This is NOT a Sunday Story – even if it starts like one. There’s plenty of politics here!!!
Bengals Fan
I was born and spent most of my childhood in Cincinnati. Like it or not, I became a Bengals (football) fan in 1968, the first year they played in the AFL. They shared Nippert Stadium with the University of Cincinnati for that first year, with Greg Cook, a UC alum, as the quarterback.
Being a Bengals fan I’ve learned when to care, and when to let go. There have been some great years: a couple in the ‘80’s, one in the late 90’s, and then this past couple of years. And there have been some awful years, when the Bengals “freed” me from concern, usually by the third game or so. I got my Sundays “off” in those several, many, seasons.
Many of my relatives are Cleveland Browns fans, and we have a good natured rivalry. Oddly, good year or bad, the Browns often beat the Bengals, giving my nephews bragging rights. However, the rest of the Browns’ seasons have been pretty sad. I give the nephews the sympathy they deserve most of the time.
Selling Souls
Both Cleveland and Cincinnati have “sold their souls” for quarterbacks in the past year. Cleveland picked Deshawn Watson off the list of suspended NFL players (sexual impropriety to therapists), paying $350 million over ten years for his presence in the backfield (and hopefully not on the massage table). Cincinnati paid even more, close to three-quarters of a Billion dollars, for Joe Burrow, an Athens, Ohio boy who made very, very, good.
So why are we talking about football on this NFL Sunday morning? Because how the Browns and the Bengals handle their two quarterbacks should be instructive to Kevin McCarthy, the beleaguered Speaker of the House of Representatives.
DeShawn, the $350 million man, is known for his “jailbreak” (hah!) form of play. He starts in the pocket, then runs wide and far, improvising plays with his receivers. He’s also a running threat himself, the “eleventh man” the defense can’t cover. It’s that “loose” form of play that makes DeShawn great.
Burrow also can run, but is best known for his precision passes from the pocket. Give Joe an inch, and he can thread the football to whichever receiver gets single coverage. He can see the “whole field” in a split-second, so quickly that defenses can’t react to his throws. And if he can’t find an open receiver, Burrow himself can scramble to make up the difference. Unlike Watson though, Burrow is a technician in the backfield, rather than a loose cannon.
Square Peg
The Bengals coaching staff does everything they can to capitalize on Burrow’s abilities. They have rebuilt the offensive line, twice, to get him the time needed to read defenses. And, when Burrow has a deficit, like he does now with a damaged calf muscle, they try not to put him in a position to have to run.
The Browns coaches, much to the dismay of many fanatical Browns fans (including a nephew or two), are trying to make DeShawn into a “pocket passer”, like Burrow. DeShawn was an improvisor in college at Auburn, and with the Houston Texans. Presumably he was in high school as well. So while the Browns literally “bought” a scrambler, a runner, a “draw the play in the sand” quarterback; it’s clear that the coaches want him in the pocket, carefully dissecting defenses, and throwing precision passes. They want Watson to be like Burrow. But he’s not. And the Browns are struggling because of it. (By the way, the Bengals are struggling too. Burrow is playing hurt, and the calf injury is impacting his ability to throw long precision passes – his biggest asset).
Sold Out
Which brings us to Kevin McCarthy. Like the Browns and Bengals, McCarthy paid a huge price to gain the Speakership. The Republican majority is so narrow, literally five Republicans can defeat any motion on the floor. Extremists in the Republican caucus demanded concessions from McCarthy, so many that it took fifteen ballots for him to even secure the position. Like the Browns (and the Bengals), McCarthy has “sold out”. He owes and keeps his Speakership at the “will” of any five Republicans. And five that are united together hold his fate in their collective hands.
McCarthy wanted to be Speaker. It was a lifelong quest. He wanted the title so much, that he gave away most of the power of the Speakership in order to get the title (an earlier essay on that situation: Better to Reign). The laundry list of “promises” (Matt Gaetz’s secret list) was long. The extremists demanded:
- Control negotiations on the government debt
- Control negotiations on the government budget
- Impeachment hearings (inquiries) of President Biden
- Hunter Biden hearings
- Force the entire Congress to vote on the critical policies of the MAGA Agenda like the border policy, the “woke” Defense Department, and defunding the FBI and the “weaponized” Justice Department.
McCarthy is the “quarterback” of the House of Representatives. But unlike DeShawn Watson; McCarthy isn’t “forced” to play “out of position”. He did it to himself. McCarthy can’t blame someone else for his predicament, and he is now faced with shutting down the Government at the end of the month.
He can’t even call his own plays.
His deal to become Speaker made it impossible for him to actually act as Speaker. He can’t throw, he can’t handoff, and he can’t even scramble. All he can do is watch his Republican caucus tear itself apart. The extremists on one side are mirrored by the few Republicans who won their seat in a “Biden” district, where the President won in 2020. Those few can’t afford to adhere to the MAGA agenda – they’ll lose their seats in 2024.
Close the Doors
What’s going to happen? Well, we’ve got seven days until a government shutdown. That seems inevitable. It will take thirty days for a “rump” coalition of the few moderate Republicans and the minority Democrats to get a motion to the floor without the Speaker’s help. So that could be the end of October.
Or McCarthy could realize that he will have to act like the Speaker, even if it costs him the Speaker’s job. He could reach across to the Democrats, and, like John Boehner in 2015, patch together a one-time coalition to keep or re-open the government. Of course, if he does that, the extreme Republicans will do what the Brown’s coaches could never do – they’ll bench McCarthy, just like they benched former Speaker from Cincinnati, John Boehner.
So who is the backup, willing to give even more away than McCarthy did? Elise Stefanik of the Great State of New York. She’d be happy to step over McCarthy’s prone body to become the second woman Speaker. But the price will be high. Not just for the Speakership, but for the Nation.
Oh, and I do have a finish for the football analogy. If Kevin McCarthy is DeShawn Watson, perhaps the right quarterback, but with the wrong plays coming in from the sidelines; then who was the precision passer Burrow? You probably already figured that out: Nancy Pelosi!!! She managed to control a House majority exactly the same size as the one McCarthy has now. There was still some drama, but ultimately her Democrats followed her playbook, and governed.
