Coach Tuesday Posted April 12, 2005 Posted April 12, 2005 http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFL/A...brook041205.htm Losman working hard this offseason as he assumes starter's role By Mike Holbrook (mholbrook@pfwmedia.com) April 12, 2005 Now that the Bills have the made the tough — but correct, in my opinion — call to move forward with J.P. Losman as their starting quarterback in 2005, one big question is still to be answered. Will Losman step right in and assume the starter’s role ably enough to help the Bills pick up where they left off — having won six of their last seven games in ’04 — or will he struggle and saddle an emerging team with a setback? No one really knows the answer. That’s one of the reasons why football is so great and yet so perplexing. As Dolphins head coach Nick Saban stated at his pre-draft meeting with the media last week, “I wish one of you would invent a test. Someone out there, one of our fans, invent a test that we can give and that means the guy can be a good quarterback. I’d love to have one. Twenty questions — true or false, multiple choice, however you want it to be, but if this guy makes the highest score on this he’s a good quarterback. It means he’s a good decision-maker, has great judgment, understands the offense, knows how to feature, reads the coverages, throws it to right guy, be accurate with the ball. I wish we had such a test. We have lots of tests, but none of them are 100 percent valid or reliable. They are all subjective. It is not an exact science.” The Bills believe Losman, who was selected in the first round by Buffalo last year following a trade with Dallas, has the talent and ability to be an outstanding NFL quarterback. But they won’t truly know that until he steps on the field in August and faces NFL defenses in preseason battles. Even those results can only offer a glimpse of his potential at best, leaving the true test to come in the regular season. In the meantime, Losman has been doing all he can to make the transition from rookie backup to starter of a team with playoff aspirations. He has been in Buffalo since early February, working out at the team’s training facility in Orchard Park and studying under the tutelage of QB coach Sam Wyche. Losman spent a couple of weeks in his native California following the end of the 2004 season, but shortly after Losman’s arrival in Buffalo, the Losman and Wyche quickly fell into a routine that promises to pay dividends down the line for both the young quarterback and the Bills. According to Wyche, most days began with Losman working out in the weight room in the morning while Wyche was in coaches meetings. By lunchtime, either Wyche or Losman ran out to get some takeout food for them to share lunch while talking football in the QB room. “We did a lot of film watching, talked football, we’d be on the board,” Wyche said. “I’d say, ‘OK, get on the board and now you coach me. You tell me how this protection works or when this run play is no good — what stops this run? When will you check out of it?’ We were in more of a social setting, but we were definitely talking football and then it got to where that was running into two hours a day. It was virtually every day.” Wyche said he is pleased with Losman’s progress. He described Losman’s efforts this offseason as “really dedicated.” He said Losman’s main focus in the weight room has been to get bigger and stronger to withstand all the hits he will likely take as a starter over the course of a long season. And Wyche added that Losman’s intelligence and willingness to learn has made him well versed, at least on paper, about the Bills’ offense. “Most of the work that he needs to do is not learning the offense — he can pass the written test. In fact he’d probably get 100 percent on it,” Wyche said. “Now, it’s getting out there and in 40 seconds, getting everything organized and called and executed and understanding why we’re doing what we’re doing so he can get out of a bad play. If you don’t understand why we’re doing something, then you don’t have any reason to check out of bad play.” Wyche said that Losman is still playing catch-up to some degree after being sidelined for much of last season with a broken fibula. However, Wyche believes just the experience of being on the sideline in ’04 and observing the pro game up close has helped the young signalcaller. “He’d have gotten more out of (last season) if he hadn’t gotten hurt, there’s no question about it,” Wyche said. “But he clearly benefited from being here. Being around Drew Bledsoe and Shane Matthews, watching how they practiced, how they prepared for games, how they studied film, all that stuff is like being around a toddler — you have to be careful with everything you do because they will repeat it. They’re like sponges. And a young quarterback is the same way around a veteran. He remembers so much more, it really logs in and stays with him, when he sees another guy do something than to listen to a coach lecture to him in a classroom.” That’s a big reason why the Bills’ free-agent signing of Kelly Holcomb, who came over after being a part-time starter with the Browns the last couple years, was one of the team’s most important moves this offseason. He’s a guy who has been in the NFL for nine years and has had success in the league. He also knows how to be a backup and was willing to accept that role as a mentor and sounding board to Losman. “(Holcomb) understands his role,” Wyche acknowledged. “He’s not coming in here to battle J.P. for the starting spot. He’s a backup quarterback to a young quarterback and he has got to be ready to play, but he understands that J.P.’s going to take the first snap.” As for the Bills’ offense in 2005, Wyche said that Buffalo will put Losman in shotgun formation, something that is familiar to Losman from his collegiate days at Tulane. The Bills also will gear things to his strengths as a “younger, fresher-legged, mobile-type guy” by calling for more rollouts and by moving the pocket more than they were able to do with the statue-esque Bledsoe. Make no mistake, the focus of the 2005 Bills still will be their stifling defense and standout special teams. And it won’t be a surprise to see those areas carrying the load until Losman and the offense hit their stride. Comparisons to Carson Palmer, who got off to a slow start in his first season as starter before rallying the Bengals to an 8-8 record, will be natural, but the Bills hope Losman more closely mimics the revelatory Ben Roethlisberger, who won all 13 of his regular-season starts last season, so they don’t lose any of the momentum they gained during the second half of head coach Mike Mularkey’s first season. “I’m sure there will be some Sundays that we watch the process of trial and error, and the learning curve causes us to pull our hair a little bit,” Wyche said. “Then there will be other Sundays when he’s going to make something happen out of the blue because he’s a natural at the position — a natural quarterback, a natural runner, and he can make things happen. “I don’t know what it will mean in terms of wins and losses. I don’t know if anyone can predict that. … He should step right in. I think he’ll be OK.”
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