It’s obvious that Jason Campbell is not the same as Jay Cutler.
But Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall challenged people to look beyond the easy stereotypes when describing them.
“Jason’s black and Jay’s white,” Marshall began, via John Mullin of CSNChicago.com, before making his larger point.
“You know what, it’s the opposite,” Marshall said. “You would think Campbell would be like [Michael] Vick. But ‘J-Cut’ is like Vick, and Jason is more of a pocket guy, I would say. Cut likes to run around a little bit, so that’s a little opposite.
“But because of the picture we paint on black quarterbacks, it’s supposed to be a guy who runs around a lot, but Jason does a good job in the pocket, really reading coverage, really taking control of the offense.”
Marshall hits on a pet peeve, in that many people only compare quarterbacks to other quarterbacks whom they look like.
Cam Newton was much more like Ben Roethlisberger coming out of college than he was Vick, and Robert Griffin III wasn’t similar to Newton, other than having won Heisman Trophies.
With a little luck, one day everyone can be as open-minded in their comparisons as Marshall is, and we can stop attach the buzzwords like “athletic” and “cerebral” to one kind of player or another.
