SoCal Pat Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 In the San Francisco game, Bledsoe was pulled once we were up 27-0 early in the fourth quarter. Shane Mathews entered and threw a TD pass to Lee Evans. Then Losman finished up. I was under the belief that the only way the No. 3 QB could enter the game was if both Nos. 1 and 2 got hurt. Can anyone clear this up for me, or if there are any rules designating how many QBs a team can use in a game, or when they can't re-enter the game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gross Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 The rule states that once the #3 goes in, the #1 and #2 cannot go back in, with the exception of the 4th Q. If you wait until then to put the #3 QB in, then the #1/#2 QB's can return. So they always waited until the 4th Q to put Losman in.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 The NFL does not want to insert itself into questions as to whether an injury is fake or real and is also pretty reluctant for liability reasons to write a rule which might be interpeted as forcing a team to play an injured player. They seem to take the approach to leave judgments about who is injured, how badly, and who is not up to the individual teams and write rules which are necesarry for the game to function smoothly to leave the call to the teams and merely force them to deal with the implications of their decision. Thus, the teams are limited to having two active QBs and one as a reserve who can come in only if the two QBs are injured. If they play this reserve QB, then one and only one of the regular QBs can come back into the game during the 4th quarter. The 2 QB rule has some cost containment advantages to it as QB salary hits can be quite high and if teams hired 3 QBs on an even footing for playing the position would take up an even more inordinate percentage of the team's cap budget. Thus the league has become very comfortable with taking a stance which allows for some salary cap allocation control but also allows for protection from unjury of players. This is my understaming of the rule which tracks the posts above and the rationale behind it which is new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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