guys had IQs of 10,000 apiece. I assumed I used to be the neatest guy in most rooms when there was a discussion about offense. But when those two talked, all you would do was listen. They helped one another. They battled one another. They fed off one another. It was glorious.”
The Giants know the way much misery a crowded quarterback room could be. In 1983, his first yr as a head coach, Bill Parcells saw Scott Brunner and Phil Simms play daily in training camp, and he picked Brunner. Eight years later, Ray Handley had two quarterbacks who’d won Super Bowls in that room — Simms and Jeff Hostetler — and picked Simms.
