It’s a trying game for the dads of NFL quarterbacks too

Who wouldn’t want to be Larry Foles?

He’s living the dream. Even though he dropped out of high school, he made a fortune in the restaurant business and has the money to do whatever he wants. Better yet, every fall Sunday he’s been able to watch his son, Nick, play quarterback for the St. Louis Rams.

Yet there the proud dad sat Sunday, in a plush recliner before a giant video board of NFL games, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else. He was in the bustling studios of DirecTV’s Fantasy Zone Channel, on the third floor of a nondescript Manhattan office building, accompanied by three other understanding souls — the fathers of NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning, Alex Smith and Matt Ryan — as part of a “Fathers in Arms” promotional visit.

The dads, accompanied by a couple of reporters, had a steak dinner Saturday night, then watched games together Sunday. For most of the men, it was a unique circumstance, as they almost always attend their sons’ games. This time, they agreed to try something different, bond with other fathers who understand what they go through, and share their insights.

And for Foles, the day wasn’t going well. The Rams were struggling against Chicago, and he sank deeper into his black leather chair with every incomplete pass. On his chair back was a fleece Rams blanket, and Foles looked at one point as if he’d like to pull it over his head. He didn’t say much, only quietly muttering to himself from time to time. No one sat on either side of him. The other dads wanted to give him space.

“Look at Larry,” Archie Manning whispered sympathetically. “He’s kind of dying right now.”

The torment continued Monday when the Rams announced they were benching Foles in favor of Case Keenum for Sunday’s game against Baltimore.

Manning’s torture came too. In an unusual scheduling twist, his two sons were playing at the same time, with Eli’s New York Giants playing a late game against the New England Patriots while Peyton’s Denver Broncos played Kansas City. The Manning family has had a business relationship with DirecTV for the past 18 years, so Archie agreed to alter his routine and participate.

It turned out to be an incredibly trying day for him, even though, as expected, Peyton set the NFL record for career passing yards. He came into the game needing only three yards to surpass Brett Favre for that mark. Otherwise, it was a miserable day for the league’s only five-time most valuable player. The banged-up Manning had four interceptions in the 29-13 defeat and was benched for health reasons in the second half. It was reported Monday that he has a torn plantar fascia in his left foot and won’t play Sunday against the Chicago Bears.

As if that weren’t agonizing enough for Archie, Eli was going back and forth against the undefeated Patriots, and the Giants came oh-so-close to beating them before losing on a last-second, 54-yard field goal. Archie watched in near silence, the color long since drained from his face. He got up from his seat frequently and moved around the busy studio, limping on his recently replaced knee.

“I’m kind of a pacer,” Manning explained earlier in the day. “Either at a game or at home, I’ve got to get up and walk around a little bit.”

Often, he and his wife, Olivia, will divide and conquer by going to separate home games. He’ll see Peyton, she’ll see Eli, or vice versa. She was in Denver on Sunday to visit their grandchildren, see Peyton break the record, and later to console him. On the Sundays that Archie and Olivia spend at home in New Orleans, they don’t have anyone over, and they don’t pick up the phone.

“We watch alone,” he said. “We change seats, change TVs. We talk, but sometimes not a lot. I probably curse out loud or something. We try to find that formula.”

Manning said there have been times when friends or business associates will text him on an unrelated matter when one of his sons is playing. He finds that so annoying, he’ll wait two weeks or longer to respond to those messages.

While somebody might think watching a son play quarterback is pure joy, these dads are gripping their armrests like first-time fliers on every offensive snap.

“It’s like being seasick,” Mike Ryan said. “When the game’s over, when you step off the boat, you’re better.”

Ryan was able to be in relaxed mode Sunday. His son’s Atlanta Falcons had the weekend off.

“It’s refreshing when I discovered that it’s not just me who watches games like this,” he said. “You think about injuries, this and that. And what do you fear most? Interceptions. It gets you. That absolutely gets you, in a crazy way.”

The other dads agree — interceptions are the worst.

“Just such a terrible part of a quarterback’s day,” Archie Manning said, before his son was picked off four times. “I always say, every interception has a life of its own. Somebody could probably go through and really break them down. How many were the quarterback’s fault mentally, how many were a bad throw? How many were the receiver’s fault? Fell down, ran a wrong route. Pressure from the rush.

“But at the end of the day, it’s always on the quarterback. It’s your deal.”

Each of the dads has his own routine, and all four of them mute the volume when watching games on TV. They don’t want to hear the announcers, good or bad.

“For me, one of the things you get tired of as a parent is you get a lot of people who talk about your kid — and they’re still your kid when they’re 30-some years old — but they talk about them as if they know them,” Doug Smith said. “I grow tired of that. They make lots of comments about your child. He’s this, he’s that. You get a lot of emphatics. If you can tune that out, it’s good. You don’t need to hear that.”

For the most part, these dads have a favorite way to watch their kids — alone, and with nobody trying to engage them in a conversation.

“Eli, in the old stadium, when he was a young player, boy, there were some tough days,” said Archie, himself a former NFL quarterback. “I used to get up and walk around that stadium. One year, there was one little tunnel I found. I slipped in there to watch, and Eli threw a touchdown. Through the years, I always went back to that tunnel when things got tough.”

Smith knows the feeling. His son, Alex, is quarterback of the Chiefs and was on the winning end of Sunday’s AFC West matchup. Even though his son was winning Sunday, Smith too sat in silence. His expression was inscrutable, intense and constant. By looking at him, you couldn’t tell whether the Chiefs were winning or losing. Every so often, he and Archie exchanged thoughts. They know the ups and downs all too well.

“There are a lot of similar feelings,” said Smith, who retired in 2010 after 21 years as principal at his son’s alma mater, Helix High in San Diego. “You go through a lot of the same experiences, regardless of teams and where you are. ... I guess I’d say quarterbacks carry more pressure, carry more blame, get more credit as well, rightly or wrongly. With that comes a little bit of the uniqueness of the experience.”

Sunday was only the second time the elder Smith didn’t attend one of his son’s games. He was there throughout high school and when Alex played at Utah. Doug missed one game when Alex was playing for San Francisco, when foul weather in Philadelphia caused the NFL to reschedule. This time, his son encouraged him to participate in the DirecTV event. The Fantasy Zone Channel features live game-to-game coverage with in-depth analysis for fantasy football players. The state-of-the-art studio is almost like a sports bar, with video monitors everywhere, separate desks for the show’s three anchors and statisticians, a giant interactive screen for medical explanations, and even a kitchen that features celebrity chefs.

But on this day, the focus is on the quarterback fathers. From being around the four of them, it’s clear they weren’t trying to build the perfect quarterbacks as parents. They were just trying to be good dads, and not all of them were sure their sons would even play football. Alex Smith was so skinny as a ninth-grader, in fact, his dad, who was not only a school administrator but also a football coach, wondered if he might be more suited for cross-country running.

“You have to let your son stand on his merits and his accomplishments,” Smith said. “It’s their work. What I try to say is, I’m proud of my kids regardless of those kinds of things. I think my son’s a good person most importantly, and if he can play some football and do well, that’s his claim to fame and good for him. But as a father, I like the fact that he’s a good human being.

“I think if you’re too self-absorbed [as a player], I don’t know that you’re going to make it long-term. You can see new quarterbacks coming out of college and into the NFL. When you hear too much bravado out of them, stuff about their self-worth, I wonder how long they’ll make it. Because I don’t think you’re going to lead too many teams that way. Pretty soon you turn around and look and there’s nobody behind you.”

Unlike Manning, who is almost universally recognizable to football fans, the other quarterback dads have the luxury of anonymity. They might wear a cap or shirt that reveals their allegiance, but they don’t parade around in the jerseys of their sons.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Shortly after their son was drafted by the Falcons, the Ryans saw his newly minted jersey in their local mall in Philadelphia.

“My wife told me to go buy it,” Mike said. “And I did.”

Ryan said seeing a fan wearing his son’s jersey is “surreal” and makes him feel like giving that person a hug.

Matt, who played at Boston College, has two brothers and a sister. The other two boys also played quarterback in college, with John at Brown and Michael at Widener. Matt’s three siblings are his biggest fans, Mike said.

Manning always has told his three sons that among the most devastatingly disappointing thing to him would be if they weren’t friends with each other as adults. The Manning brothers are close friends.

But there is a unique dynamic to being a parent of a quarterback, Foles said.

“When they win or are doing well, you’re happy,” he said. “But when it’s going the other way, you’re feeling every moment. My wife, Melissa, she just takes it in stride. She doesn’t want him to get hurt. I think dads look at it a little differently; they want them to progress and play well. If they don’t, you feel for them.”

Nick calls his dad after every game.

“After a win, it’s easier,” Larry said. “After a [37-13] blowout like today, it’s hard. But it’s just football, that’s the way you have to look at it. There’s a lot of things in life that matter, and this is just part of it.

“People always say, ‘Wow, your son is an NFL quarterback. You must be so proud.’ Yes, I’m proud. But I have the same feeling now that I did when he was 10 or 11. It’s no different now. You get hit harder, and you get scrutinized a lot, but other than that it’s the same.

“All you can do now is support him, let him know you care.”

Throughout an emotionally wrenching Sunday, that was never in doubt.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesfarmer

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