The Younger The Better

Matt Saracen Knows About Being QB1

Aside from the replacement referee dilemma, the most interesting thing about this NFL preseason has been all of the quarterback competitions going on in many camps. Many teams are caught in between picking a guy with experience or going with a guy they recently drafted. Guys like Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III are rookies, but don't have anyone competing with them for the job and have walked into camp as the starter. Elsewhere, it is now starting to creep closer and closer to the regular season, and many coaches are also deciding to take a shot with the young guns.

Miami Dolphins: This competition is an interesting one for two reasons. One, it involves last season's starter Matt Moore, a proven quarterback David Garrard and a top 10 pick in this year's draft Ryan Tannehill. The other interesting thing about this battle, is that you can actually watch it go on each week on HBO's "Hard Knocks." Along with many other people across America, I also watch this show, and in the latest episode coach Joe Philbin named the rookie Tannehill the starter. This wasn't too much of a shock being that Garrard got hurt, taking him out of the running, but Moore made it very hard for Philbin. Moore knows the guys in the locker room, they respect him, and he has the experience factor. Even with all of those things, Tannehill has shown enough to be named starter and will now have to hit the ground running in week 1.

Tennessee Titans: The Titans also recently named their starter this past week. Their competition was between a former Super Bowl quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and a top 10 pick in last year's draft Jake Locker. This doesn't seem like a terrible problem to have, on one hand you have a winner and on the other you have a guy with a huge upside waiting in the wings. And once again, the younger of the two was named the starter. Locker steps in with way more weapons than Tannehill in Miami, but stud wideout Kenny Britt is coming off of knee surgery. Either way, running back Chris Johnson will take a ton of pressure off of Locker, who can really sling it.

Cleveland Browns: This quarterback dilemma was probably the weirdest one out of the bunch simply because the rookie they drafted is actually older than the veteran on their team. Brandon Weeden is a 28 year old rookie out of Oklahoma State that threw for almost 5,000 yards last season. The reasoning behind his obscure situation is he was drafted to the MLB and failed to make his way through the ranks to the majors and gave it up to pursue his football career. Colt McCoy had been the starter for the Browns for the past season and a half but never really did anything specia. Despite McCoy being only 25 years old, the Browns are already going in a new direction with Weeden. I guess Weeden is the older option here but the Browns are still going with the rookie and unexperienced option.

Seattle Seahawks: The Seahawks are still yet to name their week 1 starter, but rookie Russell Wilson has impressed coach Pete Carroll so much that he has earned himself the starting job in this week's upcoming preseason game. That being said, newly signed QB Matt Flynn is not out of the running, and this may be an attempt to see Wilson with the first team for once. I expect the highly paid Flynn to win this job back before week 1.

Arizona Cardinals: Poor Kevin Kolb. The guy gets traded to a team with the chance to be the franchise guy and got paid a ton of money but has totally underachieved. Now the younger option and more successful John Skelton, who took the job from Kolb last season, looks like he will fully take control of the team come week 1. Either way both haven't done enough to officially be named starter, but Kolb never impresses when put on the spot.