2011 All ACLB Team Quarterbacks

NEIL: KYLE ORTON
Some would say that I am just celebrating Kyle Orton here because he is a drunk, and I’ll admit, that does play a part. He’s kind of a fuck-up, and I’ll be honest here, I am comfortable with fuck-ups. This is because a fuck-up isn’t afraid to just be himself. There is no pretense there. You get what you get. You can relax around a dude like that. You know he’s going to get drunk and he’s gonna be fun to be around and he won’t get offended by anything you say or do. He’s not going to smile at you and then run off to plot your destruction behind your back. That’s a man I can get behind. In the heat of battle, that’s a man who I want to fight for.
On the other hand, I am incredibly uncomfortable with the “Yes sir, I believe in apple pie and America, and you can trust me since I have a square jaw and I wear a suit to church every Sunday” types. Sure, sure, I can get along with these people because I am good at finding common ground with people, but I don’t trust them. They seem good and honest and decent and this is the prototype that people like Joe Buck jack off to, but damn it, I don’t trust them. These are the dudes who will inevitably flip the fuck out and chase you down a hallway naked, covered in blood and wielding a chainsaw. I have a hard time getting behind these people as leaders because you never know what they’re really thinking. Their true selves – if they even exist and they aren’t just robots created in some super-secret NFL laboratory – are hidden behind a placid, dull mask. Sure, they might be thinking about the best way to lead you to victory, but they also might be thinking about chopping your body up and leaving it in the dumpster after the game. Obviously, these people kind of freak me out.
Unfortunately, most quarterbacks seem to fall into this latter category. They are emotionless drones, crew cut fetishists who make the NFL overlords happy because they are ciphers upon whom the John Wayne loving legions can imprint their own damaged childish fantasies of killing evil Indians and punching out Stalinist aliens with fists made of bald eagles and freedom. I can’t celebrate these dudes.
But I can celebrate a man like Kyle Orton. It is a testament to his refusal to buckle under and become such a cipher that he keeps ending up on teams that want to replace him. After all, he’s not marketable and he isn’t what a quarterback is supposed to look like. He’s not tall, handsome and blessed with a rocket arm. No, he’s a degenerate and a drunk and he always look like he was carried to the field in a boat made from a hollowed out beer keg on a river of King Cobra. But he also gets the job done. He’s always discounted, always treated like the last resort. No one wants to end up with him unless they have to. He’s an unwanted misfit but he never goes away. Instead, he gets better and better and one of these seasons he’s going to have a Rich Gannon or Steve Beuerlein type of breakout that sees him ride to the Pro Bowl and throw 30 touchdowns and then we’ll hear a bunch of dumb bullshit about how he doesn’t look pretty, but he’s just a leader and loaded with intangibles. I can see it coming.
But it won’t come in Denver, where Orton has been kicked to the side in favor of that false prophet known as Tim Tebow. This comes on the heels of getting dumped not once but twice by the shameful Chicago Bears, who first pushed him aside for that idiot Rex Grossman and then dumped him for that asshole Jay Cutler. He is forever unwanted but he just keeps coming back. People forget that before the antichrist Tebow showed up, Orton was having a damn good season. This is an easy thing to miss because the Broncos were fucking horrible but that shit wasn’t Orton’s fault. Prior to this season, as a starter, Orton’s record was 29-19. That’s pretty fucking good. Before he went out with an injury this season, Orton had thrown for 3653 yards, with 20 touchdowns and only 9 interceptions. And again, this dude was playing for a shitty team.
He’s constantly dismissed, constantly being shoved aside for idiots, assholes and antichrists and yet he keeps going out there and putting up numbers that, say, Mark Sanchez could only dream about. Everybody laughs at Kyle Orton because he’s apt to be photographed with a giant bottle of Jack Daniels and a horde of sluts hanging off him. This is because people are repressed assholes. Yeah, Kyle Orton likes to drink and fuck, but he also keeps getting better as a quarterback and he refuses to go away. That is evidence of a warrior spirit right there. He has been forsaken once again, supplanted by a false prophet and now he’s likely to wander the world, waiting for an opportunity to prove that the heart of a champion lies not within the body of a haloed prayer merchant but inside of a broken, bearded, booze soaked body. Once upon a time the world spat in the face of a ragged, poor straggler and strung his ass up and nailed him to a cross because he didn’t look the part. Instead they waited for their false prophet to come and rescue them, for their golden hero, for their Tebow and the tragedy was that all along, their savior walked among them and they turned on him because he had a beard and long hair and he liked to sip on some wine. Fuck your Tebow. Give me Kyle Orton.



RAVEN: BEN ROETHLISBERGER
Popular consensus around the world is that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady would be the top QBs in the World, but as really any President since TV went color will show you, popular consensus is usually bullshit. Peyton Manning is a doofus who, outside of one Super Bowl run, has historically lost big games. And I will admit to the intrigue of picking Tom Brady as my man in this list. Brady is an attractive guy, with his longhair, the type of guy I could see having an affair with for financial reasons. I mean, I’m not bi-curious, even slightly, but really, he’s just such a wealthy and unblemished guy, why wouldn’t you want to stay in a secret condominium, cuddle up with the multi-millionaire QB every now and then without anyone knowing, curling up beside that lanky body, your nose tickled by those beautiful locks, smelling of lavender conditioning, feeling all tingly and happy and knowing he could sign you off a six-figure check and not even blink an eye.
But this is about the QB that best represents the Armchair Linebacker mentality, not creating fanfics about finding financial freedom through entertaining a non-threatening white penis every now and then. And for me, the football mentality is not about being marketable or attractive, because this site is not marketable or attractive. I am not marketable or attractive. I am rough as fuck, tend to do stupid things, and yet still I’m better than most of the shitty sports columnists that get actual American money to write about football. And throwing that all into the NFL roster machines, then for my lack of money, there is no better more superlative QB going than Ben Roethlisberger. Sure, he lost the Super Bowl, but he’s already won two. Sure he probably raped a chick, but he also had sex with a chick in the bathroom of a small town Georgia club. Sure, he’s well known to be a probable asshole in real life, but I’d bet he’s a more fun probably asshole than Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. Roethlisberger’s play is ugly, yet entertaining. It seems like it’s always about to breakdown, and then he finds someone open downfield, or he stagger stumbles 9 yards for a first down. He gets it done.
To put it more simply, whether we do this every year for the next forty, or this is the only time we compile one of these lists, the single QB criteria I will live by is the question of how would this guy compare up to Kenny Stabler’s autobiography? Peyton Manning is a corporate entity designed by Nascar. Tom Brady is a corporate entity designed by GQ. Ben Roethlisberger is no corporate entity, and gets drunk publicly and wrecks motorcycles without helmets. He gets suspended for allegedly enough raping a woman, and his team’s self-righteous owner is thinking of dumping him, and all Big Ben does is come back and kick ass with a smirky smile on his face, buy his O-line a round of drinks, making bank shots on 8 foot pool tables, taking pictures of titties, and living the good life of a real deal NFL QB, the way it should be, the way we all dream it when we are kids. We don’t dream of doing Visa commercials. We dream of living as proudly and irresponsibly as possible, and being successful with it. That is the American dream.

TOMORROW: Running Backs.