Episode 236: Armchair Quarterback

This week Shauna and Dan yell at the TV like good armchair quarterbacks should. You might think this phrase started with American Football, but if you thought that you'd be wrong. Bonus: Travellers, Critics, Strategists, and Generals 

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Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 236: Armchair Quarterback
Record Date: May 14, 2024
Air Date: May 22, 2024

Intro

Shauna:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase.

I’m Shauna Harrison

Dan:
And I’m Dan Pugh

Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.

Opening Hook
Shauna, have you ever been watching a sport on TV and seen another person yelling at the TV, as if the folks on the TV can hear them, and the person is yelling about what the folks actually playing the sport could do?

Well that person would be called an armchair quarterback.

Meaning

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an armchair quarterback is

Quote
A person who offers comment or criticism on something (esp. a sporting event) in which he or she is not actively involved, or about which he or she lacks first-hand or specialist knowledge.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/armchair-quarterback_n?tab=meaning_and_use#39158834100

The key part in this phrase is armchair. As you might imagine, similar phrases have been around since long before the United States' infatuation with American football, in which the offensive side of the team is managed on field by the quarterback. We actually see armchair used alongside many different nouns to identify a person with little to no experience who is commenting as if they are an expert.

1809 - Armchair Traveller
The first example of this type of occurrence the Oxford English Dictionary has is in the Monthly Review, September 1809.

Quote
A great portion of this volume is occupied by a description of Edinburgh; which, while it instructs the arm-chair traveller, must be highly satisfactory to the Scottish nation.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/armchair_n?tab=meaning_and_use#39158692


1856 Armchair Critic
Another example of the phrase can be found in the Church Warder dated April 1856.

Quote
It will disabuse the minds of those who have placed too great reliance in feather-bed and arm-chair critics.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/armchair-critic_n?tab=meaning_and_use#1179220020

According to Google’s Ngram, armchair critic seems to be the most popular usage of this style of phrase until armchair quarterback took it over in the 1990s. But we’ve got over a century of usage to get through before we get there.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=armchair+critic%2Carmchair+quarterback&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

1864 Armchair Critic
Here’s another example of ‘armchair critic’, this time from the Ulverston Mirror and Furness Reflector out of Ulverston, England and dated April 30, 1864. In this article, the author is speaking about the ongoing civil war in America and specifically in this passage is noting the Southern Armies are running out of horses capable of pulling heavy artillery.

Quote
Let the armchair critics of London and Paris, who measure the operations of Generals Lee and Johnston by the rules of the art of war as they understand it, bear the material fact in mind.
End Quote
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002306/18640430/064/0006

1879 Armchair politician
This next one takes on yet another version of the phrase, the armchair politician. This is from the London Daily News dated October 7, 1879.

Quote
Sir W. Harcourt drew an amusing picture of the arm-chair politician beginning to reflect, after is slow fashion, on the contrast between the promises made by the foreign policy of the Government and the performances which have been accomplished, and coming to the dreary conclusion that if things go on at their present rate, if expenditures keeps increasing and revenue falling, he will soon not have even his arm-chair left to him.
End Quote
https://newspaperarchive.com/london-daily-news-oct-07-1879-p-5/

Sir William Harcourt was particularly fond of the phrase.I found at least 10 different articles in October 1879 with him using the phrase during his campaign to become a member of parliament in the United Kingdom. Spoiler alert, he did win and quickly was appointed as the Home Secretary.

1885 Armchair Politician
Harcourt isn’t the only one, however, to use ‘armchair politician’. Here is an example in the preface of the 1885 work The Radical Programme. The preface was written by the Right Honourable J. Chamberlain, M.P.

Quote
Dual and multiple constituencies have always been the chosen opportunities of the armchair politician.
End Quote
https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.19529/page/9/mode/2up?q=%22armchair+politician%22

1885 Armchair General
Here’s another variant on the phrase. This one comes to us from the Savannah Morning News out of Georgia, USA, dated July 24, 1885.

Quote
Gen. Lee and Grant, and the officers and men on either side, respected one another. It was the armchair Generals who kept carefully in the rear of war that defamed and belittled both.
End Quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015137/1885-07-24/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1756&sort=date&date2=1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=0&words=armchair+General&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=%22armchair+general%22&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

An armchair general, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is:

Quote
A person without military experience who regards himself or herself as an expert military strategist; (also) a military commander who is not actively involved in warfare, or who directs troops from a position of comfort or safety.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/armchair-general_n?tab=meaning_and_use-paywall#1209124140100

1888 Armchair Strategist
This next one is yet another variant, armchair strategist. This is from the 1888 work A Soldier of Fortune: The Life and Adventures of General Henry Ronald Maciver by John W. McDonald:

Quote
Society, in noticing his arrival in London, spoke of him as “the modern representative of the Drakes and Raleighs of the Elizabethan age,” and then said: It will be remembered that the General, who is no armchair strategist or carpet solider, proposed, in the Imperial interests of the country, to organize and command an expedition for the purpose of occupying and annexing the island of New Guinea.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Soldier_of_Fortune/sJFPAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22arm-chair+strategist%22&pg=PA328&printsec=frontcover

An armchair strategist, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is:
Quote
A person who formulates strategy, esp. military strategy, from a position of comfort or security, without active involvement or personal experience in the field.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/armchair-strategist_n?tab=meaning_and_use#1209124170100

1891 Armchair Critic
Here’s another example of ‘armchair critic’, this time out of Victoria, Australia. This was in the Bacchus Marsh Express dated January 3, 1891. The statement is speaking about the professional naturalist and how the armchair critic is quick to oversimply things.

Quote
…his mastery of woodcraft, his knowledge of the haunts of nature, has been gained by days and nights of waiting in the fields and lanes, by solitary vigil in the twilight of the woods, by good fellowship with all the creatures of the wild. The armchair critic, over anxious, after the manner of his kind, to classify and label, complacently sets down each naturalist as the follower of a school.
End Quote
https://newspaperarchive.com/bacchus-marsh-express-jan-03-1891-p-4/

1903 Armchair Traveler
Next we see ‘armchair traveler’, this time the Indianapolis Journal dated June 21, 1903. This is from a story called A Thrilling Moment by Hume Nisbet.

Quote
Of course, there was the inevitable old-man-of-the-sea, who sat on their shoulders and tried to cram his convictions down their throats; the armchair traveler, who would insist on telling them all about Africa and who turned  deaf ear to their mild corrections. There was also the habitual resident, who had grown to regard the place as his exclusive private property, who resented as intruders all new-comers, and who monopolized the best chair in the smoking room, the morning and evening papers, and insisted on having silence while he read. These men are to be seen in every club and hotel, and to be endured as one endures mosquitoes in the tropics.
End Quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015679/1903-06-21/ed-1/seq-27/#date1=1756&sort=date&date2=1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=1&words=armchair+traveler&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=armchair+traveler&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

1912 Armchair General
Here’s one with ‘armchair general’ again, but this article is about War Horses. This is from the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate out of the UK and dated May 11, 1912.  

Quote
Constantly in positions of the greatest danger, for Kuropatkin was no armchair general”, this noble animal was fortunate enough to go through the… campaign unscathed.
End Quote
https://newspaperarchive.com/newcastle-morning-herald-and-miners-advocate-may-11-1912-p-13/

And that brings us to the first time we start seeing Armchair Quarterback.

1923 Armchair Quarterback
The first attestation I could find was  in the Toronto Star Weekly out of Ontario, Canada, dated November 10, 1923. And interestingly enough, it was about rugby, not American Football. This comes from a poem about a rugby player who lost his leg during world war I, but still cheers from the bleachers. Some freshmen behind him hear him yelling, but they think he’s just some old guy who doesn’t know anything about the sport. So they make fun of him.

Quote
His enthusiasm amuses a group of freshmen behind him.
“Quite a rugby expert, what!” says one of them to the others.
“An armchair quarterback,” says another.
End Quote
https://www.newspapers.com/image/991312325/?terms=armchair%20quarterback

1932 Armchair Quarterback
Here’s another one, also about rugby, from The Windsor Star out of Ontario, Canada dated December 12, 1932.

Quote
After the game, Westward strategies explained they had decided on the gamble for the major score and had lost. Armchair quarterbacks argued heatedly yesterday that an attempt at a field goal placement might have gained the winning points or at least offered an opportunity for a rouge point, as the ball was almost dead in line with the St. Thomas goal posts.
End Quote
https://www.newspapers.com/image/501127728/?match=1&terms=armchair%20quarterback

Interestingly, I also saw another phrase in this same article “grandstand quarterbacks” which I thought was equally clever. In fact, a search for grandstand quarterback gave me some examples as early as 1917,
https://www.newspapers.com/image/605522124/?match=1&terms=%22grandstand%20quarterback%22
which tells me ‘armchair quarterback’ was likely in use earlier than the 1920s. Another option was that “grandstand quarterback” developed first and then merged with “armchair critic” to take on the same meaning. But since they both started showing up in newspapers within 5 years of each other, I’m leaning towards that first option, that “grandstand quarterback” is a play on “armchair quarterback” and that “armchair quarterback” was probably in use in the 1910s or possibly earlier.


1935 Armchair Quarterbacks
Here’s an example from the Cornell Daily Sun out of Ithaca, New York. This is dated November 14, 1935.

Quote
The position of the present varsity team in the new athletic regime has at times been perplexing, and the widely-publicized freshman team with its wealth of material has tended to complicate the whole situation while at the same time demoralizing the spirit of the students and gridmen alike. This may have been especially evident up till the Columbia game, but the exhibition of courage, stamina, and hard playing by the varsity in that battle raised new hopes and greater expectations in the heart of every Cornell armchair quarterback.
End Quote
https://newspaperarchive.com/ithaca-cornell-daily-sun-nov-14-1935-p-4/


1955 Armchair Quarterback
Here’s one advertising the ability to watch american football on television in your own home. This is out of the Brewery Gulch Gazette, Bisbee, Arizona, September 1, 1955.

Quote
See the Gridiron Greats in Action

Don’t miss the thrills that go with everyone run, every pass, every touchdown in the full slate of football classics to be seen on Television this fall.

Your TV set is your season ticket to a great schedule of college and professional games - reserved seats on the 50-yard line. If you’re not already enjoying TV in your home, don’t pass up this opportunity to be an armchair quarterback this fall.
End Quote
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89070012/1955-09-01/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1756&index=2&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=armchair+quarterback&proxdistance=5&date2=1963&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=armchair+quarterback&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1



With that, let’s move to our uses in modern media, but first we need to say thank you to our sponsors.

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Modern Uses

1966
I want to start off with a cool thing I ran across. But I struggled to find much more about it. Then, on the library of Congress site, I found a blog written by Jennifer Harbster and published on February 5, 2011.
Here’s a snippet from her article:

Quote
In 1966 Norelco (yes, the electric shaver company) distributed a flip book authorized by the National Football League called Bart Starr Tells How to be an Armchair Quarterback (Starr was the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers from 1956-1971). According to Bart Starr “This unusual book will help make you and your family better NFL ‘Armchair Quarterbacks’ as you watch your favorite teams in action this fall on television.”

This flip book has it all! Not only does it discuss team rosters, coaches, and depth charts, but it also includes a television schedule for the 1966 games, a list of CBS local TV announcers, a history of the NFL, a history of each club, a page on the NFL Hall of Fame, and a page on the 1965 Championship Game highlights. It also includes pages with fun titles such as “What NFL Football Players Wear” and “Eavesdropping on Pro Football Lingo.”
End Quote
https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2011/02/armchair-quarterback/

It also contained several NFL facts, and we will look at some of those in the behind the scenes, available on our Patreon every Friday, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.

1985
Armchair Quarterback is a song on Ray Stevens’ 1985 album I Have Returned. The chorus, according to genius.com goes:

Quote
He's the Armchair Quarterback he's full of beer and full of snacks
The all-American man, with a cool one in his hand
The Armchair Quarterback he's kind of fun and kind of fat
The all-American man, with a cool one in his hand
End Quote
https://genius.com/Ray-stevens-armchair-quarterback-lyrics

2002
Armchair Quarterback is a song by Ten Foot Pole off the 2002 album Bad Mother Trucker. It’s a fast-paced alt rock style song. And we’ll link to the official music video. Here is the last line of the song.

Quote
Instant replay
Perfect hindsight
In slow motion
You're always right
Watching life on tape delay
You know what happened yesterday
End Quote
https://genius.com/Ten-foot-pole-armchair-quarterback-lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmjpFmsprT0

2007
The Armchair Quarterback Playbook: The Ultimate Guide to Watching Football is a 2007 book by Christopher Lee Barish. Here is the synopsis from the publisher:

Quote
Every weekend from August through January, 25 million Americans plop into their Lay-Z-Boys, crack open a beer, and watch football on television. At last, here is an illustrated book that celebrates their pastime and codifies their culture of extreme devotion like no other. The Armchair Quarterback Playbook is both hilarious and authentic, and is designed like a real football playbook—complete with modified X and O diagrams. Everything a stay-at-home fan needs to know is here: how to redirect an interfering spouse ("The Listen and Respond Fake"), methods for keeping children at bay ("Intentional Grounding), equipment and etiquette tips, game food recipes, armchair quarterback vernacular, and more. Written by a certified "AQ," this is the perfect book for the football fanatic.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Armchair_Quarterback_Playbook/F_54fnJdBV4C?hl=en&gbpv=0

2015
Here’s an interesting take from a 2015 article by Elisa Doucette and published in Forbes called The Rise Of The Armchair Business Quarterback. I thought this snippet here was interesting:

Quote
Armchair quarterbacking is not exclusive to the wide world of sports, American or otherwise.

With more sites bringing on slews of contributors to provide constant opinions and updates, in a quest to keep up with the bludgeoning 24-hour news cycle, every movement of a business' success or failures is broadcast. With everyone trying to find the unique story to tell.

But in the business world, armchair quarterbacking and post-game analysis often has the key factor that we don't get to exercise in our fantasy sports leagues. When something goes wrong in someone else's business, everyone who is running a business of their own knows what should have been done to fix it.

"When you've been at this for a while, it can feel like you've experienced all the wins and all the losses and lived to tell the tale," notes Stuart Small from Nisim. "Some people just can't help themselves, and want to compare their situation to those we read about in the news. As if they are carbon copies."
End Quote
https://www.forbes.com/sites/elisadoucette/2015/09/11/the-rise-of-the-armchair-business-quarterback/?sh=7c817edb305e

Now
Okay, let’s wrap up with a trophy sold by Midwest Awards Corp. It’s called Armchair Quarterback Fantasy Football Resin Sculpture. Here is the description:

Quote
This amazing fantasy football resin sculpture stands 11" tall. The black 5"x5"x3" solid genuine marble base adds serious heft to this award, weighing in at over ten pounds! This award is perfect for fantasy football or any super fan. Can be used as an award by itself or add up to 18 individual plates to make it a perpetual trophy.
End Quote
https://www.midwestawardscorp.com/armchair-quarterback-fantasy-football-resin-sculpture?categoryId=61


There is actually another version with the same top that stands 17” tall!


Wrap Up
Regardless of what you call them, there will always be people who have no experience and yet think they know better than the actual folks doing the task. I don’t know if it’s part of American culture, or if it is a human phenomenon, but lots of us think we know things that we don’t actually know. And for some reason, we can also be loud about how wrong we are. And that doesn’t seem to be a good thing.

I’ve fallen into this trap many times. One that sticks into my mind was when we were in Costa Rica last year and we were sitting in a local bar watching a women’s indoor football league (soccer to our American friends). I had literally never even heard of this league when we went into the bar, but an hour in I was grumbling about why they didn’t pass the ball to Perez cause she has a much better shot-on-goal ratio than Lopez does. Sports can bring that out in a person. But if we are going to do it, I recommend we confine that tendency to game day. I think we’d all be a little happier in our lives if we did.  

Dan:
That’s about all we have for today. If you have any thoughts on the show, or pop culture references we should have included,
reach out to us on Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod or comment on our website bunnytrailspod.com

Shauna:
It’s poll time!

Recently we asked our Patrons, what are your favorite ways to enjoy corn? We had lots of options and patrons picked as many as they wanted. The winners were ‘on the cob’ and ‘in cornbread’ by a pretty large margin, with ‘creamed corn’ getting honorable mention.

JGP pointed out we missed an option in our list:

Quote
Popped! Popcorn is the best corn!
End Quote
 
Dan:
Great point from JGP!

Jan said:

Quote
Creamed, like Rudy’s in Texas
End Quote

Also very good. I'm not a big corn fan, but I think ‘on the cob and buttered’ would be my favorite. I also like creamed corn and I absolutely love cornbread even if it has corn kernels in it. My favorite additive to cornbread, though, is jalapeno.

Shauna:

Cornbread… and in the form of a tortilla are probably top on my list. But I do also enjoy corn on the cob occasionally, as well as cream corn on the holidays. And then of course popcorn is awesome. Kettle corn - where is just a tad salted and slightly sweet is my favorite.

As a reminder, our silly polls mean absolutely nothing and are not scientifically valid. And patrons of all levels, including our free tiers, can take part. Head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to take this week’s poll!

Outro

Shauna:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember,

Together:
Words belong to their users.