Every Quarterback Can Be a Game Manager If You Believe Hard Enough

We've seen enough. Hell, we saw enough a long time ago. The Game Manager Discourse has burned so brightly that it's now exploded. In its wake it leaves a meaningless path of podcast and television segments that were both profoundly uninteresting and doomed to swing violently based on the last 60 minutes of football we've seen from the quarterback in question. It's honestly amazing and depressing to see a person forced to discuss the term and how it may or may not apply to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy for weeks on end.

That's how it gets to the point where Skip Bayless can explain Patrick Mahomes is actually the Game Manager playing in Super Bowl LVIII. Which he did on Undisputed this morning.

Tip of the cap to Bayless for always finding a way to get back into the conversation. We're not even mad. Because his commentary highlights just how meaningless the whole debate is. Everyone has a different interpretation of game manager. For some it's a pejorative. For others it's just a statement of fact that a player is doing what he needs to do for his team to win. They'd argue that's the entire point of the job and the point of sports.

Down at the core, though, who really cares? That's a sincere question. Purdy is playing in the Super Bowl. He could have played in last year's as well if he hadn't gotten hurt. He's a fantastic quarterback for the team he's on. What does comparing him to other signal-callers who are in disparate situations actually tell us? It's looking at an apple and wondering why it can't be more like an orange.

Someone important needs to bring this up at the next NFL media editorial meeting. Please offer a plea for sanity.