We keep hearing the F-35 is the "quarterback" of the future fight...so are we gonna dump AWACS?

I use the E-7 as my AWACS example because from my reading of the planes currently flying, its the most advanced and once the USAF gets around to replacing the current model will probably buy this as their future ride....

via Military Times.

Goldfein also used the occasion to push back against findings by the Pentagon’s operational and live fire test office, which “currently considers the accuracy of the [internal 25mm] gun, as installed in the F-35A, to be unacceptable." The external guns on the F-35B and F-35C variants are in working order, the report noted.

The F-35A is the conventional takeoff and landing variant designed to operate from conventional runways, and is the only version to carry the internal cannon. F-35As will be the most prevalent version of the aircraft, used by the U.S. Air Force as well as man allied air forces.

Goldfein said he hadn’t seen the report specific to gun accuracy issues, but added that the F-35′s cannon isn’t the driver behind the aircraft, and isn’t what concerns him.

“Given what we built the F-35 to do, I’m not sure the gun is what we should focus on,” Goldfein said. “When we talk about fifth-generation, stealth is actually only a small part of that. … It’s about information fusion."

Goldfein, who flew the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-117 Nighthawk, compared the aircraft’s future benefit to that of a quarterback — able to call audibles and deciding what to do at the last second after seeing all possible complications.

“When I was a mission commander at Red Flag, my job was to take about a hundred aircraft and choreograph them through different time slices, get them into a battle space and fight against a heavily defended adversary,” he said.

This is the current talking point for the F-35. 

They've dumped the idea of stealth being the reason for the plane and grabbed onto "information fusion" (notice that they've dumped sensor fusion because we know that 4h gen planes like the Gripen and Super Hornet NOW HAVE that capability because they have big AESAs too!) with all their might.

But why?

Am I missing something?

I thought AWACs were the "quarterback" of the air fight!  Does this mean that a 2nd Lt just out of flight school will now command the flight?

Are they decentralizing the air campaign to such a degree that we'll never see the clustefuck of air tasking that plagued Desert Storm with the USAF DEMANDING control of all air components across the board?

I need clarification on this claim of the F-35 being the "quarterback" of the future fight.  As things stand it seems like the latest marketing scheme.

But let's say it isn't.  Then are we getting rid of AWACS?