KOJO NNAMDIWelcome back. In his new book, "Quarterback," local sportswriter John Feinstein writes, quoting here, "There is no position in sports that is more glamorous, more lucrative, more visible, more high-risk than being a starting quarterback." Since the role has been the focal point for new viewers and longtime football fans, what can we learn from them and from local quarterbacks past and present? Joining us now to discuss this is, I described him as a local sportswriter, that's because he lives here, but he writes about sports nationally and sometimes all over the world. John Feinstein, good to see you.

JOHN FEINSTEINKojo, good to be back. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments for John Feinstein, give us a call: 800-433-8850. Do you think the attention on quarterbacks is misplaced? Make a case for your favorite local quarterback: 800-433-8850. Send us a Tweet @KojoShow or email to kojo@wamu.org. The stock in an NFL team seems to rise and fall with the help and performance of their starting quarterbacks. Is all this attention on one player in a team sport valid?

FEINSTEINIt is, because the quarterback -- remember, on every single play on offense, the quarterback touches the ball. And he has to make all sorts of pre-snap decisions. He has to make decisions once the ball is snapped. He has to make all these decision usually while there are very large men bearing down on him with intent to hurt. And if you look historically, especially nowadays, with the rules that are so geared to the offense, if you don't have a topflight quarterback, you are unlikely to advance to the playoffs, and certainly not likely to advance deep into the playoffs.

FEINSTEINWhat Nick Foles did last year coming in for Carson Wentz after he was injured in Philadelphia was miraculous, but you have to remember, Foles had been a successful starting quarterback in the NFL before Wentz's injury occurred. So, he had the experience to come in with a team that had a great defense and win the Super Bowl. That was the outlier. If you look at the four teams still playing this coming weekend, Drew Brees is going to be in the Hall of Fame. Tom Brady's going to be in the Hall of Fame. Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goth, the two young quarterbacks, may very well be in the Hall of Fame someday. And those are the four teams still playing.

NNAMDIIn your latest book, you profile five NFL quarterbacks, three of them essentially local: The Redskins' Alex Smith, the Ravens' Joe Flacco, and now retired Doug Williams of the Washington Redskins. What drew you to those five players, in particular?

FEINSTEINWell, I can honestly say...

NNAMDIApart from the fact that they were willing to tolerate you (laugh) ?

FEINSTEINWell, and that's the major thing, Kojo, that I need people who are willing to tolerate me. And that's the right word, because I ask for a lot of time, and I ask a lot of questions that I think aren't normally asked to athletes. Because when you're doing books like this, detail is vital, and background and inside information is vital. That's what I've done, I think, in all 40 of my books. So, it had nothing -- the location was coincidental. Obviously, Alex Smith was playing in Kansas City when I was researching this book last season. I had no idea he would end up in Washington.

FEINSTEINJoe Flacco I had known for years, because I do have an association with the Ravens dating back to a book I did on their team 14 years ago. And Doug Williams I asked because I've known Doug -- I hate to date myself this way -- since he was a rookie in Tampa. And the funny story about that is back then, in 1978, an African American starting quarterback in the NFL was...

NNAMDI(overlapping) Was rare.

FEINSTEIN...a big deal. He was a news story. And Doug was the first African American quarterback ever drafted in the first round of the NFL draft. And about 10, 11 games into the season, George Solomon, who was then sports editor of the Post, who you know well...

NNAMDIMm-hmm.

FEINSTEIN...sent me down to Tampa to write a story on Doug Williams. And I went to John McKay's press conference on Monday morning, before I went to speak to Doug. And John McKay looked at me, and he said, who are you? And I said, well, my name's John Feinstein. I work for the Washington Post. What are you doing here? I'm doing a story on Doug Williams. And he looks at me and he says, you mean to tell me the paper of Woodward and Bernstein's just now figuring out we have a black quarterback (laugh) ?

FEINSTEINAnd when I sat down with Doug, I apologized to him. I said, I'm sorry you have to answer all these questions again. I'm sure you've been through it a dozen times. He looked at me and said, John, been a black quarterback all my life. It's not a problem. And we became friends then, and I knew from dealing with Doug how bright he is, and I needed an African American voice in this book. And I think he provided a very eloquent one.

NNAMDISigning on as a quarterback means a highly unpredictable career path with lousy job security. What lessons on unpredictability does, say, an Alex Smith's career offer?

FEINSTEINWow, that's a great question. If you look at Alex Smith as a -- at the start of his sophomore year at Utah, he was the second string quarterback. Twenty months later, he was the number one pick in the NFL draft. He tells a great story about -- I asked him about how -- when he realized how much his life had changed in that short period. And he said he went to the bank at the end of the team's first two preseason minicamps. NFL players, Kojo, get paid 95 percent of their money during the regular season. They get small checks for minicamps and exhibition games. And he'd received these two small checks in his locker, one for $700, the other for $1,000.

FEINSTEINSo, he went to the bank, where he'd opened an account in San Francisco, stood in line, and he's looking at the checks after he filled out the deposit slip. And he realized that one of the checks wasn't for $1,000. It was for $1 million, because it was one of his bonus checks from his original signing bonus. And he said he went back, filled out another deposit slip and then immediately got automatic deposit, because he didn't want to go through that again.

FEINSTEINBut his first six years in the NFL as a number one draft pick, he was bust. He was injured. He didn't play well. He was benched for lesser quarterbacks in terms of how they'd come into the league. And only when Jim Harbaugh came to San Francisco and put in an offense that was designed for his speed -- Alex Smith was very fast -- did he become a star. And then he went to Kansas City and became a star. He lost his job in San Francisco because he got hurt, and that can happen in the NFL.

FEINSTEINColin Kaepernick came in, took his place, and took the 49ers to the Super Bowl, which is why I laugh when all these people say, oh, Kaepernick doesn't have a contract because he's not that good. He took a team to the Super Bowl. He's 30 years old, but that's a whole separate issue. And then, of course, Alex came here to Washington after the Chief's drafted Patrick Mahomes. And in spite of complaints that he didn't have big numbers, last I looked, they were six and three before he had that horrible injury. And we don't know if he'll play again. And they ended up finishing seven and nine. So, six and three to seven and nine tells me that Alex Smith was pretty important to what Washington was doing.

NNAMDIJohn Feinstein's latest book is called "Quarterback." Both Washington and Baltimore have had star quarterbacks that did not meet their fans' high expectations. What does it do to a local franchise like the Skins when someone like RG3, Robert Griffin III, got hurt repeatedly, or when Kirk Cousins raises his profile only to be no signed for a long-term contract, or, as you just mentioned, an Alex Smith sustains a terrible injury?

FEINSTEINWell, the arc of a franchise changes depending on the health or the success of a quarterback. Before I answer the Washington question, look at Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. In 2017, the Packers started four and one. They were considered favorites in the NFC to go to the Super Bowl. Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone, didn't play again until the 16th week of the season. They finished seven and nine. And that's how important a good quarterback or -- in Aaron Rodgers' case -- a great quarterback can be.

FEINSTEINRobert Griffin III was going to be a Hall of Famer, in my opinion, before he got hurt. He was brilliant as a rookie. He was Rookie of the Year, beat Andrew Luck out for that award, who was the number one pick in the draft, and took Washington to the...

NNAMDIPlayoffs.

FEINSTEIN...to the playoffs, and then got hurt in the playoff game and was never the same again. Came back too soon. They changed the offense. He wasn't happy with the changes in the offense. He feuded with Mike and Kyle Shanahan and ended up, of course, being the third string quarterback this year in Baltimore. And Kirk Cousins stepped in and did a very good job. Not a great job, not a superb job, but a good job, good enough to get them into the playoffs one year. Good enough to make them competitive the other two years he was the starting quarterback.

FEINSTEINBut Dan Snyder, who you were talking about in the previous segment -- maybe the worst owner in sports -- wanted a glitzy quarterback. Robert Griffin III was a glitzy quarterback. Kirk Cousins wasn't. He was a competent quarterback. So, when they could've signed him to a contract for $45 million guaranteed over five seasons, they didn't do it, even though Scott McCluen, the general manager, was saying, this is a good deal. He's a younger quarterback, Cousins.

FEINSTEINSo, instead they ended up paying him -- I always get the numbers wrong, but something like $44 million for the next two years, and then he left. And then they had to go out and make the deal for Alex Smith, which I thought, by the way, was a good deal. But now, with Alex suffering this terrible injury, who knows what will happen.

NNAMDILet's talk about Doug Williams. What challenges did he face early in his career, and how did he overcome them to be the first black starting quarterback -- first black quarterback to win the -- because when he came here, he wasn't the starter.

FEINSTEINCorrect.

NNAMDIFirst black quarterback to win the Super Bowl.

FEINSTEINWell, I think you have to go back to when Doug was drafted. Joe Gibbs played a major role in the Tampa Bay Bucks drafting...

NNAMDI(overlapping) I didn't know that.

FEINSTEIN...Doug Williams in the first round. He was an assistant to John McKay and Doug was getting a lot of attention playing at Grambling under the great Eddie Robinson. He was 6'5". He had a cannon arm. So, Joe Gibbs was sent to spend two days with Doug, not just watching him play football. He sat in -- Doug was student teaching. He sat in on Doug's classes and he spent time, had dinner with Doug, got to know him and urged the Bucks to use their first round pick -- they had the 17th pick -- on drafting him. And on Joe Gibbs' word, John McKay drafted him.

FEINSTEINAnd Doug was a starter, right from the beginning. He got injured that first season. Again, quarterback -- people forget. People say that quarterbacks are overprotected. They're not. They get hurt all the time. Even the seemingly unbreakable Tom Brady missed a year with an ACL injury. And so -- but it wasn't just on the field that Doug was challenged. He was living in a southern town. He said he learned not to open any mail that didn't have a return address on it. He got all sorts of hate mail using the N word, among other things. There was -- somebody once sent him rotten watermelon in the mail.

FEINSTEINIt was a scary time, in the late 1970s, to be that visible an African American figure. He overcame it, made the playoffs three times in five years in Tampa with a team...

NNAMDI(overlapping) As a matter of fact, we used to say back in those days that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have one player, Doug Williams (laugh). He's the one carrying that team on his back on those days. He did.

FEINSTEIN(overlapping) And he did. He took them to a conference championship game. But at the end of his five years, when his first contract was up, Kojo, he was the 54th highest paid quarterback in the NFL. He was making less than his backup, Jimmy Raye. And when he went into Hugh Culverhouse to try to get more money, he was basically told, no. You'll take this or -- this was before free agency -- or you can walk. Well, you know what? He walked. He quit. Walked away, went back to his hometown to teach. He had a young daughter. His wife had died -- when their daughter was less than a year old -- of cancer.

FEINSTEINSo, he went home, taught and then ended up in the USFL, which you might remember is the league where Donald Trump was an owner. He didn't do that job very well, either. That's my political comment for the day.

NNAMDIThere you go.

FEINSTEIN(laugh) But then Joe Gibbs called him again, because Joe was in Washington by then, as the head coach, of course. And he said, could you play as a backup? Because Jay Schroeder was the starting quarterback after Joe Theismann's terrible injury. And Doug was ready to go back to the NFL, came back and ended up beating Jay Schroeder out for the job in that '87-'88 season. And you and I were talking off air about how he got injured in the first quarter of the Super Bowl, limped off, and came back into the game and threw four touchdown passes in the second quarter...

NNAMDILimping.

FEINSTEIN...limping. Washington won the game 42 to 10. Doug was the MVP, and was the, as you said, first African American quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl.

NNAMDIPut on your headphones, because there are people who want to speak with you. Let us start with Nick in Falls Church, Virginia. Nick, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

NICKHi, Kojo. Thanks for having me.

NNAMDIYou're welcome.

NICKThis subject is, like, really interesting to me, and I think I wanted to just shift gears a little bit and ask, like, in your experience, what do you think happens when a relatively unknown backup -- you know, I'm a Bills fan, so Doug Williams is kind of familiar to me. And, you know, you're saying that he beat out Schroeder for the backup job. What does that do to, like, a sports team's, like, general collective psyche when, you know, you have maybe an established starter and he, you know, gets beaten out by a backup, and he has the reigns of the offense, now? Thanks so much.

FEINSTEINWell, that's a good question, and I think a lot of it, though, depends on the circumstances. Doug Williams had been a starting quarterback in the NFL when he came to Washington and had success, as we've discussed. So, for him to take Jay Schroeder's place, I doubt if it shocked very many of the other players on that team. And he -- but the bottom line, in any sport, when any position is if you can do the job, your teammates don't care what your background was, whether you were the first pick in the draft or you were Tom Brady and you were the 199th pick in the draft. All they want to know is, can you make the team better? And Doug Williams obviously made the team better when he became the starting quarterback that year.

FEINSTEINLater on, Mark Rypien beat him out for the job, and Mark Rypien led Washington to a Super Bowl a few years later.

NNAMDISure did. Rip.

FEINSTEINSo, I doubt if any of Doug or Mark's teammates minded that Mark became the starter, because Mark led them to a Super Bowl.

NNAMDIThank you for your call. We got an email from Danielle, who self identifies as the wife of Redskins' tight end, Jordan Reed. She writes: our Redskins' quarterback situation needs serious attention. My husband played quarterback all throughout high school and switched to tight end in college. He was drafted as such to the Redskins in 2015. When Alex Smith and Colt McCoy went down, my husband was called to play backup. My jaw dropped. (laugh) She writes that the NFL's actually starved for decent quarterbacks.

FEINSTEINYeah.

NNAMDIWhat does it take to stand out, these days?

FEINSTEINWell, I think that a lot of times -- one of the things Doug Williams pointed out to me -- now, Jordan Reed is African American, and he's an excellent tight end. I mean, he's a pro bowl-caliber tight end when he's healthy. But one of the things Doug Williams pointed out to me was as much progress as has been made in 40 years since he was a rookie, you don't see a lot of African American backup quarterbacks in the league. It seems to be a white player's position.

FEINSTEINNow, it's different with starters, because teams need to win. So if you have the first pick in a draft, and Cam Newton is there, you take Cam Newton. If you have the first pick in a draft and Jameis Winston is there, you take Jameis Winston. But if there's any question mark, like Russell Wilson's height, he goes in the third round. Or Dak Prescott, could he throw the ball well enough to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, you go in the fourth round. But I think -- you know, the last time I can remember -- and I don't really remember it, because I'm not that old, but in 1965, I believe it's '65, both of the Baltimore Colts' quarterbacks, Johnny Unitas, who was pretty good, and also shows how inexact the science of judging quarterbacks is, Johnny Unitas was once cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers...

NNAMDIDidn't know that.

FEINSTEIN...and ended up in Baltimore. And Gary Cuozzo, his backup, got hurt, and Tom Matte, who like Jordan Reed, had been a college quarterback, moved from running back to quarterback, and they almost beat the Baltimore -- the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, in the playoffs. But for a player -- and you might remember this one, Kojo. A few years ago, in Philadelphia, both Washington quarterbacks got hurt, and Brian Mitchell...

NNAMDISure did.

FEINSTEIN...had to play quarterback the rest of that game. Brian Mitchell was a college quarterback. So, it does happen on occasion, but if Washington is at the point where they have to take their pro bowl tight end and play him at quarterback, they're probably in a little bit of trouble.

NNAMDIAnd at the time Brian, was returning punts and kickoffs, right?

FEINSTEINWell, he's an all-pro punt return and kickoff return.

NNAMDIOn to Rob, in Alexandria. Rob, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ROBYeah, hey, Kojo. Thank you for taking my call. Hey, the question I gave the screener, I have to change it, because your guest touched on something. So, my question is: we're a country of 300-plus million people, there are 32 professional football teams, why is it that (clears throat) there aren't even a good enough number -- why are there so -- you know, we're such a huge country, why can't there be more than 32 outstanding quarterbacks, 32 people out of 300 million, so that every NFL team has, not only a good starting quarterback, but also a good backup quarterback. Do you understand my question?

NNAMDI(overlapping) What does that tell us about the game of football and about the NFL?

FEINSTEINWell, what it tells us -- and, by the way, I don't know that there are 32 outstanding quarterbacks. There may be 10 or 12. What it tells me, again having studied this subject for 18 months, quarterback's a really hard position to play. I mean, there's so much that goes into it, because it isn't just having a cannon arm. You know, there was a guy named JaMarcus Russell, you might remember, was the number one pick in the draft. I think it was 12 years ago now, coming out of LSU. He had the strongest arm anybody had ever seen. Has anybody heard of JaMarcus Russell? No, because you need more than a cannon arm. You need more than speed.

FEINSTEINTom Brady ran one of the slowest forties in the history of the NFL combine, 5.28. Alex Smith, by contrast, was 4.67, just to give you something to measure it by. And it takes smarts. It takes arm strength. It takes toughness. It takes the ability to take a hit. Because when an NFL quarterback walks off the field after a game, I've stood next to the lockers of these guys while they try to take their uniforms off. And I emphasize the word try. This isn't a quarterback who's injured. This is a quarterback who's played the whole game, and he could barely walk.

FEINSTEINThat's why these Thursday games are so awful, because players can barely get on their feet before Wednesday, if they're lucky. But the answer to the question is, finding a guy with all the qualities that go into playing quarterback is extraordinarily difficult to do. That's why so much time and money is spent by NFL quarterbacks in seeking that rare franchise QB.

NNAMDIIn recent years, the NFL has become a heated political battleground, with President Trump taking on Colin Kaepernick and other players over kneeling during the National Anthem. How is our understanding of quarterbacks and how they should or should not perform affected how we feel when they take a stand on issues other than football?

FEINSTEINWell, as you know, Kojo, there are a lot of people in this country, most of them supporters of Donald Trump, who think athletes should just keep their mouths shut. What was it Laura Ingram said about Lebron James? Just shut up and dribble. I mean, all he's done is build a school for inner city kids in Akron, and so I suppose he should just shut up and dribble and not do things like that. People don't want to hear from athletes unless they're saying things or doing things that they are comfortable with.

NNAMDIEspecially high-profile ones like Lebron James or a Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback.

FEINSTEINExactly. And what I hear all the time is, they're making millions of dollars. What have they got to complain about? Well, how much money they're making is irrelevant to how they feel about social issues. Colin Kaepernick saw what he saw as injustice, and decided to stand up for that injustice by sitting down, or by kneeling, eventually. And, you know, I always stand up for the National Anthem. My father was an Army veteran. He fought overseas in World War II. I respect the flag, so I stand up for the National Anthem.

FEINSTEINBut if somebody next to me doesn't stand up or doesn't kneel -- and I know a lot of guys who've been in the military, because I did the book on the Army-Navy football rivalry years ago -- and they all say the same thing to me. I'm close to many of them still. And what they say is, one of the reasons we go overseas to fight, if necessary, one of the reasons we volunteer to defend our country is so that that guy next to you can kneel if he or she chooses to, and that they have the right to do that. It doesn't mean you agree with them or disagree with them. It means we understand they have the right to do that.

NNAMDIJust about out of time. John Feinstein is the author of "Quarterback" and many other books on sports. No local teams to root for, but what will you be watching? Who will you be watching for during the weekend's conference championships?

FEINSTEIN(laugh) Well, as I said, there are four great quarterbacks. Two of them young, two of them old. Drew Brees and Tom Brady are both over 40, so I tend to root for the old guys, because I'm an old guy. But I would expect we're going to see a lot of offense in these games, because of the quality of the quarterbacks. Patrick Mahomes has had an extraordinary year. And, by the way, one of the things I touch on in the book is how Alex Smith tutored Patrick Mahomes, even though he knew Patrick Mahomes was going to take his job. It says a lot about Alex Smith.

NNAMDIOur conversation with John Feinstein and our update on the recent search for a new stadium site was produced by Ruth Tam. Out check-in on the women's march was produced by Ingalisa Schrobsdorff. Tomorrow, we'll sit down with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. And later this month, we'll discuss the rise of temporary labor and the gig economy in the Washington region. If you're someone who's working without benefits and job security, hit the kojoshow.org/blog and take our anonymous survey. John Feinstein, always a pleasure.

FEINSTEINThanks for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd thank you for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.