The overall lack of QB talent is killing the NFL

[reddogblitz]

Answer: You still make time. Tell the fans and media to put a sock in it and develop your QBs. That Hot Pocket still needs to time to heat up.

 

Not sure how doable this is in today's NFL. You sign a drafted QB for 4 or 5 years. By the time he sits 2 or 3 years and has some growing pains his contract is up. Think Brock Oswieler. Broncos developed him and then couldn't afford him. Similar thing with Hotrod in Baltimore.

 

Speaking of WIlson mark my words....someone is gonna get lucky signing Vernon Adams jr in the 5th round

Hopefully it's us. But don't wait til the 5th or he very well could be long gone. We don't want to get Russell Wilsoned again

 

Matt Leinart? Say what?

Alex Smith no +s. WTF?

 

NFL Europe was able to develop SB winning QBs. Kurt Warner and Brad Johnson.

 

I also think the rules should be changed a little so it's not so much dependent on passing and having a great QB. Let the DBs bump and make contact until the football is in the air. Let OL hold on running plays.

Edited March 15, 2016 by reddogblitz

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Arguably, Andrew Luck was the last QB to come out of college as a consensus "NFL ready" QB. This overall dearth of talent is hurting the league. Should the NFL do anything different to try to address this situation?

 

I think the answer is yes. I have two ideas to do so. The first one is insane and not likely to be considered. The second is realistic.

 

Option one - have a special draft that I'd for QB's only. Every team has to select one. this action is then combined with the second option.

 

Option two - Every team should be required to carry a developmental QB in a designated additional roster spot that is paid at a fixed salary. Teams would be free in the offseason to treat all of these individuals as eligible Free Agents unless they are moved to the active roster by the team that has their rights and they are signed to a contract beyond the minimum.

 

The above would give more players at the position time to develop. Colleges are not preparing players at this position for the NFL.

 

 

1. Each team has a farm Club and ours would be in Rochester

 

2. Go back to the old rules of when ground and pound were king

 

 

Not sure how doable this is in today's NFL. You sign a drafted QB for 4 or 5 years. By the time he sits 2 or 3 years and has some growing pains his contract is up. Think Brock Oswieler. Broncos developed him and then couldn't afford him. Similar thing with Hotrod in Baltimore.

 

Hopefully it's us. But don't wait til the 5th or he very well could be long gone. We don't want to get Russell Wilsoned again

 

Alex Smith no +s. WTF?

 

NFL Europe was able to develop SB winning QBs. Kurt Warner and Brad Johnson.

 

I also think the rules should be changed a little so it's not so much dependent on passing and having a great QB. Let the DBs bump and make contact until the football is in the air. Let OL hold on running plays.

 

I'd say grabbing a guy outside the shoulder pads shouldn't be holding nor tossing the defender to the ground. But tackling a guy or reaching out and grabbing a guy when he has clearly beaten you, should still be holding.

[mannc]

That is exactly the point to this thread - the NFL can no longer rely on college playing time as the only feeder of talent into the QB pool.

 

Wanna bet? Where else are they going to come from? High school? CFL? The US Marines? There is no evidence whatsoever that the league is "dying" due to poor QB play. It's an opinion held, if at all, only in places like Cleveland, Buffalo and Miami.

 

In fact, I would argue that QB play is now at its all time best, with at least five future hall of famers (without even including P Manning), young stars on the rise like Luck, Newton and Wilson, and promising first and second year players like Mariota, Winston and Bortles--not to mention solid vets like Rivers, Palmer and Ryan. And I think the incoming crop in this year's draft looks pretty good--maybe no obvious superstars but deep in interesting mid-round prospects like C Jones, Hogan and Hackenberg.

Edited March 15, 2016 by mannc

[mannc]

There are other factors as well. Colleges also run these offenses because there is a lack of NFL caliber talent on opposing defenses . That's why those offenses don't work in the NFL , high talent level and fairly even distribution of talent among the 32 teams. That's not true in college so it's easy to win games with a " gimmick" offense that most defenses will not have the elite speed / quickness to deal with. You don't need to run a pro style offense, so why do it? Even if there were more pro caliber QBs , I still think you would see these offenses remain popular at the college level. And most colleges cannot identify pro caliber QBs that soon anyway. NFL scouts have a hard enough time. The overall game is different, and the uneven talent distribution among teams makes the college style offense popular because they are effective at that level regardless of whether you have an eventual pro at QB.

Some good points here. And don't forget, college programs don't have years to develop QBs--even the best ones are only around for a couple years, so you need a plug-n-play system. The top NCAA programs can't afford a "down year" while they suffer the growing pains of a "rookie" QB. Edited March 15, 2016 by mannc

[Chandler#81]

I'm not sure anything needs to be done with the NFL at this point. The NFL is growing faster than any other professional sport and it's not even close. Is the quarterback position important? Absolutely. If anyone really wants to look at the statistics though, quarterbacks on average are significantly better than what they were in the 80's and 90's. There's always exceptional players in any era when compare to their peers. I just don't see any realistic scenario playing out where every team in the NFL suddenly finds themselves with a pro-bowl caliber franchise quarterback.

Great point! All the labeled 'junk' QB's today still have a 63%+ completion record. Kemp wasn't even a 50%er and Kelly didn't break60% 'til well into his NFL career. Now, 68% is the benchmark and 70% has been achieved recently. Its not like kids aren't being accurate with the football in their back yards, then coached through HS to really develop accuracy. Rookie QB's have been starting since the 60's. Some have the mettle, some don't. IF they're fortunate enough to sit for a year or two, so much the better.

[KRT88]

 

 

They tried that with NFL Europe and I think they deemed it too expensive. The newly formed Spring League hopes to be an NFL feeder.

it was too expensive because some idiot decided it was to be done in Europe.

 

Use existing facilities and find a way to keep costs down. Use cities that are fairly close to one another. Use bus travel as often as possible.

[Mr. WEO]

This thread still makes little sense. There was never a time when top QB prospects were benched for 2-3 years routinely and specifically to "develop".

 

And again, why would you need a D league when you can carry a 2nd or even a 3rd QB on your roster to "develop" every day of the season?

 

This type of thinking begs the question: who do you start when your "developmental starter" is being developed? A journeyman? Do they then need a pool of serviceable journeyman QBs to develop as well?

 

Logic would tell us that a team will play their best QB, the one with that gives the best chance to win. In GB it was Favre, in Baltimore, it was Flacco.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Mr. WEO

[BuffaloBill]

This thread still makes little sense. There was never a time when top QB prospects were benched for 2-3 years routinely and specifically to "develop".

 

And again, why would you need a D league when you can carry a 2nd or even a 3rd QB on your roster to "develop" every day of the season?

 

This type of thinking begs the question: who do you start when your "developmental starter" is being developed? A journeyman? Do they then need a pool of serviceable journeyman QBs to develop as well?

 

Logic would tell us that a team will play their best QB, the one with that gives the best chance to win. In GB it was Favre, in Baltimore, it was Flacco.

 

So as a fan you think it is acceptable that each year on average there is one QB who emerges from the draft as a potential,long term starter in the league? This means that the system continues to perpetuate the haves and the have nots. Look at how many years the draft produces zero at the position.

 

We all know that GM's and coaches jobs rightfully rest upon winning. You can't win consistently without at least a serviceable QB. Is it in the league's best interest to have a perpetual turn style among coaches and GM's? Buffalo and Cleveland certainly serve as shining examples of how stifling this situation is.

[HT02]

I am not sure the amount of talent today is any different than it was 30 or 40 years ago. As Bills fans we were (eventually) lucky to get to participate in the QB class of '83. But a look around the league at that time and there were a lot of teams suffering with pretty poor QB play.

 

Time and distance has resulted in a romanticizing of the quality of some of those average-at-best QBs. We are talking about guys like Chris Chandler, Toy Eason, Wade Wilson, Chris Miller, Bubby Brister........ Even Joe Montana was average at that point (32 yo) with 18 TDs and 10 Ints compared with maybe Dan Marino who had 28 TDs and 20 ints (Kelly had 15 TDs and 17ints and went 12-4!!!).

 

Today, so many factors are impacting QB transition from college to pro. There are a lot of very creative offensive minds and schemes being run in college that either won't work in the NFL or aren't being embraced by the 40-50 coaching retreads we see float around the league every year. Notably, Alabama, Stanford, Notre Dame and FSU all run pro-style offenses and are all powerhouse programs and they haven't turned out pro QBs at any noticeably better rate than anywhere else.

 

The Chip Kelly circus aside, there just hasn't been enough crossover of college systems into the NFL to really make a determination as to whether they will ultimately gain a foothold. Meanwhile, those dirty no-good cheatin' Patriots* have incorporated a hybrid college spread and are making it work with seemingly underwhelming talent. I mean, Teddy Marchibroda should be considered the father of all college schemes.....hell of modern football offense in general. The run and shoot (Mouse Davis) in houston lead to the K-gun in Buffalo which directly lead to Peyton Manning.

 

The abject failure of guys like Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban and Chip Kelly (maybe) seem to indicate that there is no translation of those offenses to the NFL but i would also point out that neither Spurrier or Saban had any real talent and certainly didn't hang around long enough to really impose any changes. Chip Kelly is an outlier right now and if he succeeds it may trigger guys like Urban Meyer and Jimbo Fisher to shop their wares in the NFL.

 

Ultimately, i think the major gap between college offenses and the NFL coupled with the reduced window for acceptable success has the appearance that the Pro game is churning through QBs, but I'd bet if you did the math, the numbers are relatively stagnant.

I agree, there isn't any "crisis".

[Mr. WEO]

So as a fan you think it is acceptable that each year on average there is one QB who emerges from the draft as a potential,long term starter in the league? This means that the system continues to perpetuate the haves and the have nots. Look at how many years the draft produces zero at the position.

 

We all know that GM's and coaches jobs rightfully rest upon winning. You can't win consistently without at least a serviceable QB. Is it in the league's best interest to have a perpetual turn style among coaches and GM's? Buffalo and Cleveland certainly serve as shining examples of how stifling this situation is.

 

Every team has the opportunity to draft a QB every year. In fact the worst teams in the league are given priority in choosing every year. It is their job to find a QB.

 

Buffalo and Cleveland have hurt themselves--it wasn't "the system". The Bills could have had Russell Wilson but chose a crappy WR instead. The Browns aren't even trying--they have drafted a grand total of 4 QBs in the last 10 years.

 

Last year's draft produced two serviceable starters who did ok on awful teams (Winston and Mariota). The year before produced another 2 (Bridgewater and Carr--maybe Bortles too). That's 4-5 in the last two drafts alone! What are you complaining about? Maybe there seems to be a dearth of starting QBs drafted because...the vast majority of the teams are not drafting for a starting QB in any given year? So why is important that the draft produces serviceable starters every year. If you team is a have not, it gets the best picks from each round. If they pick wisely, they will find a serviceable starter at some point--just like other teams do.

 

There is no system that will correct for dumb GM management/team ownership. There is a spot or 2 on every roster to develop a QB if a team chooses to.

[DriveFor1Outta5]

Great point! All the labeled 'junk' QB's today still have a 63%+ completion record. Kemp wasn't even a 50%er and Kelly didn't break60% 'til well into his NFL career. Now, 68% is the benchmark and 70% has been achieved recently. Its not like kids aren't being accurate with the football in their back yards, then coached through HS to really develop accuracy. Rookie QB's have been starting since the 60's. Some have the mettle, some don't. IF they're fortunate enough to sit for a year or two, so much the better.

The game is completely different now compared to those days. Comparing completion percentages from past years to the modern NFL is comparing apples to oranges. The fact that you can't touch the receivers or the QB's play a big yet unquantifiable role in the completion percentage increase. I believe that guys like Kelly, Marino, and Elway would have been putting up Aaron Rodgers like numbers if they played today. For that matter I could even see mid level guys like Jeff Blake, Jeff George, and maybe even Dave Kreig thriving in today's NFL. Consider how tough guys like Kelly were compared to today's QB's. If you could transport them to today's NFL they would feel like they're on vacation given the protection they'd have in today's NFL. Edited March 15, 2016 by DriveFor1Outta5

[Mr. WEO]

The game is completely different now compared to those days. Comparing completion percentages from past years to the modern NFL is comparing apples to oranges. The fact that you can't touch the receivers or the QB's play a big yet unquantifiable role in the completion percentage increase. I believe that guys like Kelly, Marino, and Elway would have been putting up Aaron Rodgers like numbers if they played today. For that matter I could even see mid level guys like Jeff Blake, Jeff George, and maybe even Dave Kreig thriving in today's NFL. Consider how tough guys like Kelly were compared to today's QB's. If you could transport them to today's NFL they would feel like they're on vacation given the protection they'd have in today's NFL.

 

Ah the old "you can't even touch the QBs" stuff comes out.

 

How can anyone watch football nowadays and not see QBs regularly getting lit up every week? Look at the AFCC game--Manning got pummeled and Brady got hit 17 times. I would bet starting QBs miss more time due to injury now than they did in Kelly/Elways time. Big Ben is a load and he has missed a bunch of games. Bledsoe's career, for all intents and purposes, ended on a huge hit. EJ was hurt 3 times in his rookie season alone--he's a big dude. Romo has broken the same bone twice.

 

My guess is that if Kelly had to throw over 600 times a season, he would missed games in today's NFL. Players are bigger and faster than 30 years ago.

[3rdand12]

If we ask for more complete parity across the league, then we will look even closer at the officiating as defining winning and losing games.

lots of way to look at a reasonable question.

I may suggest the trend will turn back to the running game as a strength

 

whoever said exponential decay ( and you know who you are ) should cut out with the big words.

it's not fair to folks like me when i have to look up stuffs. I was fine with Bell curve !!

[mannc]

 

Ah the old "you can't even touch the QBs" stuff comes out.

 

How can anyone watch football nowadays and not see QBs regularly getting lit up every week? Look at the AFCC game--Manning got pummeled and Brady got hit 17 times. I would bet starting QBs miss more time due to injury now than they did in Kelly/Elways time. Big Ben is a load and he has missed a bunch of games. Bledsoe's career, for all intents and purposes, ended on a huge hit. EJ was hurt 3 times in his rookie season alone--he's a big dude. Romo has broken the same bone twice.

 

My guess is that if Kelly had to throw over 600 times a season, he would missed games in today's NFL. Players are bigger and faster than 30 years ago.

Exactly. If "you can't even touch the QB these days", then show me the statistics demonstrating that QB injuries are down significantly over 10 or 20 years ago. I would love to see some of the "tough guys" who bemoan the "pussification" of the league strap on the pads and see just how soft the game has gotten. What has been prohibited is the cheap shots that are dangerous and add nothing to the game. That the refs sometimes get carried away and flag clean hits does not change that fact.

Edited March 15, 2016 by mannc

[reddogblitz]

This thread still makes little sense. There was never a time when top QB prospects were benched for 2-3 years routinely and specifically to "develop".

 

 

How old are you?

 

Of course there was.

 

I grew up in Dallas as a Cowboys fan. We had Don Meredith with Craig Morton riding the pine behind him (Marv says in his book Craig was the best athlete he ever coached and led Denver to SB XIII). Then after Don retired we got Roger Staubach who rode the pine behind Craig for a few years. Then when we traded Craig we got Danny White who rode the pine behind Roger for 4 or 5 years. All of these guys were top prospects and none of them started out of the chute.

Edited March 15, 2016 by reddogblitz

[Garranimal]

 

Ah the old "you can't even touch the QBs" stuff comes out.

 

How can anyone watch football nowadays and not see QBs regularly getting lit up every week? Look at the AFCC game--Manning got pummeled and Brady got hit 17 times. I would bet starting QBs miss more time due to injury now than they did in Kelly/Elways time. Big Ben is a load and he has missed a bunch of games. Bledsoe's career, for all intents and purposes, ended on a huge hit. EJ was hurt 3 times in his rookie season alone--he's a big dude. Romo has broken the same bone twice.

 

My guess is that if Kelly had to throw over 600 times a season, he would missed games in today's NFL. Players are bigger and faster than 30 years ago.

I would have to say you are only arguing a small portion of reality here. You are absolutely correct in saying that the frequency of contact with a QB has not changed dramatically as the rules have changed little in the trenches.

 

Conversely, it is undeniable that the nature of the contact itself has been heavily legislated and therefore the overall severity has been reduced.

 

Additionally, the rules are night and day beyond the line of scrimmage which has manifested itself in at least three ways: higher completion percentages, greater yardage totals and fewer ints (maybe, i am just guessing on that one). <<(maybe higher TD totals would have been the better choice, or better TD to INT ratios)

Edited March 16, 2016 by Garranimal

[DriveFor1Outta5]

I would have to say you are only arguing a small portion of reality here. You are absolutely correct in saying that the frequency of contact with a QB has not changed dramatically as the rules have changed little in the trenches.

 

Conversely, it is undeniable that the nature of the contact itself has been heavily legislated and therefore the overall severity has been reduced.

 

Additionally, the rules are night and day beyond the line of scrimmage which has manifested itself in at least three ways: higher completion percentages, greater yardage totals and fewer ints (maybe, i am just guessing on that one).

Defensive back is as close to an impossible position to play as any in all of sports now days. Try playing the bump and run that so many teams in past eras did. For all those criticizing my take and dismissing it as old fashion, I'm not very old. I just know the game I watched during my formative years in the 90's is a lot different than the one we watch today.