I'm curious to hear some informed takes on why rookie quarterbacks are struggling to such a historic extent this season, after 2020 being one of the best years ever for first-year passers. Sure, it's easy to say this year's class is saddled with worse team situations than last year's, but some of these guys are spectacularly bad to a degree that defies the classic team context issues that high first-round QBs face. One doesn't expect much out of someone like Davis Mills on the league's worst roster, but he somehow hasn't even been the worst of it; Justin Fields legitimately looks like the reincarnation of Ryan Leaf, Zach Wilson has been explosively terrible in between showing some legitimate flashes (mainly the Titans game), and even Lawrence has yet to show me he is superior to Gardner Minshew. Only Mac Jones has performed somewhat admirably so far, and his limitations are obvious.
Ij particular, I'd love to hear why this highly touted rookie class is blowing it so hard in the context of this being really a banner year for quarterback play leaguewide. One could make the argument that there has been some inconsistency from everyone and no one is really running away with the MVP argument (save Derrick Henry... literally running away), but this is still about as good as the top tier of QBs has ever been through 7 weeks. There are a lot of special young QBs right now who are playing like it, older guys like Stafford finding a new lease on life in an improved situation, and even senescent Brady is finding a way to play some of the best football of his career while leading the league's #1 offense. We currently have 8 (eight!) quarterbacks on pace for 40 or more passing TDs, which needless to say would be the most in a season by far. We also have a massive logjam on the yardage leaderboard, with #8 and #22 separated by about 150 yards, and just about everyone looking to make a run at 4500 or so. Everyone is chucking volume, and what separates the greats from the goods this year is largely TD-INT ratio and passer rating. But while the 2021 QB room is very top-heavy, it is also unusually bottom-heavy, with 5 current starters sitting at an underwater TD-INT and 4-6 others reasonably close to 1.0. That is also, by far, the most I've seen in any recent season, and most of the worst ones are the rookies, regardless of their pedigree. What's keeping them from enjoying any part whatsoever of the quarterback boom we're seeing so far in the season? Is there any excuse for their poor play that Burrow and Herbert did not experience last year, or is thhis bunch just not as good as we thought?
Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Have to say it was bizarre watching Mike White (who I just assumed was a fringe nobody) come in and go 37/45 for 400+ and 3 touchdowns after Zach Wilson basically couldn't get a first down in the 1st quarter all year. White had the Jets looking like a legit high octane offense.
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JameisLoseston
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Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
It appears Mike White was a 2018 5th-round pick of the Cowboys, who has since been on the Jets practice squad for a few years. Next Brady, anyone? He sure looked disciplined in that game, like a 10-year vet. He certainly made Wilson look like a scrub, given the way he ran the same offense in comparison. Never tried to force throws, just found the open man and took what the defense gave him. 2 INTs were deflected. Patty Pick-Six could learn something from him right now.
Anyhow, we saw some improvement from Fields this week, but mostly on the scrambling side. Same old song and dance from the golden-haired golden boy with the golden arm, however. Is Jacksonville just that much worse than Cincinnati last year or 2019 Arizona? I don't feel like they are.
Anyhow, we saw some improvement from Fields this week, but mostly on the scrambling side. Same old song and dance from the golden-haired golden boy with the golden arm, however. Is Jacksonville just that much worse than Cincinnati last year or 2019 Arizona? I don't feel like they are.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Really think Urban Meyer has totally mailed it in too and is readying himself for retirement or one more go round in college...he's not made for the NFLJameisLoseston wrote:It appears Mike White was a 2018 5th-round pick of the Cowboys, who has since been on the Jets practice squad for a few years. Next Brady, anyone? He sure looked disciplined in that game, like a 10-year vet. He certainly made Wilson look like a scrub, given the way he ran the same offense in comparison. Never tried to force throws, just found the open man and took what the defense gave him. 2 INTs were deflected. Patty Pick-Six could learn something from him right now.
Anyhow, we saw some improvement from Fields this week, but mostly on the scrambling side. Same old song and dance from the golden-haired golden boy with the golden arm, however. Is Jacksonville just that much worse than Cincinnati last year or 2019 Arizona? I don't feel like they are.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
I don't know if the struggles are historic, but they are surprising considering how 'elite' Lawrence and Fields were considered as prospects. I think Fields was the #1 prospect coming out of high school while Lawrence was #2, so they've both been on the radar for awhile. The rules make it fairly simple for rookie QBs to, at the very least, perform competently. So one would expect Fields and Lawrence to be doing better even on poor teams. I think coaching is probably the biggest factor...the Bears have never had good coaches, and "coincidently" they've always underperformed at the QB position regardless of player. The Jags coaching situation is terrible as well...a guy with no previous NFL HC experience yet is also only motivated to collect a paycheck.JameisLoseston wrote:I'm curious to hear some informed takes on why rookie quarterbacks are struggling to such a historic extent this season, after 2020 being one of the best years ever for first-year passers. Justin Fields legitimately looks like the reincarnation of Ryan Leaf, Zach Wilson has been explosively terrible in between showing some legitimate flashes (mainly the Titans game), and even Lawrence has yet to show me he is superior to Gardner Minshew.
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JameisLoseston
- Posts: 391
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Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Ditka?the Bears have never had good coaches
Beside the point though, Nagy sucks bigtime.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Some comments I made in my fantasy football league message board earlier in this season-
Well, whaddaya know, Sam Darnold is throwing interceptions at a higher rate than he did with the Jets. I left that Week 1 game thinking the Jets did right by moving on from Darnold to draft Zach Wilson. The self-loathing Jet fan in your life probably would have heard me say that and found me nuts. I also said the same thing after Week 3 and that was when Carolina was 3-0 and the Jets were 0-3 and lifeless on offense.
Wilson's problems right now are all correctable. He is not connecting on some easy throws for whatever reason.
Mac Jones seems fine. His offensive line is not performing well, Jakobi Meyers is a possession receiver, and they don't have another receiver who is better than ordinary.
I have not seen Justin Fields enough yet to comment on him.
Trevor Lawrence has been okay. He had a terrible interception returned for a touchdown vs Arizona where his feet were not set and the pass was awful.
I saw almost the entire 49ers-Cardinals game. I did not understand the 49ers approach. There were too many designed runs for Trey Lance in my opinion. He is going to run a lot anyway because he is a good runner and he does not have a strong pocket presence yet. So why design runs for him to further expose him? Lance finally tossed a pitch out to Deebo Samuel late in the third quarter. There should have been a jet sweep or two to Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk earlier in the game.
Lance threw some wobbly passes. It was like watching Billy Kilmer highlights. Kilmer began his career as a tailback before a car accident and then converting to quarterback.
Before the draft I had compared Lance to Daunte Culpepper. I still think that comparison works. Lance does not evade tacklers like Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray do. He will have to do a better job with this or he will end up having a short career like Culpepper. Culpepper was a big target and welcomed hits too often.
Well, whaddaya know, Sam Darnold is throwing interceptions at a higher rate than he did with the Jets. I left that Week 1 game thinking the Jets did right by moving on from Darnold to draft Zach Wilson. The self-loathing Jet fan in your life probably would have heard me say that and found me nuts. I also said the same thing after Week 3 and that was when Carolina was 3-0 and the Jets were 0-3 and lifeless on offense.
Wilson's problems right now are all correctable. He is not connecting on some easy throws for whatever reason.
Mac Jones seems fine. His offensive line is not performing well, Jakobi Meyers is a possession receiver, and they don't have another receiver who is better than ordinary.
I have not seen Justin Fields enough yet to comment on him.
Trevor Lawrence has been okay. He had a terrible interception returned for a touchdown vs Arizona where his feet were not set and the pass was awful.
I saw almost the entire 49ers-Cardinals game. I did not understand the 49ers approach. There were too many designed runs for Trey Lance in my opinion. He is going to run a lot anyway because he is a good runner and he does not have a strong pocket presence yet. So why design runs for him to further expose him? Lance finally tossed a pitch out to Deebo Samuel late in the third quarter. There should have been a jet sweep or two to Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk earlier in the game.
Lance threw some wobbly passes. It was like watching Billy Kilmer highlights. Kilmer began his career as a tailback before a car accident and then converting to quarterback.
Before the draft I had compared Lance to Daunte Culpepper. I still think that comparison works. Lance does not evade tacklers like Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray do. He will have to do a better job with this or he will end up having a short career like Culpepper. Culpepper was a big target and welcomed hits too often.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
The Halloween game vs Cincinnati showed that the Jets personnel is not as bad as most people thought. The problem with the team the first six weeks was dumb quarterbacking from Wilson and overall youth. The defensive linemen and linebackers (particularly those who were rushing the quarterback) were lost as far as recognizing screen passes. It killed the team in the debacle in New England. They spent a lot of time in the film room and got a good talking to because there was much improvement vs Cincinnati.JameisLoseston wrote:It appears Mike White was a 2018 5th-round pick of the Cowboys, who has since been on the Jets practice squad for a few years. Next Brady, anyone? He sure looked disciplined in that game, like a 10-year vet. He certainly made Wilson look like a scrub, given the way he ran the same offense in comparison. Never tried to force throws, just found the open man and took what the defense gave him. 2 INTs were deflected. Patty Pick-Six could learn something from him right now.
Wilson has not yet made his job easy. He wanted to make highlight reel plays to this point. You have to be a little boring at times to be a good quarterback. The splash plays will happen when they happen if you make the boring plays. If you don't make the boring plays, then you won't make splash plays because you will be on the sideline holding a tablet. I hope Wilson was humbled by White's performance.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
It's amazing how competent and well prepared the Jets looked vs Cinci and Tennessee vs how absolutely non NFl caliber they looked defensively vs NE and Indy. The extremes are really hard to fathom. Also it's made a big difference moving LaFleur into the booth...but also having someone competent, steady, and with a good grasp of the offense like WhiteJWL wrote:The Halloween game vs Cincinnati showed that the Jets personnel is not as bad as most people thought. The problem with the team the first six weeks was dumb quarterbacking from Wilson and overall youth. The defensive linemen and linebackers (particularly those who were rushing the quarterback) were lost as far as recognizing screen passes. It killed the team in the debacle in New England. They spent a lot of time in the film room and got a good talking to because there was much improvement vs Cincinnati.JameisLoseston wrote:It appears Mike White was a 2018 5th-round pick of the Cowboys, who has since been on the Jets practice squad for a few years. Next Brady, anyone? He sure looked disciplined in that game, like a 10-year vet. He certainly made Wilson look like a scrub, given the way he ran the same offense in comparison. Never tried to force throws, just found the open man and took what the defense gave him. 2 INTs were deflected. Patty Pick-Six could learn something from him right now.
Wilson has not yet made his job easy. He wanted to make highlight reel plays to this point. You have to be a little boring at times to be a good quarterback. The splash plays will happen when they happen if you make the boring plays. If you don't make the boring plays, then you won't make splash plays because you will be on the sideline holding a tablet. I hope Wilson was humbled by White's performance.
I don't know what kind of future Wilson has. Watching him in College (and I admit I didn't see much so this is mostly youtube stuff) I never came away all that impressed. I wasn't mortified...but it was hard for me to find what all this hype was about.
Re: Rookie QBs: what's the problem?
Update on Zach Wilson-
He is not doing much right.
He had a nondescript game vs the Texans, was okay vs the Eagles, and was bad vs the Saints. His accuracy is very bad even on short throws. On the first pass of the game he eyed Ty Johnson wide open in the flat and then looked downfield at the wide receivers. He determined none of them were open so he looked at Johnson again and threw to him. A defender was now near Johnson and was likely going to tackle him instantly if he caught the pass. Johnson dropped the pass.
On the next drive Wilson threw behind Johnson. Some guys would have still made the catch. Most would not.
On the third drive, Wilson threw a better pass to Johnson but that was dropped as well. That might have been a mental thing at that point as Johnson has good hands for a running back.
The Jets began with three straight three and outs with three drops by Johnson. The second one maybe was not classified as a drop but Johnson did get a hand on it, so it may have been recorded as a drop.
Another problem that happened twice was Wilson sliding when he still could have gained more yards. The game ended when Wilson was hesitant to run. His hesitancy is why he got stopped at the 1-yard line and did not score.
It looks like the Jets want Wilson to play through this and get the experience rather than sitting him. If any Jets fan were to say, "Looks like the Jets drafted another 1st round quarterback bust", I would not blame that fan for making that comment.
He is not doing much right.
He had a nondescript game vs the Texans, was okay vs the Eagles, and was bad vs the Saints. His accuracy is very bad even on short throws. On the first pass of the game he eyed Ty Johnson wide open in the flat and then looked downfield at the wide receivers. He determined none of them were open so he looked at Johnson again and threw to him. A defender was now near Johnson and was likely going to tackle him instantly if he caught the pass. Johnson dropped the pass.
On the next drive Wilson threw behind Johnson. Some guys would have still made the catch. Most would not.
On the third drive, Wilson threw a better pass to Johnson but that was dropped as well. That might have been a mental thing at that point as Johnson has good hands for a running back.
The Jets began with three straight three and outs with three drops by Johnson. The second one maybe was not classified as a drop but Johnson did get a hand on it, so it may have been recorded as a drop.
Another problem that happened twice was Wilson sliding when he still could have gained more yards. The game ended when Wilson was hesitant to run. His hesitancy is why he got stopped at the 1-yard line and did not score.
It looks like the Jets want Wilson to play through this and get the experience rather than sitting him. If any Jets fan were to say, "Looks like the Jets drafted another 1st round quarterback bust", I would not blame that fan for making that comment.