Analyzing Quarterbacks -- An Extension of MHR University

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 12, 2009 12:10 PM MDT in MHR Scouting Services Comment 22 comments

QB can be both one of the simplest and hardest positions to scout. It is simple because there are only a handful of grades to hand out and you get hundreds of reps to clearly see them, since the QB is the center of attention. It can be hard though, because it is sometimes impossible to see what truly makes a QB great - the intangibles. While it is true that the character and attitude of every position counts, nowhere is it more significant than at the single-most important position on the football field: at QB.

It matters how they talk, how they walk (pigeon-toed is acceptable!), what they say about themselves and what they say about their teammates. But as stars of their teams, there is usually no shortage of material to assess when trying to come to conclusions on their character and attitude.

With that in mind, MHR Scouting Services would like to take a "passing" look at some of the physical traits and qualities to analyze and judge when watching QBs. They can be one of the funnest positions to scout, regardless of difficulty, so let's get right into it!

Dropback
He should maintain his balance and his back should be straight with his eyes down field. Watch his feet closely - is the footwork smooth and effortless? Slow and clumsy? He should get back to his "set" position quickly, because the sooner he is set, the sooner he can make a throw.
Setup
How quickly do his feet get into the setup position? For Most QBs they should be shoulder-width apart with the back foot ready to plant and drive off of, and the front foot ready to anchor and provide stability. The phrase "throwing off his back foot" actually refers to a QB who isn't set up to throw, and so usually has all his weight on one foot or the other, front or back. Accuracy takes a serious dive in this situation.
Release
Not to be confused with "Delivery" below, this should be used to refer to the speed and positioning of the player's arm in the throwing motion. The quicker the better, and watch the location of the ball in relation to the body. The ball shouldn't be too high or low at the top of the throwing motion, nor should it be too close or far away from the body. [This is a good place for an aside dealing with the introduction to this piece. Release is a good example of something not grading out highly, yet not seeming to affect the overall performance of the QB. History is littered with "sidearm" and "high-throwing" QBs who have earned their teams championships. This is a case of knowing how to "weight" the results for importance, something we will look at in future installments.]
Accuracy
This is the position, velocity and catchability of the ball. For position, look for balls that don't require the receiver to drop to his knees or lay out to the side. If the receiver is in traffic, look for positioning and velocity to either thread a tight space or go high or outside where only his player has a chance at it. For velocity, look for choice on throws, and for catchability, look for instances of throwing over the proper shoulder - especially for running backs in the flat, who both need to be led a little and must get it on the proper side of their body. Poor accuracy usually starts in the lower body, starting with setup position, and entailing flexibility through the hips and strength from the core. It is all about control.
Poise
How does the player stand in the pocket? He should stand tall, head up, eyes scanning quickly but surely. His progressions should be steady, his feet should be in an "at-ready" state, where they could set at a moment's notice, usually with the QB "bouncing" slightly on the balls of his feet. Watch out for QBs whose feet move side to side, or "happy feet." That is a player thinking about running, not passing.
Decision Making
This one is pretty clear, but requires an extra look or two. Watch for throws into coverage when open receivers were available, failures to check down and mistrust of the pocket. Young QBs make a LOT of bad decisions when they move to the NFL. The best separate themselves from the pack by quickly eliminating those types of mistakes.
Field Vision
The bane of field vision is the "stare-down" or "lock-on". Quarterbacks' eyes should be steadily scanning, not staring down one side of the field unless every route is being run there. Even in situations where the QB anticipates effective coverage based on the routes in the area, he should still condition himself to check that route off before moving onto the next one. A good pre-snap read is fine and dandy, but a QB who stares down a receiver for any reason is only holding his growth back.
Delivery
Unlike "release" above, this term should refer only to the type of ball the player throws. Is it a speedball? Does he throw ducks? Is it soft but slow? The best deliveries can adjust to conditions, but tend to have ample velocity (doesn't leave receivers hanging) and has a good, tight spiral. These are the most catchable balls.
Timing
This is a measure of the effectiveness of timed routes. In these scenarios the QB reads the defense and throws the ball to a location, not to a player. Watch for the ball to arrive on time, just as a receiver is cutting inside or outside. The receiver shouldn't have to search for the ball; the first place he looks for it should be right where it is, just like they practiced it. Peyton Manning is probably the best QB to analyze for this, but for lesser QBs I don't tend to put much weight on this grade, as it can be very difficult to assign kudos and blame correctly to the receiver/QB.
Ball Handling
This is most noticeable on receiving shotgun snaps and in executing the play action, where it is critical. More than just a measure of how well the QB can properly disguise the ball, it is also a measure of how well he can get his eyes back upfield and find the receiver while hiding the ball.
Follow-Through
This is basic ergonomics. The throwing arm should follow through in the direction of the ball's travel and cross the body, and weight should shift from the back leg to the front leg smoothly and effortlessly through the release.
Rush Avoidance
This is a measure of the ability to actually sidestep a defender. The QB should be cognizant of protecting the ball.
Scrambling
This is taking rush avoidance to the next level. A QB that can get out of the pocket, dodge defenders and still look downfield is a rare find. A QB that can do all of that and still be a threat to run downfield is rarer still - Elway rare. The closest QB to that ability right now is probably Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh.
Pocket-Presence
Not so much a measure of ability to avoid pressure, but the ability to move around within the pocket as it flexes and strains under the pass rush. The most important ability here is the wherewithal to step up through the middle of the pocket and into oncoming defenders as the pocket collapses to the outside. Pockets are generally designed to flex in this way, a recognition of the attrition that occurs between conflicting lines of 300-lb warriors.
Rollout Right/Rollout Left
This ability is sort of the "anti-QB" ability, and tends to be reserved to the best playmakers at the position. It requires a QB to be physically gifted enough to be able to throw accurately without setting his feet, or even throwing across his body. It requires a player flexible throughout his core, with tremendous arm strength and excellent balance and footwork. It is a tough combination to find in one player.
Arm Strength
Exactly what it sounds like. This is the great equalizer that allows a QB to succeed where others might fail. It is like the wild-card in the deck or the ace in the hole. QBs are trained and drilled to do all of the above to be successful, but in the event that any of the above skills should fail them, arm strength is the "do-over" that just might let them pull off the play. QB makes a bad read and throws into double coverage? Arm strength can give a ball the zip it needs to beat the coverage. QB steps to the wrong part of the pocket and is engulfed by the pressure? Arm strength will allow him to get the ball out anyways. Bad pre-snap read and the entire jailbreak defense has the QB on his heels falling backward? Arm strength allows the QB to deliver an accurate pass regardless. It is a tremendous quality to have, but without the ability to execute the basics above, it is quite literally a loaded weapon.
Velocity
This is primarily a measure of the combination of arm-strength and delivery. A QB should be able to get a good spiral on the ball to increase velocity, and velocity in turn results in higher accuracy. Even noodle-arms need to have good velocity.
Touch
One of the toughest abilities for a player to master, it flies in the face of everything else a player is taught. A touch ball is one that can get over the top of underneath coverage yet fall short of the deep coverage, whether the throw is 5 yards or 15. It is a tactical throw that calls upon a player's mastery of his own strength and vision. No player has this out of the gate; it is a learned skill, but usually players who lack arm strength tend to target this throw in particular, to give them an edge they otherwise lack. The purest touch-throw in the NFL is the fade to the corner of the end zone (where the back of the end zone represents the deep "defender"). Many young QBs insist on throwing this pass off their back foot, which helps takes a little off the throw at the cost of accuracy. Brett Favre still threw the fade like this when he was a gray, old man, having come to rely on throwing it that way. We can do better than that. Watch a guy like Tom Brady or Kurt Warner throw the corner fade, and see how they step into it. THAT is mastery.
Effectiveness
Take a little time to tally the results of passes to the left/right/middle, and passes that are short/medium/long. Watch out for QBs who are consistently limited to one type or location for their throws, and if you see this, get to the bottom of it. Poor field vision or arm strength are QB problems; consistent drops are target problems.

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Pocket timing?

Another great write-up Styg. Where in your parameters do you evaluate the QBs ability to sense when their time is up? Much as I dislike him, Rivers is outstanding at recognizing when he is out of time and getting rid of the ball (often throwing out of bounds after clearing the tackle). Conversely some guys, like Brian Greise, never seem to get the hang of this.

Do you consider this Pocket-presence, Rush-avoidance, or something else?

by SlowWhiteGuy on Mar 12, 2009 12:20 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Initially

it shows up as a note under “Decision-making.” Usually something like “released ball too early” if the pocket was solid and he forces the throw into coverage, or “Held onto the ball too long” if the pocket collapses around him with no throw or escape. Then, if it crops up over repeated games I usually try to ferret out what the problem is, which could be anything you mentioned. I do look specifically to see whether he has been doing a good job of setting up in the pocket, as that can have a trickle-down effect, where he is out of rhythm to make throws when they are needed, so they are too early, or he never quite pulls the trigger. About half the time that is what the problem seems to be. The rest are generally divided up between pocket-presence (doesn’t recognize when he is being pressured and so throws it away on false pressure or routinepocket flex, or doesn’t get it out on time…note: QBs who fumble a lot in the pocket, not only don’t notice the pressure, they are probably out of their league in terms of executing the offense. Even if a player isn’t sensing the pocket pressure well enough, it is still nice to see that last second instinctual “tuck” of the ball to protect it), rush-avoidance (they see the pressure but can’t get away, such as shorter players or happy-feet type guys), or even release (slow release can mean the difference between sack and completion and betrays a QBs ability to read defenses).

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 12, 2009 1:35 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Great explanation

and I hadn’t thought about the fumble aspect but your are right.

Another question: when you are analyzing QBs, how do you differentiate between the “bad throws” that are really the result of a blown route vs. the truly bad throws. There are some obvious situations, such as two receivers in the same area when there shouldn’t be, or the QB stares at the WR who drops his head. But other than that, without knowing what the route was supposed to be, how do you sort this out?

by SlowWhiteGuy on Mar 12, 2009 4:42 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

on those kinds of plays

I will grade out everything except the accuracy for the QB (but I’ll note whether he set up or was bootlegging or something). And those plays happen ALOT. The nice thing is you have no shortage of snaps to look at with a QB so you can pretty much ignore questionable plays. If it happens to one QB alot, my first check is to see if there is an online article where the coaches talk about it; there almost always is, and it gives good clues about where the problem lies.

Other than that you might see if the QB is throwing to a frosh reciever, or a backup, that can indicate which way it goes. This year I experimented with a weighting system for grading specific plays, where I simply wouldn’t weight the outcome of those plays too heavily, but it was timeconsuming and I dumped it to keep up.

And you can probably guess that this applies in spades on the receiver’s end of things as well, when grading them. I have never felt like I had a really good grasp of a player’s potential for timing routes or proper depth, but as time has passed I have found that I tend to have a “feel” for whether a route was run at the proper depth. I am assuming most routes are taught to be particular depths, and that it doesn’t change much from play to play, so I suppose my brain is picking up on homogeneity in the routes. Of course, then you have to hope you notice whether a route was a “read” type of route (common for TEs it seems) where the route bends or breaks dependent on the coverage. Routes featuring double moves generally fall in this category, but it is far from a sure thing. I have also found that sometimes my grades of a player indicate that I am making a mistake in evaluating his routes. If an overall good receiver, like say Jeremy Maclin this year, is grading out consistently poorly on short routes, I have to ask myself if I might be grading him incorrectly, since he is good enough and well rounded enough that the poor grade would come as a bit of a surprise. Surprising data is always worth a review though…

Routes=rewind, rewind,rewind.

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 12, 2009 6:17 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

The notion of the quarterback having an inner clock

has always fascinated me. While a good quarterback, even while focussing downfield and going through his progressions, has a kind of peripheral awareness of the action swirling around him, ducking under or sidestepping a rusher, moving around in the pocket, it seems to me he also has a sense of when his time is up, when someone he doesn’t see (perhaps coming back after having been ridden past the QB) is likely to get to him if he doesn’t get rid of the ball. And it seems to me this clock, while perhaps having an average setting, varies from game to game. If he’s playing against the Broncos he has plenty of time to make his reads, go through his progressions, find the openest receiver, and throw the ball accurately. Even a novice quarterback can look like a seasoned veteran under such conditions, because against the Broncos’ pass rush he can play at college speed.

But on a day in which he’s facing a fierce pass rush that changes. What’s striking is that in such a game the quarterback will often make really bad throws even when he’s not pressured. The commentators will then note that the defense has “taken him out of his rhythm”. I think what has actually happened is they’ve forced him to speed up his rhythm. He has to make his reads, go through his progressions, make his decision, and get rid of the ball in a briefer time span than normal. Because he’s playing faster he has less time to see things, less time to concentrate on delivering the ball accurately, even on plays in which the rush doesn’t get close to him. He makes more errors.

Some quarterbacks can play at a faster pace and still be effective. They don’t need as much time to go through their progressions, etc., notice the lurking linebacker, and deliver the ball accurately. This is the advantage Tom Brady has over every other quarterback in the league. It might seem the same is true of Peyton Manning, but I think his offense protects him by having so many timing patterns, which gives the illusion that he’s playing at a faster pace than he actually is. But even Brady has his limits, as we saw in the Superbowl. Given how extraordinarily difficult it is to have, nineteen times in a row, enough intensity to win, the Patriots were relatively flat and their line was overwhelmed by the Giants’ pass rush. Under those circumstances I don’t think any quarterback in the league could have held up nearly as well as Brady, but his effectiveness was decreased just enough for the Giants to eke out the win.

I don’t think Cutler was as good as many veteran quarterbacks in this sense last year, or as good as Cassel once the latter got some game experience under his belt. It seems to me Cutler compensated for his inability to function at a relatively rapid pace by gambling on his ability to use velocity and accuracy to fit the ball into tight spaces. He got away with it impressively often, but his narrow margin of error also led to inopportune picks. I suspect he hasn’t yet had his Brees-like breakout season. If it seems otherwise it’s because he’s been so much better than other quarterbacks prior to their breakouts. If that’s so and the game does slow down for him, he’s going to be scary good. Even if it’s not I suspect McDaniels will help him compensate, a la Manning, by putting a lot of emphasis on timing patterns. It seems to me Royal, Stokley, and Gaffney would all be particularly effective in this kind of attack. I’ve love to hear your opinions, corrections, elaborations on these impressions.

"In the empty spaces - lacunae, vacuums, pauses, voids, black holes - new things begin. We are born anew from the unexplored space, the badlands, the outlaw territory." - Sam Keen

by spock on Mar 12, 2009 5:20 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think your analysis

of his “compensation” is right on, and it gets worse proportional to the pressure that is on him. He played beautifully the first four games of the season, with only a few mistakes. Towards the end, especially in the NE game, the Bills game and the (shudder) Chargers game, he relied more and more on his natural ability and got away from his learned ability. And when he relies on his armstrength solely… “We’re in for a bUMPy night!”

And I feel uncomfortable saying this, but I think that Shanny wanted it that way…at least to some degree or another, and it may have something to do with what you are saying about slowing the game down for him. I think a lot of the gameplans and playcalling were meant to have Cutler pushing his limits, so that growth would be maximized week in and week out. Drill him all week in the learned aspect, and then throw him into the fire and see if it can come naturally to him. Rinse, repeat. Might Shanny have approached it this way with Cutler’s longterm development in mind? Or could it have grown out of the team’s desperation to find ways to win as the season progressed? Maybe a little of both, and other reasons.

Also, I agree that Cutler hasn’t broken out yet, but I think that his “breakout” won’t be as visible as his production was this year. But I do think the TD-INT ratio will reflect it, bigtime.

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 12, 2009 6:30 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

"his 'breakout' won't be as visible . . . [but] the TD-INT ratio will reflect it bigtime"

That seems to me exactly right. Many people think he broke out last year because of the high yardage total, but that’s the result of throwing so much. I think the TD-INT ratio is a better rough and ready measure of a QB’s effectiveness, and if Cutler’s is better than 2 to 1 it’ll be a good indication that he’s arrived. If it’s better than 3 to 1 . . . yeah baby! I’d like to see him throw to Royal more, and to Marshall less, at least enough for his completion percentages to the two of them to equalize. But would Marshall pout if he did? The receiver who’s five yards in the clear is the “bigger” target even if he’s smaller. Your thoughts about how Shanahan might have been trying to push Cutler’s development are intriguing. I think he’s probably been good for Cutler’s development, but I’m puzzled by the lopsided pass to run ratio. It didn’t help the defense and I’m not sure it helped Cutler, either. Desperation? It’s worth noting, with regards to potential, that the approximately 3 to 2 ratio that Plummer improved to with Shanahan’s help is Cutler’s jumping-off point.

"In the empty spaces - lacunae, vacuums, pauses, voids, black holes - new things begin. We are born anew from the unexplored space, the badlands, the outlaw territory." - Sam Keen

by spock on Mar 13, 2009 9:03 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

TD/INT is meaningless....

its another one of those statistics that the MSM harp on that has no statistical correlation to anything meaningful (points, wins, etc.) Think about it this way, imagine two teams with equal QBs. They both throw about 300 passes for around 4000 yards. QB-A throws 12 interceptions, while QB-B only throws 10. Team A however, lacks a good short yardage running game so they pass for most of their touchdowns. QB-A throws 30 TDs. Team B has an excellent short yardage running game, running for more touchdowns than Team A. As a result QB-B only throws 25 TDs although Team B actually scores more TDs than Team A.

So QB-A has a TD/INT = 3.0, while QB-B actually has a TD/INT = 2.5. Is QB-A really better than QB-B?
Two significantly more meaningful statistics are yards/int or att/int. The first is more meaningful when comparing QBs who throw down field. The second is more useful in ball-control passing schemes.

Either way I expect Cutler to gradually improve, not suddenly improve.

by SlowWhiteGuy on Mar 13, 2009 9:31 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

This seems to apply to grading QBs vs eachother

which should definitely take into account the team (and other contexts) within which they play. But grading a QB out against his own potential (note I am not saying grade cutler 08 vs. cutler 09, since it is still two different teams) TDs vs INTs should matter, since we are just grading what happens when he makes decisions throwing the ball. COntext still matters, and particularly unique contexts could override the ratio (such as an injury to the QB, or being substituted or benched and then brought back) but the general idea, I think , is solid, that when your QB does pass, you want those passes to be productive, not negative.

As far as the team aspect is considered, the TD part of the ratio seems to be particularly significant. I know several handicappers who SWEAR by points/pass in rating a QBs effectiveness making a team a winner. I don’t fully understand the dynamic (or how exactly they calculate it) but I think the general idea is that at SOME point in every game, the QB will be expected to execute against the defense. Given enough opportunities, the value nature of the QB position should trump the value of the defense over the long haul. The closer to “true” that that statement is for a particular team, the more successful that team will likely be. Proponents of this like to point out that running is a responsibility at the beginning of games, but a luxury at the ends of games, and that the two ideas cancel eachother out. Passing (and presumably scoring, I take it) is the only thing that must be consistently statistically significant for a team to be consistent winners.

I don’t know if I really understand this idea, but I have long “felt” like there was some aspect of it that correlated with football “truth”, though I have never really taken the time to look into it.

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 13, 2009 11:33 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

I usually agree with your arguments, SlowWhiteGuy

but it seems to me this one is flawed. So is your example. If A has 30 TDs and 12 INTs, and B 25 and 10, both have a 2.5 to 1 ratio. Either you were thinking that having to throw more would increase TDs but not INTs, hence 30-10 vs 25-10, or that the increase in TDs and INTs would disproportionately favor the former, hence say 36-12 vs 25-10. Neither scenario is tenable because both tacitly assume that having to pass more will make it easier to pass successfully, which I seriously doubt. More likely having to pass more would result in lower efficiency, say 30-14 vs 25-10, in which case your argument might then take the form of explaining why, given that in your Gedankenexperiment the two are posited as equal, B nonetheless performs better as a passer: he operates under more favorable circumstances. But the argument, if recast in that form, no longer makes quite the same point. It argues that superior performance need not imply superior ability, not that a higher ratio doesn’t indicate superior performance.

Neither is it obvious to me that yards/int or att/int are unambiguously better. A high ratio in either would certainly indicate a low rate of conspicuous failure, but you might have an excessively cautious QB who has an equally low rate of conspicuous success. He might have a lower rate of conversions on third down, and of scores on third and goal. In the first scenario our hypothetically cautious QB might, on say third and long, dump the ball off to the tailback if a receiver downfield isn’t clearly open, or on third and goal might throw the ball out of bounds. We don’t get five points for almost scoring a TD or three downs for almost reaching the sticks. Football success tends to be either/or, not more or less, and the TD/INT ratio is consistent with this notion of success. It’s not perfect, which is why I qualified it as a “rough and ready” measure, but I think it’s useful. I think Styg with his “what happens when he makes decisions throwing the ball”
and his second, more intuitive paragraph is making a similar point in a different way.

While I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a sudden jump in Jay’s effectiveness, it’s not something that could be proved or explained easily. Suffice to say that while the extent of Drew Brees’ relatively sudden improvement in his fourth season may have been striking, it doesn’t appear to have struck NFL observers as an unexpected kind of phenomenon. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.

"In the empty spaces - lacunae, vacuums, pauses, voids, black holes - new things begin. We are born anew from the unexplored space, the badlands, the outlaw territory." - Sam Keen

by spock on Mar 13, 2009 6:23 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

My bad...

I meant to use 36/12 and 25/10 for the TD/INT ratios. It’s an artificial situation anyway. The problem I have is that many of the football statistics that are commonly cited have never been shown to be statistically significant, or in some cases have actually been shown not to be statistically significant.

The yds/int and att/int statistics do seem to be statistically significant according to some writers. I can’t say I have actually verified their results however. The point is that a the QB may be responsible for setting up rushing TDs that he never gets credit for.

You second paragraph brings up an even more controversial area of football statistics. Jim Schwartz has argued that 3rd down statistics should be a separate category itself and graded much differently. For example an 8 yd completion is not always the same. 8 yards on 3rd and 5 is good, but not appreciatively better than 6 yards. However 8 yards on 3rd and 10 is not much better than an incomplete.

Which was a very long winded way of saying that I think we cite a bunch of statistics that may have no bearing on wins/losses. Which is the only statistic that really matters. The problem is that football is a team sport and isolating individual performance based on statistics is questionable.

However, I do expect Cutler to throw fewer interceptions next year.

BTW: I always enjoy your thoughtful replies as well as Styg’s

by SlowWhiteGuy on Mar 13, 2009 7:12 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Football Outsiders

For a lot of discussion on these sorts of things, check out :
footballoutsiders.com

The FO guys actually covert NFL play-by-play data into “success points”… “success” being defined roughly as 40% of needed yardage on 1st down, 60% on 2nd down, and a conversion (new set of downs) on 3rd or 4th, with bonuses for TDs, minuses for ints, etc.

They then adjust these for defense quality, game context (aka 4th quarter, prevent D, etc.), compare to the “average”, and then translate this into 2 proprietary stats: DVOA (success per play) and DYAR (total success accumulated) to compare players.

FWIW, Cutler tends to grade out decent in DVOA, and REALLY well in DYAR (because he throws so much he accumulates a lot of success points).

I tend to be with SWG… TD/int rate seems too dependent on team dynamics to be a real meaningful stat. TD passes in particular seem largely dependent on opportunity in the redzone (either a pass heavy redzone team, or a team in the redzone a lot).

Now, this may be an effective stat for evaluating team performance (as spock says some bettors do), as you’ll end up pulling in team context and don’t really care whether its the QB, or the team as a whole who is scoring.

I do think ints/attempt (aka interception rate) is a very meaningful stat for evaluating QBs though. While obviously team context will still be important (i.e. is the QB forcing it because they are behind and he’s trying to lead a comeback, etc.), it seems a little more directly based on the QB’s actual decision making.

by cjfarls on Mar 17, 2009 2:44 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Great post styg---reading this makes me appreciate cutler all the more. He appears

to be one of ( though young ) the complete QB’s in the league. yes?

Real Power, comes with the realization that One cannot change the Moment;
only ones perception of it: Atitude! JQM

by UB3 on Mar 12, 2009 1:48 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

He has one of the best toolsets

great arm, good feet, excellent core strength and flexibility. He can feel the pocket well, he is great on the rollout (to either side), his presnap reads are solid and he knows where he wants to go with the ball, and has the (very) quick delivery to get it out. He is accused of not having touch, but his touch is there, he just doesn’t always tap into it. Needs a little work in that area. Plenty of velocity, he throws a nice, catchable ball.

But his field vision could use work, he needs to go ahead and check through his receivers even if he already knows where the ball is going. He has some decision-making work to do, but not as much as peope think. he will always try to thread the needle, because to him, those passes are open, and he completes enough of them to give him the benefit of the doubt. he is also good at finding the first down receiver, so he understands the decisions he needs to make too. If anything, I woud just like to see him keep working on the fundamentals: move forward in the pocket, try to always be moving your feet so you can set and throw. Reading the defenses for finding the ideal receiver will take more time, and only time will help.

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

by Jeremy Bolander on Mar 12, 2009 4:16 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs