Miller: Beware the attempted quick fix

Fans of teams like the Washington Redskins, New York Giants and New Orleans Saints, in full panic mode after watching their teams lay a first-week egg, would do well to heed the long-ago advice of George Young, the late general manager of the Giants.

It wasn’t specifically a call for patience, but in reality, it was. Young never wavered from a strong philosophy that should serve as a cautionary warning for owners and general managers (and fans) looking for a shortcut.

“Anytime you think you’re one player away,” Young used to say, “you’re not.”

In other words, do not over-react.

Or, put another way, do not do what Houston does.

The Texans now have changed quarterbacks 18 times in 54 games. They have one of the league’s strongest defenses, but can’t get out of their own way on offense. Now that they have anointed Deshaun Watson, perhaps they’ll finally be patient enough to let the kid grow into the job.

Minnesota and Philadelphia appear to have done just that.

The Vikings lost their starting quarterback in preseason a year ago, made an eve-of-the-season trade for Sam Bradford, and got a .500 season and the loss of this year’s first-round draft pick to show for it. But in doing more than just renting a guy for a year, the Vikings and Bradford demonstrated in their season opener that the move could pay off now.

It could pay off for the Eagles, too, who got a bangup opener out of Carson Wentz as he starts his second season.

Both the Vikings and Eagles struggled a year ago with their new quarterbacks, but their season-opening victories had to be encouraging to them.

Meanwhile teams who stay on a losing treadmill are the ones who either change course on a whim or simply do not seem to have a plan. No one, of course, could put the Redskins, Giants and Saints in that latter category because all three have solid veterans at quarterback. The three are not without their problems, but they may defy a quick fix.

Young, who never believed in the quick fix — he was often at odds with Bill Parcells because Parcells, as the coach, wanted more aggressive moves — seems to have been proven right because the Giants won two Super Bowls on his watch and two more under a pair of his successors following pretty much his blueprint.

A great quarterback helps, of course, but Young’s credo is as true today as it was 20 or 30 years ago. Translated, what he meant was that football is a team game and a single player is rarely going to stop the world from spinning.

As if we needed yet another reminder of that, the Saints provided it in their season opener when the Cajun debut of running back Adrian Peterson against his former Vikings teammates was hardly even a footnote.

Dalvin Cook, a Vikings’ rookie, ran for 127 yards and broke Peterson’s record for a Minnesota debut. Peterson, meanwhile, rushed for 18 yards on six carries for New Orleans. To say he was not a factor in the game would be a disservice to factors.

Surely, there were Saints’ fans who figured the addition of Peterson would be such a boon to quarterback Drew Brees that New Orleans would easily bust out of its funk of three straight 7-9 seasons. Instead, without having to worry about Peterson getting his carries, Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford had a career night.

It was another reminder that football is not baseball, that an NFL team can’t be transformed by adding a 20-game winner or a .300 hitter who signed a big contract. Free agency has, unquestionably, helped competitive balance in the league and done a lot to stoke year-round fan interest, but the plain truth is that signing aging stars is hardly ever a path to success in football.

Nearly a quarter-century ago, in the first year of true NFL free agency in 1994, the San Francisco 49ers essentially made over their defense with a bevy of free-agent signings that included three future Hall of Famers: Rickey Jackson, Richard Dent and Deion Sanders.

Among that group, Jackson was not much of a factor and Dent was even less so due to an injury that kept him out almost the entire year. Only Sanders played a pivotal role, as he did the following year with Dallas’ championship team.

And that, boys and girls, is the last time late-career future Hall of Fame players joined a new team and helped it win a championship.

Yes, you can look it up.

A few years from now, that statistic will change when Peyton Manning is enshrined but he was more a passenger than a driver in Denver’s 2015 ride to the title.

Other Hall of Fame quarterbacks like Kurt Warner and Brett Favre couldn’t put a new team over the top and, going back even before our quarter-century measure, neither could Joe Montana or Ken Stabler.

Wide receiver Randy Moss, on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, couldn’t prevent New England’s undefeated team from losing the Super Bowl following the 2007 season. Kevin Greene, a superb pass rusher, bounced around three teams in his 30s without winning a ring. The late Junior Seau joined New England for four seasons starting at age 37 but was a Super Bowl loser.

Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown went from the Raiders to Tampa Bay at age 38, after the Bucs had beaten Oakland in the Super Bowl. Jerry Rice went to the Raiders at age 39, but his only Super Bowl titles came across the Bay in San Francisco. All-time rushing leader Emmitt Smith couldn’t lift Arizona after leaving Dallas.

They call professional football the ultimate team game for a reason, and the reason is that one player rarely can have the outsize effect on a team that a great player in basketball or a great pitcher in baseball can have. Not to say the season will be a washout for teams like the Redskins, Texans, Giants and Saints … but if you’re a fan looking for a quick, one-man fix, well, it simply does not happen that way in the NFL.

Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange.