For as long as I’ve followed tackle football, I’ve heard about quarterback duels.
Truth is, they don’t exist.
I suppose if Birmingham’s Alex McGough and New Orleans’ McLeod Bethel-Thompson had spent Saturday afternoon firing tight spirals at each other’s heads it would’ve qualified, but that’s not how the sport works.
Nope, the QBs were dueling with opposing defenses, not each other.
But a quarterback duet?
That makes more sense.
A duet is simply “a performance by two people,” and a pair of quality USFL quarterbacks shared the synthetic turf stage at Protective Stadium today – although they were slinging instead of singing. Their goal, of course, was to play winning ball for their respective teams while putting on a show for fans in the stands (and potatoes on coaches).
Bethel-Thompson got to stay around for the encore thanks to the Breakers’ 45-31 victory over the Stallions.
Leading up to the South Division matchup between the clubs, I was intrigued by the signal callers’ contrast in styles – and experience.
As I wrote before the USFL ever played a down in 2022, it’s a league that features young Steves instead of Steve Youngs. At 27, McGough (6-3, 214 lbs.) is still a young ‘un in quarterback years (the average age for a National Football League starter is 32). In fact, after a few stints on NFL practice squads (and a brief active roster spot with the Houston Texans), it wasn’t until he suited up for the Stallions that he was able to throw his first official pass as a pro football player.
He also loves to tuck and run, much to the horror of his coach and delight of Birmingham fans (except when he had to exit the game briefly in the first half after taking a particularly hard hit).
Bethel-Thompson (6-4, 220 lbs.) is an anomaly in this league. Not only is the guy 34 years old, has a pair of Grey Cup championships under his belt and played on 10 different teams across the NFL, CFL, United Football League, Arena Football League and USFL, but he’s been making money from the sport he loves for 13 years.
He’s been there, done that, got the scar tissue.
When Bethel-Thompson first started playing for pay, McGough was merely 14 and simply playing to play.
Yet, while there are some notable dissimilarities (the older guy has a magnificent beard, the younger guy has magnificent tattoos, for example) they both want back in the NFL.
And this afternoon, they both played like they were determined to get there.
In the first half McGough had a part in all but 10 of his team’s total offensive yards, going 9-17-1 for 153 yards and a TD.
By day’s end he was 17-26-1 passing for 238 yards and two touchdowns despite taking a pounding in the process.; the total offensive output by his team was only 253 yards
“I thought Alex played a heckuva football game,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said. “I think he’s dialed in. Ever since he took over the reins, I think he’s seeing the field and he’s throwing the ball extremely accurate. He made one mental mistake today when he threw the interception but other than that, I don’t know that we can ask a whole lot more out of him.”
Bethel-Thompson was even more impressive over the first two quarters, going 12-18-1 for 183 yards and two TDs.
Once the final horn sounded, he had completed 20 of 28 passes for 283 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
But man, did he ever have some help.
New Orleans racked up 483 total yards, and running back Wes Hills got 191 of them.
That formed another duet entirely, and allowed QB1 to cheerfully step out of the spotlight for several plays.
“It makes everything easier with a running game,” Bethel-Thompson said. “The pocket’s bigger, and you’re looking at second and five instead of second and 10 or 11, so having a running game like this is like a huge breath of fresh air. The impact on the team is huge, and you can see the result on the scoreboard.”
So, in Saturday’s quarterback duet, not everyone felt happy when the performance ended.
But thanks to a combined five touchdowns and 521 yards, I’ll bet they felt entertained.