Patience in evaluating QB
If you are from my era (I was born in 1980) or older than me, you understand what it is like not to go out because you are waiting for a call next to a landline phone. Also what it’s like to have a question gnawing at your head for days, because you didn’t have an internet search engine to give you the answer in the blink of an eye.
In other words, we learned to be patient, essentially because we had no choice.
Today, my daughters ask me to watch a specific chapter of a series they like and it does not enter their heads that in the past, you had to wait a week or more to see what you wanted or wait for a specific time, because there were no recordings within the cable operators and I clarify that I am not here to tell you that one era is better than another, because we all know that technological advances make our daily lives easier. I am simply here to point out that they are different.
I am a faithful believer that in the life of a husband, father and analyst, patience is a virtue, and because of a myriad of comments I have received about rookie quarterbacks, I felt the need to talk about them again.
I am not surprised that they are not doing well in this early season and if you want to corroborate what I thought about them, I leave you with the first column of the season dedicated to them.
There’s no denying that it’s been a rough start to the season for the first-year quarterbacks. In fact, between them they have combined for a 1-10 record in their starting appearances and the only win came in a rookie showdown when the New England Patriots took on the New York Jets.
This past week, Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Mac Jones and Davis Mills combined to complete 96 of 168 passes (57%) for 885 yards with three touchdowns and seven interceptions. They were caught an incredible 23 times in total and none managed to lead their team to victory (0-5).
Of course the automatic verdict from the instant gratification society is that “none are any good” and I’m here to remind you that when it comes to evaluating young quarterbacks, patience is more of a virtue than ever.
The game plan in Chicago was embarrassing considering that the offensive line is the team’s primary weakness and you provided virtually no help in protecting Fields in his first start for the bulk of the game.
Urban Meyer himself doesn’t know what he’s doing in Jacksonville with Trevor Lawrence, who has thrown multiple interceptions in all of his games and the Jets are an absolute mess with a porous offensive line, no ground attack and no targets, Zach Wilson would have to be a magician and not a quarterback to think about succeeding anytime soon.
As boring as he is at times, the conservative game plans Bill Belichick and David Culley had with Mac Jones and Davis Mills, respectively, at least make sense. Belichick knows that until Trent Brown returns, the offensive line is a question mark and he also knows that Jones is not a gunslinger and is trying to maximize his strengths. Culley, meanwhile, knows how aggressive the Panthers defense is and doesn’t want to take away Mills’ confidence in his first start as a starter.
Meanwhile, in my view, smartly Kyle Shanahan is keeping Trey Lance as an occasional weapon for the time being with the San Francisco 49ers.
In and of itself the draft is an inexact science and most of these quarterbacks will not become the stars that fans intend them to be.
To put this in perspective, keep in mind that since 2000, 60 quarterbacks have been first round picks. Some have yet to even be starters, like Jordan Love, others have failed miserably like JaMarcus Russell, Paxton Lynch, Brady Quinn and Johnny Manziel to name a few.
Stars are counted on one or two hands, such as the cases of Aaron Rodgers, Carson Palmer and Patrick Mahomes. Sure, there have been useful and winnable quarterbacks like Teddy Bridgewater, Ryan Tannehill and Chad Pennington, but the evidence shows us that most of them are failures, which is logical if we think that, generally, the teams that pick high in the draft are the worst equipped and therefore, you get a dysfunctional organization in which it is difficult to shine.
Time will pass and some of these guys will not have been able to get out of the sports black cloud that currently surrounds them. There, I’m sure those who claimed that “none of these guys are any good” will write to tell me that they were right, and maybe they are, but the time has not come for the final verdict.
There is no one way to deal with rookies. Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow did pretty well last year, but for every Kyler Murray there are 10 Josh Rosens.
