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Monday morning quarterback

noun

Informal.

a person who criticizes the actions or decisions of others after the fact, using hindsight to assess situations and specify alternative solutions.

noun

informal.
a person who criticizes or suggests alternative courses of action from a position of hindsight after the event in question

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Other Word Forms

Monday morning quarterbacking noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Monday morning quarterback¹

First recorded in 1940–45

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Idioms and Phrases

A person who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight, as in Ethel was a Monday-morning quarterback about all the personnel changes in her department—she always claimed to have known what was going to happen . This expression, first recorded in 1932, alludes to fans who verbally “replay” Sunday's football game the next day, the quarterback being the team member who calls the plays.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“Of course, it’s so easy to be the Monday morning quarterback,” he says with a smile.

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Do you ever play Monday morning quarterback with records that don’t work?

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Atkins said she wasn’t sure, saying: “It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback now. ... We know more today than we did then.”

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“Imagine a 14-year-old kid trying to process in real time what’s going on, and we’re here playing Monday morning quarterback,” Gordon said.

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Bill Plaschke has gone from being a Monday morning quarterback to a Thursday morning quarterback.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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