The old quarterback sees Colin Kaepernick, sees the tattoos, sees the youth, sees the success, sees himself.
Kordell Stewart's arms are not filled with tats and he looks nothing like the young San Francisco phenom, at least not off the field. On the field, Stewart sees Kaepernick's style of play as the kind he helped usher into the NFL at quarterback when, he says, the NFL wasn't quite ready for it.
"I love it, man, he's fast; once he's out in the open, no one's catching him," said Stewart, who is back in his hometown with his two radio partners broadcasting their daily talk show on Atlanta's 92.9 FM The Game. "Obviously, he's a bigger version than all the quarterbacks.
"I promise you, I love to watch him play. He's as efficient as any dropback quarterback in the game and he's capable of running it."
Like Stewart, Kaepernick was drafted in the second round. Unlike Stewart, his team did not force him to play wide receiver first. Kaepernick came along when the mobile quarterback has not only been accepted by the NFL, but has flourished all over the league.
In Stewart's day, the pocket passer was still in vogue, and the pioneers who tried to change that thinking were rare and often unappreciated.
Had he come along now, he believes he would have fit right in with the changing face of the NFL quarterback.
"I would say it would help my case and my cause a little bit more," Stewart said.
"To see the quarterbacks who made the playoffs this year, even Andrew Luck is a mobile quarterback, and he moves better than people give him credit for, and he's faster than people say he is, and he's a true dropback quarterback."
There is Washington's Robert Griffin (RG III), Seattle's Russell Wilson and Carolina's Cam Newton and others. The colleges produce more read-option quarterbacks, and NFL teams practically are forced to adapt.
West Virginia's Geno Smith has a good chance to be the first quarterback drafted this year, and he comes with a similar style.
Back in the second half of the 1990s and early part of this century, the Steelers and their many, many offensive coordinators just did not know what to do with Stewart. These men grew up with a pocket passer playing quarterback and did not have the playbooks to accommodate the different talents that were Stewart's.
"They knew what they had, they just weren't ready to accept it 100 percent," Stewart said.
He was the knuckleball pitcher managed by men who never had experience with one, never knew what to do with him, didn't have the patience to allow him to do his thing.
"If I were to come in at this time, I don't think the issues we had in Pittsburgh with trying to figure it out and be patient would have ever occurred," said Stewart.
"We would have kept coordinators around, guys wouldn't have been apt to want to run away. It's the fad in the game right now, and defenses are so much faster than they were back then, it would have to be accepted right now.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...#ixzz2Jm9Em7Op
These guys are living in fantasy land.Kordell wasn't anywhere near as good as passer as Kaepernick, Luck, Griffin, or Wilson are. And more to the point they all are 100x better than Kordell from the shoulders up!
Kordell didn't fall short due to lack of orginizational support. He fell short because he couldn't read a defense to save his life, rarely could hit anything but a stationary target, lacked leadership qualities, and choked in big games.
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Originally Posted by 86WARD
Enthroned Into The Good Old Boys Club - 2024 
Forever loving and missing you Gal.