Gannon can relate to sideline incidents with coaches

Personally, I think the whole Favre-Childress issue is one of the most overblown stories of the year. Players and coaches communicate. Sometimes, they yell. Sometimes, they bicker back and forth. Throw in the stress of game day and the emotions of an NFL sideline, and not every conversation is going to conducted in a golf announcer's voice.

But what do I know. I still don't tweet.

So I thought I'd offer some of the thoughts of Rich Gannon, a guy who knows a lot about playing quarterback at the NFL level, and even won an MVP while doing so.

I was talking to Rich for a story I'm working on about quarterbacks. Naturally, with the Favre-Childress issue on an endless loop on ESPN, I asked Rich whether he thought there would be any lingering affects from whatever happened between the two on the sideline Sunday night in Carolina.

"I don't think that this will be an issue," Gannon said. "I think Brad is a sharp guy, and so is Brett. I think they'll talk about it and move on. I don't think anybody is trying to undermine anybody else's authority. It just gets this way sometimes."

That was Tuesday night. By Wednesday, Childress and Favre were telling us they've moved on. It turns out Gannon had his own tale about a sideline spat with a head coach. It came during the fifth game of the 2000 season. He was playing for the Raiders and Jon Gruden was the coach. Gannon was getting beat up pretty good in a back-and-forth game against the 49ers at home. The Raiders eventually won the game 34-28 to improve to 4-1. "Gruden came to me in the second quarter and said, `I'm thinking of putting Bobby Hoying in. You're getting beat up pretty bad,'" Gannon said. "I about had a seizure on the sideline. It's not what you want to hear because as a quarterback, you fight and you play and you dig and you grind for so long. You have more invested than probably anybody else on the team because of the time in terms of preparation and the offseason and all it takes in quarterback schools and OTAs and minicamps and all the film you watch during the week. "Playing that position, you probably watch twice, if not three or four times the amount of film than anyone else in the building. For the coach to go up to you and say, `I'm going to make a change," that's the last thing you ever want to hear as a quarterback. I think it's a very sensitive issue for a lot of quarterbacks, particularly quarterbacks who hold every passing record in the league and are 40 years old." Gannon said he remembers it being a national game with extra cameras. Naturally, his tirade was caught on tape and shown over and over. "Jon just said `Hey, I'm thinking of ...' I don't know if he was using it as motivation or what, but, honestly, it became an ugly scene on the sideline. I think it was a national game. Cameras were all over it and it didn't look good. Afterward, it was fodder for the media and it was not good. You hope to avoid those things, but stuff happens during the course of a game and the sidelines are an emotional place. "A lot is going on. We always said, `What's said on the sideline stays on the sideline.'" I asked Gannon why he became so angry if all Gruden said was, "I'm thinking of taking you out." "Brad's a smart guy, but if you go to a guy and say, `I'm thinking of doing this,' it's no different than saying, `You know, I'm thinking about asking your wife out.' You know what I mean? Why even say it? If someone said that to me, I wouldn't be happy. But Brad was probably looking at the long-term picture. Saying worst-case scenario, I don't want to get my quarterback hurt and maybe done for the year." Gannon said his long history with being benched in Minnesota and Kansas City added to his reaction to Gruden's comment. "I don't think he realized that I was going to be as volatile as I was. It was not good. But I had some past scars. I got jerked around by a guy, Denny Green, in Minnesota that one year that was unfathomable. We were 8-3 and he sat me down. We go to the playoffs and he puts Sean Salisbury in there. And it was just a disaster, and we had a chance to do something special that year. You never forgot those things because you don't get a lot of opportunities in this business to play in a playoff game at home. "And I went through it twice in Kansas City. We were 13-3 twice. We had homefield advantage and a bye throughout the playoffs, and we had one of the best defenses in football. And Steve Bono starts the game and he plays horrible the first year, in 1995. And in 1997, I started the last seven games of the year and then Marty [Schottenheimer] decides in his infinite wisdom to start Elvis Grbac. And he's not even physically well enough to play in the game in terms of his conditioning and we lose to Denver at home. ... You don't forget stuff like that." Gannon also talked about how Favre isn't the only future Hall of Famer who doesn't want to come off the field. "I did a Colts game when they were 11-0 this year," Gannon said. "Up until that point, Peyton had played 187 games. He had taken every snap in 159 of the 187 games. That was 11,314 out of a possible 11,691 snaps in his 12-year career. So people are now talking about, `Is Jim Caldwell going to rest Peyton Manning the last two weeks?' "First of all, this consecutive starts thing is important to Peyton. So he will start the games. Not only that, Jim Caldwell will have a hell of a time getting him out of the game. This is what these guys do. They play to win, but they play because it's important to them. These guys, Manning and Favre, they're playing for history. They're legends. It's important to them. They love it. That's who they are. "They put so much preparation in, they want to play. That's what people don't understand. If you ask the players in New Orleans or the players in Indianapolis, `Should we rest you?' Heck no, they don't want to rest. They want to play."