At the start of this NFL season, five first-year quarterbacks were slated to be their teams’ primary signal-callers. The results have been beyond what anyone could have predicted. Three of those teams, led by Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson, are all above .500 and in competition for playoff spots late in the regular season.

Before this year, and even last year, rookie quarterbacks weren’t really taken seriously as contributors to a team. Rather, they were often benched behind other veterans and maybe after a couple of years, they are able to earn their chance in the starting lineup. But I think that this season, teams are re-evaluating the notion that they have to wait before having a meaningful impact.

This phenomenon is one that has never been seen before. Before this year, the highest number of rookies who had been handed the starting job at the beginning of a season was two. This isn’t that surprising as conventional wisdom in the NFL was that a rookie was simply not ready to be handed the reins. Carson Palmer didn’t start a game his entire rookie campaign in 2003, despite being the top draft choice that year.

When Andy Dalton got the Bengals to the playoffs last season, in my mind, the myth that rookies are ineffective or unhelpful was effectively debunked. And while Dalton was setting records late in the season, fellow rookie Cam Newton was breaking them early, often and throughout, throwing for over 1,000 yards in his first three games combined. With this display, rookies started their shift away from being benchwarmers, as Palmer was, to players that an offense can and should revolve around, such as Dalton late last season and Griffin this year.

In other sports, rookies often have been used from the get-go. The legendary Larry Bird took his Boston Celtics from a 29-53 record before his arrival, to a 61-21 clip and the Eastern Conference finals while garnering All-NBA first-team honors in his first year. Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar “Big O” Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also brought immediate success to their teams, but this was more than 40 years ago. Why has the same trend taken so long to occur in football?

For one, college and professional football is the most physical large-scale organized sport in America by far. At the collegiate level, it’s not uncommon for top teams to have a plethora of veteran upperclassmen that are also bigger, stronger and faster than underclassmen, leading the team on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. This makes it difficult for younger players to come in and compete right away. Instead, they wait in the wings, often for multiple years, until spots open up on the depth chart in front of them. And then the cycle repeats itself. This same pattern can be seen at the professional level but to a lesser extent because older veterans often find it hard to compete with younger players.

It takes a rare kind of athlete to have such a strong impact on a team in his first season, but that’s exactly what we’re seeing this year, at all levels. The Redskins’ offense is confusing defenses around the league with its new “Pistol” formation that was implemented to take advantage of RGIII’s unique skillset. Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, who became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy this past weekend, shocked the college football world with his bravado on the field. Perhaps this year is a sign of changing times, and it will be remembered as the year of the rookie quarterback.

Jay is a freshman in Engineering. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jbensal.