Posnanski:Croyle is too fragile to be the Chiefs’ answer at quarterback

[Tribal Warfare]

Croyle is too fragile to be the Chiefs’ answer at quarterback

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. | Football is, at heart, a cold-blooded game. It’s easy to forget that because in the NFL, vicious hits are set to music and shoulders ripped from sockets are merely “separated” (leaving open a possibility for a reconciliation), and pain is reduced to those harmless-sounding words, ”questionable,” “doubtful” and “probable.”

In this heartless game, you need a quarterback who can get back up. That’s just a fact. It isn’t fair to blame the quarterback for suffering nasty injuries. It isn’t politically correct. But football isn’t a PC game. Sunday afternoon, the Chiefs were at the New England 5-yard line at the end with a chance to score a touchdown and tie the game, a chance to shock everyone, a chance to stick it in the faces of all those critics who called them the pits, a chance to laugh at all those people who bet the unbeatable New England Patriots to win by more than 15 points.

And the Chiefs’ quarterback of the future, the guy they’re building this whole thing around, the man who needed to be on the field at that key moment — Brodie Croyle — was on the sideline because of a shoulder injury.

In the end, nobody outside Kansas City cared, of course. The Patriots held on, beat the Chiefs 17-10, and the Chiefs showed a few positive signs, the Patriots showed a few cracks, but the only story on anyone’s mind Sunday was that the Patriots’ (and America’s) quarterback Tom Brady hurt his knee.

Some thought it happened on a dirty play by Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard, some thought it was just bad luck (that was the way I saw it), some suspected Brady would be out for the year, some thought he would be back next week, some figured the Patriots would collapse without him, some thought they would be just fine, back and forth, on and on, forever.

But, to be ruthless about it — football is a ruthless game — that’s the Patriots’ problem. To steal Mel Brooks’ line about the difference between tragedy and comedy: Tragedy is your quarterback getting hurt. Comedy is the other guy’s quarterback getting hurt.

The Chiefs’ quarterback, Brodie Croyle, got hurt. Again. This was the third time in seven starts that Croyle got hurt. Three for seven makes for a lousy injury average.

Thing is, Croyle has spent a lifetime getting hurt on football fields. He blew out his knee in high school. He separated his shoulder and got two ribs busted his sophomore year in college, then blew out his other knee his junior year. Last year, in his first home start, he hurt his back against Oakland and missed the next game. He hurt his hand at Detroit trying to make a tackle and couldn’t finish the game.

In the third quarter on Sunday, New England linebacker Adalius Thomas sacked Brodie and drove his right shoulder hard into the turf. Croyle grabbed for his shoulder immediately. He walked gingerly to the sideline, with his right arm dangling on the side. He threw one pass to test the shoulder and quickly shook his head no. He was done. Backup Damon Huard went into the game, threw a touchdown pass, led the Chiefs to the shadow of overtime and, well, you know the rest.

Now the Chiefs have to face up to something very real: The chosen quarterback, Brodie Croyle, cannot stay healthy. It isn’t his fault — this isn’t a toughness question. Everyone says the guy is as tough as a Ford truck. But the harsh reality is that his body, for whatever reason, cannot stand up to the NFL pounding. And you can’t build a football team around a quarterback who cannot stay on the field.

“Maybe he’s just unlucky,” one teammate says.

There’s no maybe about it. Croyle has talent. He has a good arm, and he has a pretty quick release, and he has a presence. That’s what everyone with the Chiefs wants to talk about when discussing Croyle. His abilities. The way he handles the huddle. The throws he can make. That’s great. But those are not the things that get you through in this violent game.

No, what made Brett Favre great wasn’t his arm or his gunslinger attitude, it was that he was able to be there every single week, no matter what kind of pounding he took, no matter how ferociously he was hit, no matter how many times he got blindsided. The same goes for John Elway and Dan Marino and Peyton Manning and, up to Sunday, Tom Brady. The one thing every great quarterback shared is that they started games. And they finished them.

That takes more than toughness, and it takes more than heart. You also need luck, a body that will not break, a mind that can ignore the obvious dangers that are all around.

Here’s a name for you: Greg Cook. Have you heard of him? Bill Walsh, the man who coached Joe Montana, said Greg Cook could have been the greatest quarterback who ever lived. As you know, that did not happen. Cook played one year in the NFL, was chosen Rookie of the Year, but badly hurt his shoulder. He threw only three more passes for the rest of his career. That’s the harshness of the game.

And right now, it looks more and more that Brodie Croyle simply cannot take the NFL pounding. The Chiefs’ young team did show promise Sunday. The defense played a high-energy game, and Turk McBride was often unblockable. The offense looked more organized than the last couple of years, and if Devard Darling could run a little faster or Dwayne Bowe could have made a catch, the game would have gone to overtime.

But in the end, plainly, you need a quarterback you can count on to go anywhere in this league. The Chiefs said they would test Croyle’s shoulder today, see the seriousness of the injury.

“He’s so tough, I’ll bet he will be back sooner than anyone thinks,” Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez says.

Maybe. Nobody questions Croyle’s heart. It’s his shoulder … and knees … and back. In the end, those things matter just as much as the heart.