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Where’s My Promotion?
by Khaled Elsayed
16/6/2009
 You know you’ve tried your hardest. You know you’ve done a decent job. You know you’ve earned an opportunity. But yet time and time again your manager passes you over for promotion.
Your abilities, he doesn’t recognise. Your potential, it means nothing to him.
Instead of promoting from within he goes out and finds mediocre candidates to take the position that should have been yours and when that doesn’t work he goes and finds a guy with a great CV, but whose best years the industry recognizes as well behind him.
It happens in life all the time, and it’s happening right now to Tarvaris Jackson.
Imagine you’ve just finished university. The world is your oyster and all that jazz. You’ve worked hard and got a good degree but now you need to get yourself on a graduate program. Somewhere you can learn your trade and develop your skill set while moving up the ladder at an appropriate speed.
That’s how Tarvaris must have felt when he was drafted in the 2nd Round of the 2006 draft to be the Vikings Quarterback of the future, the ‘diamond in the rough’ as described by Brad Childress. He had landed a pretty good grad deal, certainly something that was better than he expected. A good team that was putting all the right components in place and a coach that seemed extremely committed to moulding him from the clay he was, to the priceless vase he could be.
As long as he was patient and had the sponge like qualities his coach expected him to have, then the sky seemed to be the limit. The Vikings certainly envisaged him as having all the attributes you look for in a number one.
So they signed him up to their grad program that initially involved learning from Brad Johnson, a veteran with a wealth of experience who was only too happy to show him the ropes. The kind of guy who would go out of his way to help nurture new talent even if they were being groomed to replace him, it was a role he had embraced before in such a way that Chris Simms described him the best mentor he ever had.
But then things started not going according to plan. Management was unhappy with results, and though his training program was nowhere near complete they decided that as a result of injuries and poor performance, it was the right time to see what the young kid had in him.
So they threw him in at the deep end and they were cautiously optimistic he would rise to the challenge after an impressive pre season. But his training hadn’t covered playing the game at the NFL speed and he was woefully under prepared, and his first attempt at ingratiating himself with the big boys had failed with the games he saw action in ending with less than stellar results. Sure he couldn’t help it that he wasn’t put in a position to succeed, but the end result was all that mattered and the Vikings season was over.
 But he returned to his grad position for the off season. Got his head down and worked hard. His time on the grad program was ending and he looked ready. Management seemed pleased with his progress, and when the season started he led them to victory against the Falcons and though his promotion was on a trial basis it looked like things were going to go smoothly in the purple palace.
But it wasn’t.
Management demanded more of its recent grad who although struggling at times was getting better as the season progressed. He made rookie mistakes. But then a diamond in the rough takes time to nurture, and surely the Vikings knew that a project with all the tools would still take a few years to develop.
But they expected more. They had put him on the grad program and afforded him the opportunity to develop, and in return when they put him in the position he wanted to be, they wanted instant success and instant gratification and when they didn’t get it they seemed in a lot of ways to stop expecting the best from him and start dealing with him as if he had already failed.
So when the 2008 season started, and started badly for the Vikings it became easier to blame their woes on a project quarterback entering his 3rd year as opposed to looking at some horrible play calling and a collective poor team performance. How had the guy they had earmarked to lead the franchise fallen from grace so quickly to the point where he was now more valuable as a scapegoat, then a quarterback to the Coach that seen so much in him? Two games where he didn’t play all that well and all of a sudden management were turning to the somewhat limited talents of Gus Frerotte. On the back of a good defence and strong running game the Vikings were winning games, but nothing in Frerotte’s performances suggested Jackson (even in the two games he was defeated in) wouldn’t be a better option.
And it wasn’t until his predecessor had to take some time off work that he was presented another opportunity and in a four game stretch he led the Vikings to a 3-1 record and to the playoffs, capped off with a fantastic win over the SuperBowl Champion New York Giants where he drove his team down the field for the game winning field goal. It finally seemed like he’d found his place, and was going to have to stop fighting for his job, and start proving and improving himself even after they went out of the playoffs to the impressive Eagles.
 So heading into the season it should be his time right? He’d finally put performances together with his potential and with the Vikings having such a strong offence and running game, this new, less mistake prone Jackson would be able to contribute and grow into the role of franchise Quarterback.
But then the higher ups decided that a failed journeyman from another company would be more effective than their home-grown, cheaper, and higher potential member of staff who had already put forward a strong case to be the man to lead them. They brought in the fantastically erratic Sage Rosenfals who will go down in history as being the Quarterback who inspired one of the most remarkable comebacks in NFL history with his utterly atrocious play.
So just when Tarvaris figured he has his spot relatively secure and that he has earned his status as starter, he was now told this guy was coming into compete with him to work on the best project, and that there was a good chance he would end up being this guys deputy.
And then when that wasn’t enough, rumour in the city that a former big hitter was preparing to come out of retirement, and though his last job had seen him ridiculed as being past it, this famed managerial unit decided he presented a better option than anything they had.
So Tarvaris has kept his head down and worked hard, earning praise from co workers consistently. He’s improved from his grad days and showed more talent than he is given credit for. And yet he’s had to watch as two guys, one who never had it and the other who has lost it, have come in and usurped him in the eyes of management. A successful company wouldn’t operate such poor relations with such important employees otherwise they would lose them so why does it seem the Vikings are intent on driving Jackson away? Maybe they’re looking for the next Peyton Manning or Tom Brady but players like that don’t come around all that often. Maybe it’s time the Vikings management realise what they have, and what they could have before it’s too late.
Perhaps he’s not a nice guy, or he doesn’t play the office politics game well. Maybe’s he has rubbed people up the wrong way. Or maybe he’s just taken his time to grow into a challenging role.
I’d say if there’s a chance this is the case the Vikings have to give Tarvaris a break. Maybe it’s about time he was given his promotion on a permanent basis.
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