Now that it appears that both the Houston Texans Matt Schaub and the Kansas City Chiefs Matt Cassel may be out for the rest of season, they will be turning to their backups. The Texans turn to Matt Leinart, and the Chiefs will start Tyler Palko.
It’s hard to think of two quarterbacks who took more diverse paths to get to next week’s games, and it will be interesting to see how each of them do with their first start with their current teams.
Matt Leinart
Matt Leinart came from the vaunted USC program, playing for Pete Carroll. He led the Trojans to a national championship in 2004, the year he also won the Heisman Trophy. He was selected in the first round by the Arizona Cardinals, with the tenth pick overall, to be heir apparent for starter Kurt Warner. It looked like a perfect position – backup a Hall of Famer for a few years, then take the keys to the Ferrari. Exactly what Aaron Rodgers was able to do in Green Bay, but the outcome was totally different.
He spent four years with Arizona, including their Super Bowl year in 2008, as a backup to Warner. And he did get a reasonable amount of playing time. He’s thrown almost 600 passes in the NFL, which is a little over a year’s worth of work (well… roughly 14 games for Drew Brees, or a year-and-a-half for Alex Smith).
He’s only completed 57 percent of those passes, and has 14 TDs to 20 INTs. But over 63 percent of the passes he’s thrown were in his rookie year. After that, he fell out of favor with the coaching staff and they began to look for other options. After Warner retired, Leinart lost the starting job to free agent Derek Anderson and he was cut going into the 2010 season.
He was picked up by the Texans, but hasn’t had a start with them. Now, he’s got six years on the sidelines under his belt, and he takes over a team with a power running game behind Arian Foster and Ben Tate. The Texans are 7-3 and have the 3rd best rushing attack in the league. They also have a tenacious defense, ranked 2nd in the league against the pass and 5th against the run.
Leinart has an ideal situation for his second act. He won’t be asked to bear the full burden of the team, but to rely on the running game and defense, manage the offense and not make mistakes.
Even the schedule is kind to Leinart, as he gets a bye week this week, followed by the 3-6 Jaguars.
Tyler Palko
If Leinart is the purebred, Palko is the mutt. Palko wasn’t selected in the first round, in fact he wasn’t selected at all. He went undrafted in 2007 out of Pittsburgh. He had a solid career at Pitt – earning second team All Big East honors twice, and was Pitt’s MVP in 2004. But it’s not quite a Heisman Trophy.
He bounced around every form of professional football there is – starting in 2007 where he was on-and-off the New Orleans Saints practice squad for much of the year, occasionally making their active roster as their third string quarterback.
After being out of football completely in 2008, he was with the Arizona Cardinals for a while in the 2009 offseason (spending some practice time with Matt Leinart), but was waived before the 2009 regular season was cut. He was then signed and cut by the UFL California Redwoods, and spent some time on the practice squad for the CFL Montreal Alouettes. He also briefly made it onto the Steelers roster as a backup quarterback in 2009, but never threw a pass and was released late in the year.
He was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs in March 2010, and earned the backup job to Cassell. He has thrown a total of 13 passes in the NFL, so he is largely an unknown, but he came in late in last week’s game and went 5 for 6 for 47 yards against the Broncos.
Unlike Leinart, who walks into a playoff team and gets the keys to the Ferrari, Palko will be taking over Dad’s station wagon – reliable but not flashy. The Chiefs are 4-5, but only one game out of first in the weak AFC West. Actually, they are in a three way tie for second place, as the entire division is within one game of each other.
The Chiefs do have a solid running game, ranked 10th in the league, although their defense isn’t nearly as strong as the Texans. They are ranked 26th in the league against the run, giving up 134 yards per game. The Chiefs are in the hunt for a playoff spot, but it’s going to be a tough battle.
Also working against Palko – unlike Leinart, the schedule isn’t at all kind. His first six games as a starter are (in order) – the Patriots, Steelers, Bears, Jets, Packers, and Raiders. That’s Murderer’s Row.
But if you love an underdog, get your Palko jersey warmed up for the second half of the season.
