Keeping Four QBs?

Interesting news out of Miami Dolphins camp today, Coach Tony Sparano remarked that the team may consider keeping all four quarterbacks currently in camp. This can accurately be described as baffling news. Few if any teams ever decide to carry four quarterbacks, most teams carry three. It is becoming more and more clear with each passing day that Chad Pennington and Chad Henne are going to be the current and future leaders of the Dolphins offense.

In practice on Tuesday, Pennington and Henne dominated the snaps during team drills. Pennington took 33 snaps, and the remaining 25 snaps went to Henne. John Beck and Josh McCown had 0 snaps between them. When the season rolls around, typical practices see the starter take 85% of the snaps in practice, and the back up taking the remaining 15%. Typically the third string quarterback is given snaps with the scout team, which are usually few to begin with and would become almost irrelevant when splitting them between two quarterbacks.

Perhaps most puzzling is the fact that a team not afraid to part ways with players, especially star players as of late, would consider keeping four quarterbacks. This offseason has seen Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor leave the Dolphins after several years of Pro Bowl service. Last season Chris Chambers was traded away, so why the indecision on whether to carry three or four quarterbacks? If the discussion involved Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, and Vince Young all on the same team, I could understand the difficulty. However, we’re not talking about four Pro Bowl quarterbacks. It is clear Pennington and Henne are here to stay, now the decision is whether to cut McCown or Beck. Looking at the problem simply, Beck and McCown have roughly the same skill level, Beck however is much younger and has a lot more room for growth. Sounds to me like McCown should prepare for the worst.