Tebow, Blount, Edelman

[Brady6]

Are suggesting that the patriots would keep a roster spot warm for Mallett just because they think that they will get more in trade next year?

Absolutely. If he was good enough to play backup in 2012 unless he gets injured I see no reason why he could not this year.

Back up QB isn't a factor unless Brady is injured. So it's not necessarily a case of winning a competition. Last year Hoyer was cut not because Mallett was a better backup but because he held more value to the team.

 

[situational_awareness]

Just a quick version of it: MAYBE, if he had the best line in the league by some distance and a simple offense.

He looks his best as a passer when he stops thinking and a receiver is open. His biggest problem (to me) that he has between College and the NFL is reading defenses, he just doesn't seem smart enough or capable of making the reads required.

Take the Thomas TD v Pitt as "good Tebow", Thomas beat his man and was open which gave Tebow an easy read and the rest is history.

Take pretty much everything NE did to him in the playoffs as "bad Tebow", he looked lost and confused most of the game.

Big T, there is plenty of video available of him making those reads in the NFL. The pass to DT is one of the most criticized good passes ever. I'm not sure why that is. It was a good pass and even better run after the catch.

I admit that he looked confused at times in the NFL, which is surprising because he never looked confused in college under Urban Meyer. To me, it looks like he wasn't prepared as much. Probably his fault and the coaching staff's fault combined.

 

[situational_awareness]

Why does it seem that Pats fans are down on Edelman? He seemed pretty talented to me last year. Or maybe I'm reading the pulse of this board wrong?

 

[Brady6]

Brady,

Believe it or not, your question is kind of complicated to answer completely in a somewhat short post. I mean, there's just so many variables and ways to look at things.

Do I want him to "convert" to TE or some other position ? That wouldn't be my preference. I'd almost rather he went to the CFL like Flutie, Garcia and others did. Or perhaps the A11 league if it ever gets going. Somewhere he could develop then make it back to the NFL.

As you said though, him playing some TE this year doesn't close the door on him being a QB in the future. Here also though, there's a kind of sliding scale. I'm definitely not opposed to it if being versatile gets him onto the roster as QB3, where he would develop as QB3 during the year, while also practicing at other positions. But if it means spending all his time at TE or RB, just for this year, then I'm not sure. Clock is ticking and that would be another year of possible development lost.

One of the things that sickened me about the whole Jets thing is that he lost a year of development being under Sparano.

I don't anticipate it would be full time. I think in the eyes of many Tebow has play making ability. Using him a handful of times a game at RB/FB/WR/TE could give the team a dimension we don't currently have.

Not making fun here just curious but is the idea of Tebow not playing at all and then returning to the field in the future something seen as the rebirth of Jesus in the among the spiritual football fans?

 

[Demosthenes]

Just a quick version of it: MAYBE, if he had the best line in the league by some distance and a simple offense.

He looks his best as a passer when he stops thinking and a receiver is open. His biggest problem (to me) that he has between College and the NFL is reading defenses, he just doesn't seem smart enough or capable of making the reads required.

Take the Thomas TD v Pitt, Thomas beat his man and was open which gave Tebow an easy read and the rest is history.

I'm not sure that I'd question his football intelligence as it seems that every coach who has ever been in contact with him has good things to say about his football IQ. Yeah, I read some of the stories about sources who say otherwise, but I do put more stock in guys who have gone on record.

WRT whether his college mechanics would have worked in the NFL, I don't think they would have in a "traditional dropback offense". To be that type of QB in that type of offense, the criticisms were on point.

But, if you noticed last year, there was some commentary about how RG3, Russell and Kaep faced some "vanilla" defenses, due to the fact that those defenses had to respect the running ability of the QBs.

In short, if you put Tebow in the Spread Option, defenses aren't going to be able to do the same things they try to do against Brady, or Rodgers, or Manning. Tebow isn't going to face a 3 man rush with 8 defenders in coverage very often. It's questionable whether the passing windows that he would face in such an offense would be as tight as those faced by traditional pocket passers.

 

[Big-T]

Big T, there is plenty of video available of him making those reads in the NFL. The pass to DT is one of the most criticized good passes ever. I'm not sure why that is. It was a good pass and even better run after the catch.

The pass to DT was right on the money but Mike McCoy and the Steelers did make it easy for him - it was a simple route and the Steelers defense disrespected him the whole game which is where they went wrong straight away, I don't care if it's Tyler Palko or Tom Brady at QB when you cross the white line onto the field you play hard for 60 minutes.

I admit that he looked confused at times in the NFL, which is surprising because he never looked confused in college under Urban Meyer. To me, it looks like he wasn't prepared as much. Probably his fault and the coaching staff's fault combined.

College defenses, for the most part, are simple and executed at a much slower speed so it's easier to read that's why most rookie QBs struggle, the speed of the game and the reads they have to make are that much harder, Tebow appears to still struggle with these reads especially when he might be thinking of his mechanics too, there's too many things going on in his head.

Like I said, if you gave him a simple offense he would probably do well, give him slants, screens and play action tell him not to think about his mechanics and just sling it to the open guy don't worry about the defense, the OL is there for a reason and he would be fine for the most part.

 

[Brady6]

If Weeden is awful in camp they will probably go with either Hoyer or Jason Campbell, Campbell is at least somewhat serviceable and wouldn't cost a rebuilding team a draft pick.

True. I see it as unlikely as well, just offering up a scenario.

 

[Oinko]

This is probably a sacrilegious view around here, but "surgical precision" to me is kind of boring to watch. It's like watching a boxing match where a guy darts in and out landing jabs all through the match and ends up winning on points.

I'd much rather see two guys standing in the middle of the ring hammering each other with punches.

Another analogy that I came up with after reading your post was that watching "surgical precision" is kind of like watching Cirque de Soleil.

One of the reasons football is my favorite sport is that there are no style points. You get the ball over the goal line. There's a clock. If you score more points, you win.

I enjoy the game PRECISELY BECAUSE there is a chance that the team that shouldn't win, will win. And I like players that confound the experts as to how it gets done.

 

[Deus Irae]

Why does it seem that Pats fans are down on Edelman? He seemed pretty talented to me last year. Or maybe I'm reading the pulse of this board wrong?

He can't stay healthy.

 

[Brady6]

Why does it seem that Pats fans are down on Edelman? He seemed pretty talented to me last year. Or maybe I'm reading the pulse of this board wrong?

In think its a combination of injuries and inconsistencies.

 

[robbomango]

Tebow was "college accurate". To the point where he had a better overall passer rating than Peyton or Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, or just about any other top NFL QB that you can think of.

I parsed the stats once comparing Tebow and Peyton, and the overall stats weren't even close. Peyton had more yards, but he had many more attempts and completions. In Yards per attempt and yards per completion, Tebow crushed him. He also crushed him in TD % and INT% iirc.

All that said, his mechanics were severely flawed and while he was "college accurate", the general belief was that he'd have major problems in the NFL due to the smaller/tighter passing windows. Didn't help that his delivery motion was elongated and slower than most, which would allow defenders to get a jump on his passes.

(This isn't a complete list of all the problems, more of a general highlight type of thing).

So, Tebow went to work changing his mechanics and it's been a very bumpy road since then. In Denver, at least during the first 3 quarters of games, it looked like Tim was thinking about mechanics while he was trying to throw the ball. Not sure if you've played golf before, but doing this kind of thing usually leads to disaster. When you are in the middle of a play (or swing), you shouldn't be thinking "left foot here, right foot there, ball here, hands there, bring it back, rotate, GO, follow through."

Later in games, generally in the 4th Q, Denver usually found themselves behind and went to a Spread formation offense with Tebow in the gun. He would revert back to his college style and to the amazement of many, he was pretty successful with it. Still not "NFL accurate" and able to hit tight windows on command, but he could get the ball out to receivers for the most part.

In short, at those times, he stopped "thinking" and just started playing.

This brings up what could be an interesting discussion, vis a vis, could Tebow have been successful in the long term had he never changed his mechanics. But I'll pass on that one for now unless others want to get into it.

Given that he has tinkered with his mechanics, the question at this point is whether the latest work that he put in during the offseason in AZ has fixed things. He not only worked on his release, but this time, they spent a lot of time working on his footwork as well.

Good answer thanks,

I can imagine changing something that's worked for so long(mechanics) would be quite difficult. There's probably a heavier psychological aspect to it for him as well because he was so successful in college.

NE should be a perfect place for him to work on that. Brady arguably has the best mechanics in the league and it's something he works on diligently. If there was ever one thing he could learn from TB, that is it.

 

[Demosthenes]

Couple of points, Demo...

Peyton had more yards in college, and that was due to more attempts as you say, but also because Peyton was a 4 year starter. Tebow was behind Leak during his freshman year. I think a lot of people are surprised when they find out just how prolific of a passer he was. Very accurate.

Other point, I think he did show NFL QB ability to hit tight windows on many occasions in NFL games. The problem is that those passes are mixed in with the other passes that were not good. People tend to remember the bad and not the good.

Otherwise, I agree with everything you said.

WRT the "tight windows", he's threaded some nice passes, but nothing like what Brady and Rodgers can do. If he had to do it all game long with how he passed in college or even in Denver, it would be difficult.


WRT Manning, I went out and dug up this fantastic piece from ColdHardFootball facts concerning Tebow's passing ability in college and how he rates against some others.

So it is today that we dive into one of the biggest stories of the 2010 NFL draft by looking at the college productivity of six legendary quarterbacks here in the modern pass-happy era.



Six Big-Name College Quarterbacks







Player Comp. Att. Pct. Yards YPA TD INT Rating*

Player A 851 1,354 62.85 11,201 8.27 90 33 100.93


Player B 825 1,232 66.96 8,772 7.12 76 37 95.60


Player C 841 1,383 60.81 10,286 7.44 84 36 93.15

Player D 493 797 61.86 6,625 8.31 52 21 99.04

Player E 564 986 57.20 7,731 7.84 51 33 85.72

Player F 661 985 67.11 9,286 9.43 88 15 120.72


* Using the NFL formula for passer rating, not the NCAA formula




The numbers aren't even close. One player dominates. One player leaps screaming off the list, like Horshack on "Welcome Back Kotter" when he knew the answer to a question: "Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!"



That dominant individual, of course, is Player F. This quarterback:

•Was the most accurate of any of these six passers.
•Dominated the average per attempt category – our favorite number – by better than 1 yard per attempt over the No. 2 player on the list.
•Boasts a passer rating so sky high it defies description, nearly 20 full points better than the No. 2 player on the list.

Elsewhere, Player F was No. 2 in total TD passes – but easily No. 1 in TD pass percentage. Player F threw a TD on 8.9 percent of his pass attempts – easily outpacing Player A, who threw a touchdown on 6.6 percent of his pass attempts.



Finally, Player F protected the ball much better than any of the other quarterbacks on this list. Player F threw an interception on just 1.52 percent of attempts – easily outpacing Player C, who threw an interception on 2.60 percent of attempts. And you know what we've always told you: quarterbacks who throw picks lose games. Quarterbacks who don't throw picks win games.



Dying to know who they are, arentcha? Well, the numbers represent the college career stats of six of the greatest quarterbacks in the modern history of the SEC.

Here goes:
•Player A is Peyton Manning. He played for Tennessee in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1998 draft.

•Player B is Tim Couch. He played for Kentucky in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 draft.

•Player C is Eli Manning. He played for Ole Miss in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2004 draft.

•Player D is JaMarcus Russell. He played for LSU in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft.

•Player E is Matt Stafford. He played for Georgia in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft.

•And, finally, Player F is Tim Tebow. He played for Florida and the SEC and will be far from the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft.

 

[Brady6]

This is probably a sacrilegious view around here, but "surgical precision" to me is kind of boring to watch. It's like watching a boxing match where a guy darts in and out landing jabs all through the match and ends up winning on points.

I appreciate the attention to detail and expertise of their craft. I was actually a boxed in my teens and early 20's and always focused on being a technical fighter.

 

[robbomango]

Brady,

Believe it or not, your question is kind of complicated to answer completely in a somewhat short post. I mean, there's just so many variables and ways to look at things.

Do I want him to "convert" to TE or some other position ? That wouldn't be my preference. I'd almost rather he went to the CFL like Flutie, Garcia and others did. Or perhaps the A11 league if it ever gets going. Somewhere he could develop then make it back to the NFL.

As you said though, him playing some TE this year doesn't close the door on him being a QB in the future. Here also though, there's a kind of sliding scale. I'm definitely not opposed to it if being versatile gets him onto the roster as QB3, where he would develop as QB3 during the year, while also practicing at other positions. But if it means spending all his time at TE or RB, just for this year, then I'm not sure. Clock is ticking and that would be another year of possible development lost.

One of the things that sickened me about the whole Jets thing is that he lost a year of development being under Sparano.

When the Three Stooges Woody, Rex and Tanny added the 4th Stooge I knew it was going to be an epic season.

I quite enjoyed what Sparano did last year, hardest I laughed in a long time...:singing:

 

[Demosthenes]

Demos, what are your thoughts on this article?

Tim Tebow's faulty mechanics have been repaired, says quarterbacks coach Steve Clarkson

Haven't made up my mind yet about Steve Clarkson. That said, he only worked with Tebow for a few days. The guys that really put in the work iirc were Dennis Giles and Chris Weinke.

Jury is out on how much he has improved his mechanics/motion, and whether he has internalized those changes. Ie. when the pressure is on, will he maintain good form, or revert back to his old mechanics ?

 

[Christiancat]

Haven't made up my mind yet about Steve Clarkson. That said, he only worked with Tebow for a few days. The guys that really put in the work iirc were Dennis Giles and Chris Weinke.

Jury is out on how much he has improved his mechanics/motion, and whether he has internalized those changes. Ie. when the pressure is on, will he maintain good form, or revert back to his old mechanics ?

Yeah there have been a mixture of stories good and bad about Steve Young's coaching skills. Hopefully he helped Tim a little with his mechanics. But like you said will he use what he learned or just revert back to what he always has done while under pressure. Time will tell and I hope Tim has found something to help him keep good form under any condition.

 

[Christiancat]

In think its a combination of injuries and inconsistencies.

If Edelman can stay healthy and improve his on his consistences a little I could see him helping the team some.

 

[Brady6]

If he can stay healthy and improve his on his consistences a little I could see him helping the team some.

He was last season up until his injury. Hope he can come back and build on it.

 

[Christiancat]

He was last season up until his injury. Hope he can come back and build on it.

Exactly I wish nothing but the best for all the players on the team. Edelman has a good work ethic and is talented so he's capable. There's just so many variables with him.

 

[situational_awareness]

Not making fun here just curious but is the idea of Tebow not playing at all and then returning to the field in the future something seen as the rebirth of Jesus in the among the spiritual football fans?

Haha. I have no clue if they think that, but I haven't heard that theory before. I'm definitely not a spiritual person.