Jeff Blake's Pigskin Leadership Questioned in News

The pigskin scribes in the Chicago press has been all over Jeff Blake, saying that in the past he had a reported "me-first" attitude. They consistently bring up the fact that in 2003 in Arizona, Blake's Cardinal teammates nicknamed him "Leon," as the Leon in the Budweiser commercials who would said things like, "There's no "I" in "Team," but there ain't no "we" neither."

That's not the Jeff Blake I remember. I remember a Jeff Blake who rode in a white horse in Cincinnati in 1994 when all hope was lost. He found success throwing bombs to Carl Pickens and leading what was a terrible offense for two or three years. I remember a Jeff Blake who was constantly taken out of a starting role by Bengal management, either by Boomer Esiason, Neil O'Donnell, and Akili Smith, finally replacing him with, of all people, Scott Mitchell. The Bengals were bad in the 1990s. But Blake handled it all with a lot more grace than he should have.

In 2000, Blake took a bad New Orleans team to the brink of the playoffs, before getting hurt and being replaced forever by Aaron Brooks. Blake sort of helped salvage Baltimore's 2002 season. Baltimore wanted to re-sign Blake, but Blake felt low-balled by the figure. Maybe things weren't left in that great of a situation in Baltimore, but Jeff wasn't really that bad about it. And the situation deteriorated it seems to me because Balitmore wanted Jeff back so badly but were unwilling to pay him a starter's salary.

Blake shopped around and ended up in Arizona for the 2003 season. Arizona was trying to replace Jake Plummer.

Below is Blake's 2003 season:

Name G CMP ATT PCT YARD Y/A TD IN
Jeff Blake 13 208 367 56.7 2247 6.1 13 15

And here is Plummer's 2002 season:

Name G CMP ATT PCT YARD Y/A TD IN
Jake Plummer 16 284 530 53.6 2972 5.6 18 20

Add in three more games, and Blake's numbers may have been near identical to Plummer's. Blake's coach in Arizona, Dave McGinnis, was reportedly happy with Blake as his quarterback. Plummer is making a lot more money than Jeff Blake is right now.

Last year, Blake was Philadelphia's third-string quarterback, and, now, he's Chicago's third-string QB. Is Jeff Blake a me-first player? I don't' think he is. I think he is a confident and maybe cocky player who thinks he can play in the NFL and win games. I think that is probably what the Bears really need right now.

thankyouverymuch,

Old Cleat