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GDT: The Early Games
- By Rynie
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 88 Replies
You came to this conclusion from one game?Elliot is overrated.
Why we should not get two high or low about the initial performance of Rookie QBs
- By Orchid
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 0 Replies
http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/09/15/nfl-quarterbacks-jameis-winston-marcus-mariota-notebook
The Truth About Young QBs
by Albert Breer
Week 1 competency is great for new players, but it’s hardly a predictor of success. Checking in with Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, plus more on the Bengals, Adam Gase and what game day is like for an NFL agent
A year ago, Marcus Mariota gave then-Titans offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey a debut that he won’t ever forget.
The second pick in the 2015 draft posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating and that doesn’t even paint the full Picasso here. Mariota hit on 13 of his 15 throws for 209 yards, four touchdowns and no picks in a 42-14 win over Tampa Bay.
“That was quite a game,” Mularkey, now the head coach in Nashville, said Wednesday afternoon. “We didn’t throw much and we won by a lot. We didn’t put a ton of pressure on him. We just asked him to make plays, and guys made plays around him. It was impressive. He certainly wasn’t intimidated by the atmosphere.”
Fun afternoon for the Titans too, but how much could it really tell us? As I’m gonna lay out for you momentarily … not much.
Just like last season, Week 1 was a blast this time around for young quarterbacks, setting up Week 2 for all of us. And so we’ll get to the Bengals taking another shot at the Steelers, Adam Gase getting guys on his program in Miami, some summer trade fallout, a college quarterback to keep an eye on and so much more.
Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston met Week 1 last season, with the Titans beating the Bucs.
We start, though, with the explosion onto the scene of a bunch of young gunslingers. Carson Wentz was third-string nine days before the Eagles opener, and looked as good as any quarterback in the league, except maybe Jimmy Garoppolo, who quieted months of questions by helping slay a monster in Arizona. Trevor Siemian came up big when it mattered most, and Dallas coaches had Dak Prescott throw it 45 times.
Afterwards, for better or worse, there was bound to be some brake-pumping—It’s only one game—coming out of each of those teams. You should listen to that. Seriously.
I decided to look a little closer by examining the 14 first-round quarterbacks who started their team’s openers as rookies. (I know Garoppolo and Siemian aren’t rookies, and Prescott isn’t a first-rounder, but this simplified things.) What I found was, well, not a whole lot to hang your hat on. Here they are, sorted by passer rating, in those openers.
QB, Team Comp-Att Yds TD INT Rating
Marcus Mariota, TEN 13-15 209 4 0 158.3
Robert Griffin, WSH 19-26 320 2 0 139.9
Matt Ryan, ATL 9-13 161 1 0 137.0
Cam Newton, CAR 24-37 422 2 1 110.4
EJ Manuel, BUF 18-27 150 2 0 105.5
Carson Wentz, PHI 22-37 278 2 0 101.0
Mark Sanchez, NYJ 18-31 272 1 1 84.3
Jameis Winston, TB 16-33 210 2 2 64.0
Joe Flacco, BAL 15-29 129 0 0 63.7
Sam Bradford, STL 32-55 253 1 3 53.1
Andrew Luck, IND 23-45 309 1 3 52.9
Ryan Tannehill, MIA 20-36 219 0 3 39.0
Matt Stafford, DET 16-37 205 0 3 27.4
Brandon Weeden, CLE 12-35 118 0 4 5.1
Starting in Week 1 is tough for any young guy, but the truth in these numbers—Griffin was better than almost anyone; Manuel and Sanchez were better than Flacco and Luck—is that the degree of difficulty keeps rising, and swallows whole plenty of promising careers.
“The biggest challenge is that it really is different every week,” Mularkey said. “The defenses they’re facing—you got people coming in all different directions, different fronts, personnel, coverages, strengths and weakness. In the NFL vs. college, there’s just so many differences week-in and week-out, and that’s tough. There’s more time leading to the first game, so there’s that too.
“You don’t spend as much time on 2, 3,or 4. You spend a lot of time on 1. And then, they throw you into a regular season week, where you have to do all of it in a condensed amount of time. That’s jarring for a young player.”
So maybe the best way to gauge the difference, in current terms, is to take a look at the most recent examples. Those are in Tennessee and Tampa.
And we can start with Winston, who didn’t puke on his shoes in last year’s opener, but clearly was out dueled by Mariota in a showdown between 2015’s first two picks. In his 2016 opener, Winston was appreciably better, going 23-of-32 for 281 yards and four touchdowns, against a single pick, in a 31-24 win in Atlanta.
Even better, Winston made three-dimensional the improvements that he and QBs coach Mike Bajakian were working. Winston sunk weeks into honing his drop technique and becoming more efficient moving within the pocket. Done and done in Week 1, per his position coach. And Winston also focused on being more willing to check down. Touchdown passes to Charles Sims and Brandon Myers came on, yes, checkdowns.
“Those might not have been plays he’d have made last year,” Bajakian explained.
Winston also showed more command. Where quarterbacks often are given two or three options on each snap, based on what the defense shows them, Winston flashed the ability Sunday to go off the script completely.
“We give him some parameters, and he did a good job of recognizing those times against unscouted looks, when he had to take over,” Bajakian said. “When it comes to the mental side, Jameis is outstanding.”
As for Mariota, his numbers weren’t as gaudy in this year’s opener, and the Titans didn’t win. But the growth was most certainly there in his 25-of-41, 271-yard, two-touchdown, one-pick start to his sophomore season.
Mariota went through more than the typical rookie quarterback does in Year 1. “He had to learn to play through injuries, he really wasn’t healthy the whole year after Week 2, and he learned they can change coaches in midseason, and that’s not an excuse to be distracted,” Mularkey said. And Mariota came out of it with a solid base.
Mularkey and new offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie have cut down the volume in the offense, and given Mariota more control at the line. And the lessons he’s learned aren’t all that different than what the Bucs have taught Winston. Chiefly, it’s been learning when to take chances, and when to play it safe, which showed up in the opener.
“He got us out of a bad situation by throwing it away. There was a bust on a play, it was an option, and there was nowhere to go, and he just threw it out of bounds,” Mularkey said. “In the past, he tried to make more of those. So he did it in the first half, and then he didn’t on one play in the second half, and it cost us a touchdown. But I know he won’t do that again. …
“The big thing is, if we’re in a bad situation, give us a chance to get out of it.”
So obviously, this now keeps moving forward for all the young guys who showed up big in their debuts last weekend. Stepping on that stage is hard for anyone, and harder for quarterbacks. But as we’ve learned, and those guys are about to find out, sustaining a strong start is even more difficult.
“The biggest difference for the college guys coming to the pros, and what they realize, is it’s a really long season,” Bajakian said. “The mental grind, the physical grind, you have to be tough. So whether or not they make it is as much how a player responds to the 16-game season with a four-game preseason and camp starting in July before it. …
“Even for Jameis last year, starting out he had a couple games with multiple turnovers, then 4-5 games in, he hit his stride, and it’s tough to keep that going.”
We’ll find out soon if Wentz and Siemian and Garoppolo and Prescott can.
The Truth About Young QBs
by Albert Breer
Week 1 competency is great for new players, but it’s hardly a predictor of success. Checking in with Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, plus more on the Bengals, Adam Gase and what game day is like for an NFL agent
A year ago, Marcus Mariota gave then-Titans offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey a debut that he won’t ever forget.
The second pick in the 2015 draft posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating and that doesn’t even paint the full Picasso here. Mariota hit on 13 of his 15 throws for 209 yards, four touchdowns and no picks in a 42-14 win over Tampa Bay.
“That was quite a game,” Mularkey, now the head coach in Nashville, said Wednesday afternoon. “We didn’t throw much and we won by a lot. We didn’t put a ton of pressure on him. We just asked him to make plays, and guys made plays around him. It was impressive. He certainly wasn’t intimidated by the atmosphere.”
Fun afternoon for the Titans too, but how much could it really tell us? As I’m gonna lay out for you momentarily … not much.
Just like last season, Week 1 was a blast this time around for young quarterbacks, setting up Week 2 for all of us. And so we’ll get to the Bengals taking another shot at the Steelers, Adam Gase getting guys on his program in Miami, some summer trade fallout, a college quarterback to keep an eye on and so much more.
Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston met Week 1 last season, with the Titans beating the Bucs.
We start, though, with the explosion onto the scene of a bunch of young gunslingers. Carson Wentz was third-string nine days before the Eagles opener, and looked as good as any quarterback in the league, except maybe Jimmy Garoppolo, who quieted months of questions by helping slay a monster in Arizona. Trevor Siemian came up big when it mattered most, and Dallas coaches had Dak Prescott throw it 45 times.
Afterwards, for better or worse, there was bound to be some brake-pumping—It’s only one game—coming out of each of those teams. You should listen to that. Seriously.
I decided to look a little closer by examining the 14 first-round quarterbacks who started their team’s openers as rookies. (I know Garoppolo and Siemian aren’t rookies, and Prescott isn’t a first-rounder, but this simplified things.) What I found was, well, not a whole lot to hang your hat on. Here they are, sorted by passer rating, in those openers.
QB, Team Comp-Att Yds TD INT Rating
Marcus Mariota, TEN 13-15 209 4 0 158.3
Robert Griffin, WSH 19-26 320 2 0 139.9
Matt Ryan, ATL 9-13 161 1 0 137.0
Cam Newton, CAR 24-37 422 2 1 110.4
EJ Manuel, BUF 18-27 150 2 0 105.5
Carson Wentz, PHI 22-37 278 2 0 101.0
Mark Sanchez, NYJ 18-31 272 1 1 84.3
Jameis Winston, TB 16-33 210 2 2 64.0
Joe Flacco, BAL 15-29 129 0 0 63.7
Sam Bradford, STL 32-55 253 1 3 53.1
Andrew Luck, IND 23-45 309 1 3 52.9
Ryan Tannehill, MIA 20-36 219 0 3 39.0
Matt Stafford, DET 16-37 205 0 3 27.4
Brandon Weeden, CLE 12-35 118 0 4 5.1
Starting in Week 1 is tough for any young guy, but the truth in these numbers—Griffin was better than almost anyone; Manuel and Sanchez were better than Flacco and Luck—is that the degree of difficulty keeps rising, and swallows whole plenty of promising careers.
“The biggest challenge is that it really is different every week,” Mularkey said. “The defenses they’re facing—you got people coming in all different directions, different fronts, personnel, coverages, strengths and weakness. In the NFL vs. college, there’s just so many differences week-in and week-out, and that’s tough. There’s more time leading to the first game, so there’s that too.
“You don’t spend as much time on 2, 3,or 4. You spend a lot of time on 1. And then, they throw you into a regular season week, where you have to do all of it in a condensed amount of time. That’s jarring for a young player.”
So maybe the best way to gauge the difference, in current terms, is to take a look at the most recent examples. Those are in Tennessee and Tampa.
And we can start with Winston, who didn’t puke on his shoes in last year’s opener, but clearly was out dueled by Mariota in a showdown between 2015’s first two picks. In his 2016 opener, Winston was appreciably better, going 23-of-32 for 281 yards and four touchdowns, against a single pick, in a 31-24 win in Atlanta.
Even better, Winston made three-dimensional the improvements that he and QBs coach Mike Bajakian were working. Winston sunk weeks into honing his drop technique and becoming more efficient moving within the pocket. Done and done in Week 1, per his position coach. And Winston also focused on being more willing to check down. Touchdown passes to Charles Sims and Brandon Myers came on, yes, checkdowns.
“Those might not have been plays he’d have made last year,” Bajakian explained.
Winston also showed more command. Where quarterbacks often are given two or three options on each snap, based on what the defense shows them, Winston flashed the ability Sunday to go off the script completely.
“We give him some parameters, and he did a good job of recognizing those times against unscouted looks, when he had to take over,” Bajakian said. “When it comes to the mental side, Jameis is outstanding.”
As for Mariota, his numbers weren’t as gaudy in this year’s opener, and the Titans didn’t win. But the growth was most certainly there in his 25-of-41, 271-yard, two-touchdown, one-pick start to his sophomore season.
Mariota went through more than the typical rookie quarterback does in Year 1. “He had to learn to play through injuries, he really wasn’t healthy the whole year after Week 2, and he learned they can change coaches in midseason, and that’s not an excuse to be distracted,” Mularkey said. And Mariota came out of it with a solid base.
Mularkey and new offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie have cut down the volume in the offense, and given Mariota more control at the line. And the lessons he’s learned aren’t all that different than what the Bucs have taught Winston. Chiefly, it’s been learning when to take chances, and when to play it safe, which showed up in the opener.
“He got us out of a bad situation by throwing it away. There was a bust on a play, it was an option, and there was nowhere to go, and he just threw it out of bounds,” Mularkey said. “In the past, he tried to make more of those. So he did it in the first half, and then he didn’t on one play in the second half, and it cost us a touchdown. But I know he won’t do that again. …
“The big thing is, if we’re in a bad situation, give us a chance to get out of it.”
So obviously, this now keeps moving forward for all the young guys who showed up big in their debuts last weekend. Stepping on that stage is hard for anyone, and harder for quarterbacks. But as we’ve learned, and those guys are about to find out, sustaining a strong start is even more difficult.
“The biggest difference for the college guys coming to the pros, and what they realize, is it’s a really long season,” Bajakian said. “The mental grind, the physical grind, you have to be tough. So whether or not they make it is as much how a player responds to the 16-game season with a four-game preseason and camp starting in July before it. …
“Even for Jameis last year, starting out he had a couple games with multiple turnovers, then 4-5 games in, he hit his stride, and it’s tough to keep that going.”
We’ll find out soon if Wentz and Siemian and Garoppolo and Prescott can.
