America at Large: In a conversation many years ago, Joe Gibbs phrased the lesson in the form of a riddle.

"What's the most important position in football?" asked Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls in a dozen years in his first stint at the helm of the Washington Redskins, but has encountered tougher going since returning to the NFL after an 11-year hiatus.

"Obviously, it's the quarterback," the old coach answered his own question. "Now, what's the next most important position?"

There were nearly as many responses as there were people seated at the table. Running back? Middle linebacker? Placekicker?

"You're all wrong," said Gibbs. "It's the back-up quarterback. Because if something happens to your guy, you're going nowhere unless you've got a good one."

The long-ago discussion leapt to mind last Sunday afternoon as I listened to the Jets-Jaguars game in my car on the drive back from Atlantic City. Late in the third period, Jets quarterback Chad Pennington was forced from the game with a shoulder injury. He was replaced by Jay Fiedler, the longtime Miami Dolphins starter who had been signed in the off-season with precisely this exigency in mind.

Exactly seven offensive plays later, Fiedler was hit from behind after throwing a pass. (He would later reveal that he "felt something pop" at the moment of impact.) Team physicians who were still examining Pennington on the bench raced back on to the field.

Fiedler's injury was sufficiently grotesque that he was escorted straight to the locker-room. Pennington, who had donned a baseball cap for what he assumed would be the duration, put his helmet back on and finished the game - which the Jets lost, 26-20, in overtime.

Post-game MRI tests revealed Pennington, who had undergone off-season shoulder surgery, had a new rotator-cuff tear. Fiedler had a dislocated shoulder. Both are out for the season.

While I was listening to the Jets and Jags on the radio, Vinny Testaverde was watching the game from a sofa in his Long Island home. The soon-to-be 42-year-old veteran hadn't taken a snap since last January, when he had rounded out an 18-year NFL career with one final season with the Dallas Cowboys.

That evening Testaverde phoned Jets coach Herman Edwards.

"I said, 'I'm here in whatever capacity you need me'," recalled Testaverde. "Whether you want me to be the teacher, to play, to be the starter or the back-up. I'd just like to help get the team back on track."

Coming back from the dead is nothing new for Vinny Testaverde, who has climbed out of more coffins than Bela Lugosi since he came out of the University of Miami two decades ago. Highly regarded enough to be the first player selected in the NFL draft, he was considered a bust as a pro, and wore out his welcome in Tampa Bay after six up-and-down, but mostly down, seasons.

It was only after he signed with the NFL that it came to light that Testaverde was colour-blind. This is a common enough trait, and millions of people manage to function without being able to tell green from red from purple. Few, however, work in occupations which force them to make split-second decisions based on the ability to quickly distinguish friend from foe. The genetic defect was often cited in explaining the 35 interceptions Testaverde threw in his first year as a starter with the Buccaneers. In 18 years he would complete 255 passes to members of the opposing team. Since the first 111 of these came during his Tampa Bay tenure, you'd have to say that he got better at it with experience.

Testaverde's career was assumed to be over six years ago, when he ruptured an Achilles' tendon in the Jets' season opener against the Patriots, but he battled his way back to become the starter for two more seasons before relinquishing his job to Pennington early in 2002.

His career took him from the Bucs to the Browns to the Ravens to the Jets and to the Cowboys, and now he finds himself back with the Jets. Edwards, after mulling over the decision, phoned Testaverde back on Monday and took him up on his offer. He will be in uniform come Sunday, when the Jets travel to Baltimore to play another of his former teams, the Ravens.

For the moment, Edwards said, Testaverde has been brought back to the fold to be the back-up. The starting role will be performed by Brooks Bollinger, who in three seasons with the Jets has played in exactly one NFL game. If Bollinger throws a touchdown pass in Baltimore, it will be his first.

It could be that, given his chance, Bollinger will tear up the league the way an inexperienced Tom Brady did when he was forced into the Patriots' line-up four years ago, but the expectation is that if things go as badly as most Jets fans anticipate, Vinny redux may be only a matter of time.

Edwards likened the situation to "a two-minute drill". "We're kind of scrambling around," admitted the coach. "But if something happens to Brooksie, who else is going to play? You can't just cancel the games."

"I'm excited, happy, nervous, anxious, all those feelings about playing for the Jets again," said Testaverde upon being introduced to the pres the other day.

Although a handful of experienced but currently unemployed quarterbacks were available, Edwards cast his lot with Testaverde because of his familiarity with the Jets' system and personnel.

Several veterans, including wide receivers Laveranues Coles and Wayne Chrebet, centre Kevin Mawae, and tackle Jason Fabini, played alongside Testaverde in his first Jets incarnation.

When he reported to the team's training facility at Hofstra University on Monday, Testaverde discovered yet another familiar face when he was introduced to his immediate superior. Jeremy Bates, the Jets' rookie quarterback coach, had been a teenaged ball boy in Cleveland back when Testaverde played for the Browns.

"We both got a chuckle out of that," said Vinny.