There's a very small roster of starting NFL quarterbacks who aren't actively hated by vast swaths of Football Internet. This roster expands and contracts every passing week, heaving inward and outward within the iron lung of immediate judgment, psycho-pop, and tastemaking dummies. Over the last year or so, I've considered the following quarterbacks to be in this club:
Russell Wilson
Matt Ryan
Drew Brees (strangely, because he's very good)
Matt Schaub
Jake Locker, maybe
Those guys don't elicit avalanches of hatred or mockery from Football Internet. The rest are too good (Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers), too pretty and good (Tom Brady), too tattooed (Colin Kaepernick), too Tony Romo/Jay Cutler (Tony Romo, Jay Cutler), too terrible (Blaine Gabbert), et cetera, et cetera.
Matt Schaub is perhaps the grand champion of the "not especially objectionable" set. For seven years he's quarterbacked the Texans, a team that nobody outside of their division really hates. He hasn't been especially mistake-prone or inconsistent, and year after year, he's performed well statistically.
and further down the article:
INTERNET SAYS THEY "SUCK" AND ARE RIGHT, IN TERMS OF THEIR CAREER STATISTICAL PERFORMANCE, THOUGH THAT'S AWFULLY CRUDE LANGUAGE
Blaine Gabbert
Christian Ponder
Sam Bradford
Jay Cutler
Alex Smith
Chad Henne
INTERNET COOLS IT ON SAYING THEY SUCK, AND RIGHTLY SO, BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD
Russell Wilson
Colin Kaepernick
Aaron Rodgers
THEY "SUCK" (AGAIN, SUCH A CRUDE THING TO SAY), BUT THE INTERNET KIND OF GIVES THEM A PASS, RELATIVELY SPEAKING OF COURSE
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Brandon Weeden
Josh Freeman
Ryan Tannehill
Matt Cassel
THEY ARE GOOD BUT THE INTERNET SAYS THEY SUCK
Tony Romo
Tom Brady
Michael Vick
Peyton Manning
Cam Newton
THEY ARE ROBERT GRIFFIN III, WHO HAS BEEN GOOD AND WHO THE INTERNET LOATHES WITH THE HEAT OF A BILLION SUNS
Robert Griffin III
RGIII's position on this chart is quite lonely, and I think we can credit a lot of that to the simple fact that he's talked about a whole lot. He has tons of fans and tons of ... people who say he sucks.
The Quarterback Hate Index places Schaub, Carson Palmer and Matt Stafford as the standard-bearers of the norm. We in Football Internet are an especially mean and crabby sort, and if he doesn't watch out, Schaub may veer outside the tranquil eye of the Internet hate-icane. Since, you know, he even cares.
