Is the chucklehead yokel persona all an act?
My guess is it’s a little bit of both. He doesn’t strike me as a brain trust, but he’s a lot smarter than some of the characters he’s played in movies. Of course, the players on his offense were among the best in their decade and they were backed by one of the best defenses of all time, so he had plenty of help. But watching him lead his teams to super bowls was pretty spectacular and he certainly deserved his share of the credit. It was a little more than ‘let’s fling it to Swann and Stallworth and handoff to Franco every other down’.
But I do get a little tired sometimes of his good-ole-boy persona during the round-table discussions in the studio.
One former competitor once remarked of Braqdshaw, “He couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the c and the t.”
er, that would be Bradshaw.
er, that would be Bradshaw.
Saw him trying to match wits with Leno one time. Realizing Jay was making him look silly (and it took a long time for that fact to sink in), Bradshaw accused him of having the writers make up all his jokes beforehand. Since Jay had been playing directly off of Bradshaw’s conversation the whole time, this only made him look sillier. Was funny at first, then it just became sad, after a while.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said on this topic before.
When Terry Bradshaw was a player, he endured a lot of jokes about how stupid he was, what an ignorant rube he was, and he was VERY sensitive about that. So sensitive that, whenever he was interviewed on TV, he worked very hard to tone down his Southern accent and to give thoughtful articulate answers to all questions.
Based on what I saw of him in those days, my sense is, he’s not an intellectual, but he’s quite bright. I have no doubt he could carry on an intelligent conversation with you on a wide variety of subjects.
But a funny thing happens after a man wins 4 Super Bowl rings- he no longer has to care much what strangers think of him! And when Bradshaw became a TV commentator, I think he figured quickly that sportscasting is, first and foremost, show biz! It’s not enough to offer informed, intelligent commentary on football. A commentator has to be an entertainer. So, Bradshaw decided that he no longer had to worry about sounding too Southern or too “dumb.” Instead, he started EMBRACING all the Southern, corn-pone mannerisms and expressions that he’d once worked so hard to avaoid.
I think he made a consious decision to play the hick, to become the new Don Meredith, while he’s on the air. I’d be willing to bet that he drops that “Hee Haw” schtick the moment the cameras stop rolling.
Old anecdote to illustrate a point. Back in the 1950’s, jokes about Mickey Mantle’ssupposedly low IQ were as plentiful as jokes about BRadshaw’s stupidity were in the 1970’s. One time, a bunch of the Brooklyn Dodgers were swapping stories about what a dumb yokel Mantle was. Supposedly, Jackie Robinson heard one such story and scoffed, “Shit, we got lots of guys as dumb as Mantle. We just don’t have anybody as good.”
Pat Haden was a Rhodes Scholar- you really think HE could’ve stepped in and done what Bradshaw did? Think again. The Steelers defense deserves almost all the credit for their first Super Bowl win, and most of the credit for their second. But the third and fourth Super Bowls were won by Terry Bradshaw. He beat the Rams and Cowboys by passing, even when the overrated, over-the-hill Steel Curtain defense was letting Roger Staubach and Wendell Tyler tear them apart.
for the amount of money Bradshaw makes, you could paint me blue, call me an asshat and make me the butt of every joke.
I would laugh all the way to the bank.
Bradshaw strikes me as maybe not a Nobel prize winner, but a guy that does an awful lot with what he has. A lot like Sonny Bono in this regard
I believe that Bradshaw also suffers from clinical depression and speaks out now about its effect on him as a broadcaster and how it affected him as a player.
I guess I’m missing something here. But exactly when did playing football require great mental skills. Don’t get me wrong. The guy was a great athelete and terrific QB. I hated his ass for years.
But brains…not really necessary. He had a great team, great coaches, experience, talent and good instincts for the game. He memorized a bunch of plays and ran them until they were second nature. When a play got busted up he just fought for his life. Sometimes he got lucky and sometimes not. More often than not, damn him. 
He wasn’t a one man team BTW. Seems like they had a pretty good defense as well.
On top of all that, I think he puts on a lot of it as well.
Makes me think of Danny White. He had to be the dumbest SOB to ever hold a pigskin. Then again, I may be a little biased.
That’d make a good thread. Who’s the stupidest fucking quarterback EVER? Why?
Poor Danny White. Cowboys fans were ALWAYS looking to replace him, when the fact is, he CARRIED that team on his back for years, after Tom Landry’s Flex defense had ceased to work.
Say Cowboy fans, did Gary Hogeboom or Steve Pelleuer ever amount to anything? Of course not! But you’ll NEVER hear a Cowboy fan admit that he was ridiculously wrong to insist that both of those guys were far better than Danny White.
As a big Niner fan, I can share that Joe Montana is generally held to be a bit of a moron. The general consensus was that he was super football smart and competitive, coupled with being dumb enough to shake off the last bad play and just stay focused on the next.
During the big Drive during the Super Bowl when they beat the Bengals, there is the legendary moment when the team is huddling up, everybody is nervous and Montana comes in after receiving the play from sidelines and says “hey, look, did you see John Candy in the crowd over there?” That anecdote has been alternately used to show how cool he was under pressure and how clueless he was…
I disagree. Most positions in football might not require a lot of thought or creativity - they’re much more dependent on talent and physicality - but quarterback isn’t one of them. You have to be able to read defenses in a nanosecond. You have to be able to think strategically (even if the coach is calling all of the plays, you have to know how to make adjustments at the line of scrimmage).
A QB has to think on his feet, and you can’t be a complete idiot and accomplish that. In fact, in the NFL you’d probably be flattened pretty quickly if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do next.
What I can’t figure out is how he acts toward Jillian Barbarie or whatever her name is… the weathergal. Is he that darn clumsy at flirting?
Make no mistake, quarterbacks (most especially those in the “olden days”) can’t afford to be slow on the uptake. Think about it - Bradshaw played “back in the day” when quarterbacks called their own plays. All of them. None of this offensive coordinator stuff. So obviously Bradshaw was bright enough to know which plays to run at what times depending on the success of former plays and the general status of the game at that time.
Now, it’s easy for armchair quarterbacks like you or I to try to call plays while watching the game, but it’s entirely another to be there and call these same plays while 250-300 pound defenders are looking to rip your head off. And do it for a good portion of 60 minutes.
Cut him some slack - he’s a good guy (although the aw shucks bit does wear thin). That interview with Brett Favre proves it.
Snicks
Tell you one thing, though, I think he’s wayyyyy smarter than Mr. Spurrier.
Nobody’s saying Bradshaw is retarded, though, they’re just saying he seems like a rube and a little dull. I see no evidence that being a quarterback requires an unusually high IQ, or that a dull IQ would preclude you from being a quarterback. It’s not brain surgery.
I don’t see anyone suggesting that you have to be bright to be an auto mechanic, truck driver, or ISO 9000 auditor, but all those jobs are every bit as complex, if not more so, as being a quarterback.
I am disagreeing with the notion that being a quarterback takes no great mental skills.
Such occupations as mechanic and truck driver are irrelevant to this notion and my disagreement with it.
Quarterbacking an NFL team is not something that is done by rote, as has been mentioned in this thread. It is certainly something that takes some amount of mental acuity, certainly more than any other position on the field.
I think part of it is an act. I don’t think he’s the smartest guy alive, but he’s smart enough to know that his act will resonate with the country folk from back home. There must be more people that like his down-home, country style than people that don’t like it. Think about his audience; what would the target audience for the Fox pre-game think in response to his Toby Keith-esque “We’re a-comin’ for you Osama, yeeeee-haw!”? I’m more of the viewers were nodding in agreement than there were shaking their heads. When this bit was replayed on The Daily Show the categories were probably reversed, with most of the audience shaking their heads.
While it is true that QBs called their own plays back in the day, the playbooks were not nearly as complex as they are today. Now playbooks rival the city’s phonebook in size. Not the case in the 70’s.
He did go to Notre Dame, after all.
BCS stands for (illegitimate child) + (crowing rooster) + (Tootsie Pops)