Metaphor

“That’s what you do at linebacker or right tackle or left defensive end. It’s not what you do at quarterback. You replace sergeants and lieutenants, as though they were spark plugs and oil filters, but you don’t sack your general, you don’t switch out supreme commanders like you rotate your Michelins, depending on momentary results.”

Here the author is using a metaphor about Jake Heaps being a General and not a “sergeants and lieutenants”. The author uses this here to appeal to reader for a logical argument about war. The reader is invited to think about a war and how you don’t trade a general every time he loses.  A reader might think of George Washington who also had problems, so what would have happened if he had been take out early in the war? So with this appeal the author invites the reader to think if really changing the so called “general Heaps” as the right move. This is very effective as a reader will think that maybe it’s not such a good idea to call for the resignation of the general after just a couple bad battles. This metaphor is very effective in invoking this logical argument.