Daily Madden: A Bad Week For Quarterbacks
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - The Steelers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 16-13 in overtime in Pittsburgh Monday night, but lost quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to a shoulder injury in the third quarter.
Quarterbacks Jay Cutler of the Bears, Michael Vick of the Eagles and Alex Smith of the 49ers were all knocked out of their games Sunday with concussions.
"That was a bad week for quarterbacks," John Madden told the KCBS morning crew. "(With) 32 teams in the league, there are not enough quarterbacks to go around, to have one good starting quarterback at every team. And when you start to lose them like that, and losing good quarterbacks, that has to affect the league and the quality of the play within the league."
In San Francisco's tie game against the Rams, Smith threw a touchdown with blurry vision after suffering the concussion. John said that demonstrates a problem with the NFL concussion protocol.
"We always assume that after a guy takes a hit that he's on the sideline... But the one that you have trouble with is where it's first or second down and the guy goes back to the huddle and stays there. That happened to Michael Vick, that happened to Jay Cutler and that happened to Alex Smith, where it was a first or second down. So there's no way to check them unless you take a time-out." (8:05)
Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All News 740 AM/106.9 FM. And catch John's extra report at 9:15 a.m. Mondays and Fridays during the NFL season.
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