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Sunday, August 27, 2000 By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
There's an old saying in football that if you have two starting quarterbacks, you really don't have any at all.
Coach Bill Cowher, unable or unwilling to settle on either Kordell Stewart or Kent Graham, will go with both of them.
Maybe he will choose one based on how many left-handers the opposing team packs into its lineup that day. Or, whether the wind is blowing in. Or how each practices that week.
Whatever the scenario -- and Cowher said he does not know the scenarios right now -- it is a rare occurrence in the NFL.
"Well, it will be new to me," said Graham, who is with his fourth NFL team in nine years. "I'm just going to try to do the best we can with it.
"Kordell and I have talked about it. Whatever the situation is, we're going to try make the best of it, be unselfish and go out there and be team people. That's the way I'm going to approach it. Obviously, Coach feels like it's something he wants to do and we'll have to go with it."
It's not unprecedented, although a pronouncement such as Cowher's before the season is unusual. Coach Chuck Noll took the approach in 1974, when he began the season with Joe Gilliam as his starter and switched to Terry Bradshaw and Terry Hanratty.
The Steelers won their first Super Bowl that season.
There have been many examples in NFL history of coaches bouncing between quarterbacks. Cowher, unsure about who he wanted as his starter after training camp in 1996, selected Jim Miller and then yanked him in the third quarter of the opener in favor of Mike Tomczak. Tomczak started the rest of the way, but he inserted Stewart at quarterback in short-yardage situations and replaced Tomczak with Stewart in the middle of a playoff game in New England that year.
But two quarterbacks sharing the position is not only rare, but it also has rarely yielded much success.
Both quarterbacks, at least for now, have pledged cooperation.
"You can't read anything into it," said Stewart, the starter the past three seasons. "You just have to go about your way, prepare yourself and know your opportunity can be this week, next week, the following week. I've never dealt with it in that fashion, but I guess you have to. You have to respect it.
"Like he's always said, he's going to do what's in the best interest of this team and not one individual and go from there."
Cowher sounded as if he had not yet developed a plan how to use the two quarterbacks and when after the Steelers' 17-10 loss in Washington in the final exhibition game Friday night.
"I'm going to take an approach where there's nothing premeditated or preconceived thoughts going in. I'm going to utilize those quarterbacks as I feel is in the best interests of this football team, and I don't know how it's going to unfold.
"You can say whatever you want to say. I'm just going to tell you, plain and simple, that's what my feelings are going in. I'm not going to answer any more questions, if you start talking about scenarios. I don't know what the scenarios are.
"Conventional wisdom says pick one and this is not a conventional situation."
It is not conventional because Stewart has played poorly the past two seasons, and he did little this summer to make anyone think he is ready to turn it around. Graham outplayed him but not clearly enough to beat him out, at least in Cowher's mind.
Graham, in five preseason games, completed 31 of 57 passes for 334 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. His passer rating is 82.1. Stewart completed 19 of 55 passes for 238 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions and a 39.8 passer rating.
They have widely different styles. Graham is a pure pocket passer, who does not run well. Stewart can help a team with his legs and, despite the past two seasons, threw well in 1997. Perhaps this is Cowher's way to ease Stewart back to a Slash role.
"Truthfully," Stewart said, "if you look at the numbers, Kent had better numbers. But we can go and list who we were with, playing second team, first team. You have all your starters, things of that nature.
"But like coach said, we both have something to offer in this offense. Is it going to be in a position where we're going to have a rhythm going? You just have to get in there and make it happen when your number's called. That's the only thing I'm concerned about."
Practices can be another thing. Who starts out, who gets more repetitions, who runs the scout team? With young receivers everywhere, how do they build a rapport with them?
"It's something, maybe myself, I haven't been around," said wide receiver Courtney Hawkins, in his ninth NFL season. "In practice, the guys split the reps. We get an opportunity to practice with both guys. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't wait until like Saturday morning to say who's going to start. We'll know all week and have time to adjust. And whoever he's going to name the starter that week will probably get the majority of the reps.
"I don't see it being a problem, just hopefully, both guys can handle it, and if it's not your week, don't go in the tank. Just continue to work hard and prepare yourself and maybe you'll be in next week."
Cowher has the support of team president Dan Rooney, who said Friday that "it's an experiment worth considering." Rooney suggested that switching between the two during games would be acceptable.
The pressure on each quarterback will be greater to perform well quickly or risk getting yanked.
"It's going to be different," Graham said. "I think we'll just have to go out and play as free as we can and try not to worry about what possibly could happen and whether you can accomplish that. We're going to have to do that.
"I think we have the people here to get the job done, and so I have a lot of confidence in what we can do offensively."
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