a new era for rookie QBs

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...09/22/newton.gabbert/index.html#ixzz1YmTl4nvu

 

Sports writers are always taking something short term and trying to blow it up into a league wide trend. There will always be QBs who are drafted high and bust. The spread offense will not dominate the NFL and a good defense and running game are usually necessary to win a championship.

Aaron Rodgers is one of the best in the league right now and he rode the bench for a while. Phillip Rivers did as well and he is up there near the top. There is no one formula that works every time.

I will say though that as much as I wanted a veteran QB on our roster to start the season, I was wrong about it. Cam needed to start from day one. He is a lot farther along than I thought he was.

 

The best part of this piece:

"Maybe this is telling us something, what happened with the lockout and these guys not getting all the offseason work and getting the playbooks late,'' he said. "Maybe coaches over-coach. Maybe they over-burden these guys with too much in the playbook, getting them to think too much instead of playing. It's just causing everyone to revisit and rethink everything. Coaches can give these quarterbacks so much in the playbook, so much to do and think about that they can't play football. It's paralysis by analysis.


"The lockout meant coaches have down-sized their playbooks and given these guys less to worry about, making you think, 'Hey, maybe you don't have to give these guys the whole playbook from day one. Just play to their strength and let them go play the game.' I think that's part of what's happening. I'm kind of old-school when it comes to quarterback development, and I feel the best thing is for a guy to sit a year or two and learn the game and learn the system. But this is making me rethink those thoughts.''

Well, I agree that it takes a year or two to fully develop a quarterback, but this year the dynamic is so much different. Offenses didn't have an offseason, but neither did defenses. So a rookie quarterback with a cut-down playbook has a legit chance to succeed against defenses that are still developing.
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maybe the idea will occur to the owners that if they want a more exciting brand of football they'll shorten the off-season every year

 

Wow, that is completely fucking retarded.

 

try making sense of this if you want a real challenge

 

The challenge for highly drafted rookie QBs is almost always mental. They all have good talent and skill or they would not be drafted high. Some guys are ready to deal with it from a mental stand point right away and some are not. Clausen is a good example of a guy whose problems are mental. He plays scared for some reason. He might turn out to be decent some day down the road, probably with a different team. He is one of those guys who needs to sit and learn for a while.

 

The main problem for quarterbacks making the transition from college to the NFL is that they don't understand what it's like to play at the NFL level. How could they? I do agree with you about confidence being important for playing quarterback, but that's true whether a guy is a rookie or a 10 year backup. Rookie passers fail or succeed based on their good and bad habits, as well as the pace at which they assimilate information. A lot of people made a big deal about Clausen playing in a pro style offense, but obviously that didn't help him enough. Meanwhile when Matt Ryan got drafted I made note of the fact that he had a higher distribution of passes than any QB I'd charted, meaning that at BC he didn't just focus on one receiver (in part because BC didn't have any good receivers) but spread the ball around. That actually prepared him well for the transition to the NFL where you have to read and find the best option as opposed to just locking on to your preferred target.

 

Running for your life on almost every play will fuck with you.

Clausen was set up to fail by circumstances. He definitely should have had a couple of years on the bench. Maybe a couple years doing that here will be good for him, but his stock has taken such a hit I don't have much optimism regarding his future in the NFL.

edit: yes that premise about the rookie QBs/developing Ds is fucking lame. Sure there are a few teams, like us, with new staffs/schemes, but is GB a developing D?