Voice of the 'Fan

The NFL and DirecTV never saw this coming.

In the course of this season all but one of the QB's who did their best Rob Lowe impressions in doing wacky ads for the satellite giant, now aligned with AT&T, have wound up injured, missing significant chunks of time, and it does have a, ah, damaging effect on teams' playoff chances.

The medical report, if ya will.....

Tony Romo (Dallas). Mr. Arts & Crafts is gone for the season, taking the Cowboys' post-season chances with him in all probability. Owner/General Mismanager Jerry Jones won't put Romo on the injured reserve list, holding out hope the 'Boys can pull it out and win the NFC Least (not happening). Then again, Jones should be in Romo's ceramics class.......!

Andrew Luck (Indianapolis). The Colts could get him back for the final 2 weeks, but don't bet the farm on it just yet. He should've deferred his ad to someone from Duck Dynasty, if you get my drift, to save himself the embarrassment.

Peyton Manning (Denver). He did 2 ads, only one of which is still in heavy rotation (take a guess which one), for DirecTV, in addition to his usual shilling for Nationwide and Papa John's (Buick didn't retain him). His time in Denver may be over, though, now that Brock Osweiler, a 4th year QB, has finally shown what he can do. Foot injuries take longer to heal than you think.

Peyton's brother, Eli, went to the same makeup crew that turned Romo into a middle aged ceramics teacher, and tried to be a poor man's lounge lizard comic. Luckily for Eli, he didn't get hurt----yet.

Fox analyst Randy Moss was the other endorser I've seen, but his spot's been taken off the air, probably because of how lame it was.

Of the 4 QB's highlighted, only Romo and the Cowboys are at present in danger of missing the playoffs. The Giants & Colts are still fighting for division titles, but Denver is a lock, as usual. Otherwise, we'd really be able to tie this together with a bow.

Of course, Eli could still be feeling the residual effects of doing ads for Toyota for 2 seasons (2012-13) where they tried to pass him off as being a telepath, and those were even lamer than Peyton's "high pitched" spot this year.

The next time the NFLPA is presented with advertising pitches like DirecTV's, they should consider caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), then pass.