Also to someone else here. So what if he sinks? If he does, that to me is concerning but you need to give him experience. He is a 2nd round pick and I expect him to play as such and show something. I am not a believer in "but what if he preforms bad and loses his confidence". If he is that emotionally fragile he was never going to make it anyway. Also you can't wrap guys in foam cause you are afraid of them getting injured.
I don't believe Tom Brady would be the player he is today if he was thrown into the fire. Obviously different draft circumstances and there's no pressure to play him with Drew, but that first year was crucial to his development. He needed to get stronger, and his biggest advantage is his brain, which needed time to absorb the playbook. He definitely would have sank his first year. Does that make him emotionally fragile?
Fans get so caught up in fantasy narratives of football players that they ignore all common sense. You wouldn't let the kid out of college run the most important department in your company, but you're okay throwing a second-round pick into the fire unprepared because hey, sink or swim.
Well teams sink if they think like that. An injury doesn't have to last the entire year, and how you handle a few games without your starter can make a difference. The Packers won't make the play-offs last season if Matt Flynn doesn't go 2-2 while Rodgers is out. He did just enough to give Rodgers a chance to come back that last week and win a game to make the play-offs. If Caleb Hanie could have done the same in 2011 when Jay Cutler broke his thumb, they would have made the play-offs which would have given Cutler enough time to come back. Instead, he went 0-4 and the team was eliminated. They went to Josh McCown way too late because they wanted to let the kid sink or swim. He sank their season.
We are not the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can't just throw kids out there and go 2-14 over and over and over again hoping you find the right guy. This franchise has fans freaking out when we go 12-4 and lose in the AFCCG.
Lots of people have killed the pick, and I get it, it's not immediate help on the field. But all of you overlook the fact that it's really hard to find and develop a good QB. Lots of teams try every year with mixed results. The Packers hit on Rodgers (this board would implode if we spent a 1st on a QB who sat for 3 or 4 years), missed on Brohm. The Ravens missed on Boller, hit on Flacco. The 49ers eventually got something out of Alex Smith but clearly regret that pick, and got something out of Kaep. The Seahawks signed Matt Flynn to a large contract, then got lucky with Russell Wilson. Ditto the Eagles and Mike Vick and Nick Foles. And these are some of the better organizations in the NFL.
Look at the dregs, the Jaguars and Browns and Bills who search for over a decade for anything resembling a competent QB. Talk to the Dolphins, who haven't found anything close to Marino since he retired. The Broncos never came close to finding another Elway in the draft, relying on free agency to fill the void in a once-in-a-lifetime situation.
It's not like we just wait until Brady retires, then order another one from eBay. Good QBs are not easy to find, especially at the back of the draft like we usually are. Sometimes you're #1 and you get an Andrew Luck. But sometimes you're #1 and you get David Carr or Jamarcus Russell, or nobody deserving of a #1 and you end up hoping to trade down to get someone like Blake Bortles or Johnny Football.
I don't know why so many people think it's going to be easy to find a Pro Bowl QB.
