After Seattle Seahawk defensive star Richard Sherman’s “I’m the best” rant gave the sports world something to chew on, following the ‘Hawks 2014 NFC Championship victory, an interesting theory popped up.
Sports talking heads (radio and television experts) started rehashing a fairly old idea that football cornerbacks, safeties and wide receivers were the most confident players of all. Or arrogant, or just plain cocky, depending on how you choose to frame it. But is that true?
No, it’s not.
The most arrogant football players are quarterbacks. It’s true.
The men and women who make a living talking about and watching sports theorize that there is such a risk/reward when you play out on the edges of the football. They believe that this cowboy, frontier, mano y mano type of atmosphere lends itself to attract guys who are super-confident. Those guys know how talented they are and they want you to know it, claim the ‘heads.
Terrell Owens was often blasted for his antics and confidence, though it seemed to be in fun, and not worthy of the hostility he still receives when his name is mentioned.
Now, if we want to say that corners and receivers–those guys who play “on an island”–are the most demonstrative, you will get little argument. If we say they have the biggest mouths, that they celebrate more and pout more… fine.
But there is no way that they match QBs on the arrogance scale.
The difference is that quarterbacks are like on-the-field CEOs. Quarterbacks represent the team, not receivers nor defensive backs. The latter are free to blow up and to act a fool, and unless they are crazily criminal or otherwise foolish, people let it go as long as they get the job done.
However, quarterbacks are not usually at liberty to let too much personality show. That’s why they seem humble, self-effacing, professional, and well-spoken in most cases.
Don’t you believe it. The QB who has success on the major college and professional level has cultivated that image for years. It is as much an act as Sherman’s antics. Richard Sherman is, by most accounts, intelligent and as well-spoken as a Tom Brady or a Joe Flacco. Sherman is simply more calculating, because he can afford to be. He has elbow room to be so.
Brady and Peyton Manning do not have that kind of head space. Yet they, and other top-shelf QBs, are FAR MORE
cocky than anyone else on the football field. How do we know this?
Because you have to be ultimately confident to fit passes into tiny moving windows on that level. Because you do represent teams and organizations, in image if not in fact. Because everyone puts the championship rings that you win (or don’t win) on your back–not the wide receivers or d-backs.
The National Football League is more popular than it has ever been, with more fans and revenue than any professional sports league in history. That means the quarterbacks’ faces have a very high status in the eyes of our mostly atheistic culture. In effect, the QB is worshiped more than God by sports fans, whether they can admit that or not. (Don’t believe it? Ask yourself if your co-workers, family and friends talk about whatever faith they claim, as much as they mention what Russell Wilson did last Sunday.) They are above the point guard, the goalie, the pitcher or home run hitter.
Related: The modest superstar oxymoron
Everyone gives lip service to the truth that teams, not just talented and collected QBs, win titles. Yet all people talk about is how many times Joe Montana, the Mannings, and Brady have won it all. They don’t mention Ronnie Lott or Teddy Bruschi winning multiple times, unless it’s part of the intro for an interview or analysis.
There is no way you can be aware of all that… and the best quarterbacks are nothing if not self-aware… yet be as humble as we pretend they are.