AN UNOBSTRUCTED VIEW 

NFL week 4

Presented by Dale Sims

Today we enter into the realm of speculative fiction; the NFL and most fans believe that the quarterback is the most important single player on the field.  This view is probably correct, though perhaps not to the degree supposed.  The failure rate for quarterbacks is enormous, for every quarterback signed less than one in ten ever becomes more than a spot starter.  Frankly many of the quarterbacks currently starting are simply place holders while their team keeps looking for something better.

What is the problem?  Several possibilities suggest themselves.  The job may simply be too difficult for mortals or there might be essential problems with either the selection or training methodology.  Briefly these are the issues we want to look at but there are some other contributing factors to be considered also which will be touched on.

Who Qualifies?

You can name perhaps five or six quarterbacks who stand out from the crowd and another small group who may or may not be on their way toward joining them.  There is a third, larger, group who were at one time a member of those two groups but whose career is now seen to be in decline along with some whom never-were.  There isn’t much debate that these groups exist though there is usually plenty of lively discussion about where specific players belong within those groups and their rise and falls.

Quarterbacks are the most psychological fragile players on a team by position.  This stems from the position itself; it is automatically a position of leadership.  That is an extra burden in itself, it is one thing to make mistakes but another when it creates an atmosphere of failure for everyone that surrounds you.  Quarterbacks get too much credit for success and too much blame for failure.

It is hard to predict how a prospect will deal with the pressures as coming out of college these are players who have not been challenged in this way probably at any time in their football playing careers.  They have succeeded at every level up to and including college and have never faced neither the scrutiny nor the pressures that come at the professional level.  Is it any wonder that these players struggle?  The assessment process has no way to account for situations that have never occurred.

Teams spend a lot of time and money on quarterback selection in the draft process.  Despite that the general trend doesn’t change much, most of these choices fail at an alarming rate and somehow guys like Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, or even Joe Montana get passed over for prospects who never quite make it.  In each of these cases it can be argued that the situation they landed in just worked out for them, in short it was luck as much as the selection process.

What Else Can Go Wrong?

These players are all talented and have been successful but seldom are they actually technically sound at their position.  Footwork and technique are not really necessary to excel in college and really applies to the vast majority of players coming into the NFL regardless of their position.  But quarterbacks often have bad habits that need to be retrained.

The physical demands of the game are distilled in the NFL; there are roughly sixteen hundred players at that level and about fifty thousand players at the college level.  That means that even at the top level of the college game a quarterback probably did not play against eleven defensive players in a season who will be NFL starters, for some players perhaps didn’t see eleven over their entire college careers.

Everyone talks about the speed of the NFL game but the practical side of that is not the athletic speed it is the decision making requirements.  No one has to make as many decisions in a play as the quarterback.  There are literally hundreds of conscious decisions required and most have a specific order.  These decisions can not be thought through at the time, they have to be trained to the point that they appear to be reflexive.

The offenses themselves are exponentially more complex than in college.  The plays have more variations and are more flexible, calling for pre-snap reads by not only the quarterback but also receivers and backs.  All of the players have to come to the same conclusions from these reads or disaster quickly follows when a quarterback decides a receiver is “hot” and the receiver does not take the same read a linebacker winds up getting the ball thrown to him between the numbers.  Repetitions and practice are required to become at least moderately proficient.

On the Job Training?

The reality for prospective quarterbacks is the top ranked prospects normally go to bad teams.  Bad teams usually have a common problem, poor offensive line play.  The setup for a quarterback to learn his craft could hardly be worse.  The team signing them has invested a lot of money and is looking to energize their fans by giving them new hope with a quarterback who can turn things around.

For the most part these are extremely confident and capable young men.  The emphasis here is on young.  They have skills and abilities which they have proved on the field and by being tested in the selection process.  They have experienced success and are confident of their abilities.  They are about to move into an alternate reality.

They are on their own often for the first time in their short lives and they will be under tremendous scrutiny.  They join a team of professionals, and no matter how bad that team is it will be composed of better players than he has ever played with before.  Of course the playbook is much more complex but he will be getting it in small pieces initially.

In preseason he sees other teams and most of the players he is facing will not be making their respective squads.  The speed is faster than he is used to but the defenses are plain vanilla, the game plan he is responsible covers maybe a half and is manageable and limited.  This poor guy is beginning to believe he might know what is going on; he is of course dead wrong.

At some point he gets named as the starter in his first NFL game.  If he is really unlucky he will come in on one week worth of study and be handed a dumbed down game plan that still is bigger than anything he has ever tried to play before.  He is still supremely confident in public but is hoping he does not line up behind a guard to take the snap.

He gets on the field and the adrenaline is pumping and suddenly the defense is doing things he has never seen before and at a speed he can not quite believe.  The pressure is relentless and his offensive line is a sieve.  The fundamentals start to break down, he is not getting his feet set, not stepping into the throw or anxiety leads him to release early so the ball floats.  He starts to develop “happy feet” or to fall away as he throws the ball.

The pure physical beating starts to take a toll also.  Yes quarterbacks are protected but an NFL caliber hit is still quite a bit of abuse.  The toll of the length of the first season is also significant; it is about half again as long as a college season and the fatigue starts to wear them down both physically and mentally they hit the “rookie wall” at some point.

Case Studies – Then and Now

Carson Palmer was brought along in the classic fashion; he spent his first season carrying a clipboard and watching from the sidelines.  He did not take a single snap that season and came in his second year to start.  While his first season wasn’t spectacular he developed throughout and his third season, last year, was about as good as it gets.  Ideally this is how you “grow” a quarterback.  Tom Brady spent his first year on the sidelines watching (appearing in part of one game and throwing three passes, completing one).  Roethlisberger did start considerably in his rookie year and was fairly successful though his role was limited and he was playing for a good team.

Actually in all three situations cited above the quarterbacks were successful but they all had at least an adequate or better offensive line in front of them.  This bodes well for Phillip Rivers, though not a rookie and poorly for the first rookie starter of the season Bruce Gradkowski for Tampa who has a bye week to help him prepare and hope that his guards get healthy. 

Those looking for Matt Leinart to replace Kurt Warner should hope you do not get what you wish for.  This is the worse case scenario for a rookie quarterback in some ways.  The Arizona offensive line is terrible and lacks continuity and while Leinart might be the most ready to play of the rookie quarterbacks that is just another way of saying he is just the best looking of the ugly ones.

Vince Young is one of those cases that will have to play out on the field and expect him to get there sooner rather than later.  He will probably be put in a nonstandard offensive package, probably rolling out to pass.  This would simplify his reads but limit his options to playing only with half the field.  It also helps to mitigate the effect of a sometimes inconsistent offensive line.  Still in the long run this will not help his educational process as a NFL quarterback.

Observations

The NFL and the fan base is likely to be short sighted about developing quarterbacks but the current trends are clearly not working.  It seems absurd to invest millions in a prospect just to burn him out by playing him before he is ready or able to perform.  There is reason to believe that this actually delays quarterback development looking at the histories of various players.  There are dozens of burn outs for every Manning or Dan Marino that is found.

Of course there are special cases, Michael Vick does not fit the classic quarterback profile and some commentators think that is the way it should be.  For my money the jury is still out, yes his new scheme of option looks has been effective to start this season.  My best guess is that he will get injured taking the kind of abuse he is being exposed to but even if he does not I suspect that defensive coordinators will have some solutions for this new look offense.

The best thing about writing a column is that I do not get interrupted.  That said please feel free to play along at home (or the office) and if you feel like commenting feel free to contact me and pass along your thoughts at the address below.

Dale “at” footballforecasters.com