# Question for Monday morning quarterbacks **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 26, 2005, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-monday-morning-quarterbacks/332781 "2005-11-26T05:16:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-monday-morning-quarterbacks/332781/21 "2005-11-27T23:12:39Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Face it, folks. If you had ever been good enough at any sport to make the pros, scouts would have been sniffing your tracks. Most athletes who get invited to try out for the pros don’t make the cut. Of those who get to training camp, thousands are washed out and don’t make the team. Many more are let go as rookies. > > If you were really good enough, you’d be playing or coaching. You’re not. You are entitled to groan when something goes wrong on the field; everybody is. If you have never been a pro, though, your criticism carries no weight. You are a piker, like the rest of us. Dude, did you even read the OP? Apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-monday-morning-quarterbacks/332781/22 "2005-11-28T02:54:09Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Face it, folks. If you had ever been good enough at any sport to make the pros, scouts would have been sniffing your tracks. Most athletes who get invited to try out for the pros don’t make the cut. Of those who get to training camp, thousands are washed out and don’t make the team. Many more are let go as rookies. > > If you were really good enough, you’d be playing or coaching. You’re not. You are entitled to groan when something goes wrong on the field; everybody is. If you have never been a pro, though, your criticism carries no weight. You are a piker, like the rest of us. As General Giap would have said, “That is true but irrelevant.” Practically NONE of us fans is as good an athlete as the 48th player on the Houston Texans’ roster. The worst players in the NBA and the NHL are, obviously, superb athletes. WAY better than I could ever dream of being. So, if you hear a guy on the next barstool say something like “I could cover receivers as well as that stiff Jason Sehorn” or “I could last longer with Mike Tyson than Marvis Frazier did,” even that fan surely knows what he’s saying isn’t literally true. But so what? Do I have to be a guitar virtuoso before I can say that a band sucks? Do I have to be a West Point graduate to offer an opinion on the President’s handling of the Gulf War? Are only published novelists entitled to offer an opinion about literature? Obviously not. Look, Heath Shuler and Akili Smith were undoubtedly superb athletes, but they were HORRIBLE pro quarterbacks, and I have every right to say so. The fact that I couldn’t do nearly as well as they did is beside the point. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-monday-morning-quarterbacks/332781/23 "2005-11-28T16:20:41Z")
As I look back on my previous post, I regret all of it. If you’d like to throw any further rocks at it, I won’t disagree with you. Sorry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-monday-morning-quarterbacks/332781.md?page=1)