Richard Todd anyone? 1984?
Remember I attended a game in 1984 & the crowd totally turned on Todd & started chanting for Dave Wilson
Bum Phillips thought the quarterback was just that guy that handed it off to your RB 40 times a game
To be fair to Bum, it did work for the most part in his previous HC stint with the Oilers for 6 seasons from 1975-80, especially after drafting human cannon ball Earl Campbell in the first round in 1978 and essentially ran him into the ground, with massive over-use and wear and tear in his first three seasons, 1978-80. Thats not to.say that his Oilers QB, Dan Pastorini, wasnt a decent, maybe even good QB sometimes, but Pastorini's and even later on, Stabler's role in the offense was secondary and both Pastorini and Stabler criticized Bum's 1950's style offensive philosophy as one major factor into why even with a powerful, workhorse RB in Campbell, they could never advance past more multi-faceted, diverse and better talented teams in playoffs like Steelers and Raiders who knew all you had to was stop Campbell and you contained 70% of Houston's offense.
Of course, Bum's teams had great defenses both in Houston and New Orleans, but in early 1980's Saints, a great defense in of itself wasnt going to get you to the post-season alone and the old NFC West was a slaughterhouse division where we played the pre-eminent dynasty, the 49ers, twice a season, during our great late 80's/early 90's run, man it was hard to even break even in that old division.
Bum had every reason, early in 1981, based on prior experiences, he could replicate his enormous previous success in Houston and that the QB wasnt really that important to his schemes, instead of thinking he just got extremely lucky landing a future, HOF RB that kind of made the QB a bit redundant in late 70's Houston.