I really hope I can find the time to finish my QB evaluations. I’ll say that so far (and this is with a small number of games watched, so small sample size warning), Bridgewater has shocked me with how mediocre he is. I can’t recall a QB ever having such a disparity between their stats and how they actually play on the field (notably, completion percentage). I was shocked at his sudden fall in draft stock, but I get it a little bit now. From what I’ve seen, he doesn’t look like an NFL starter.
For the Packers I am kind of hoping that CJ Mosley falls. The Packers draft is going to depend very heavily on what happens in front of them. Some folks think they should go TE, like Ebron, but I don’t think a first round worthy TE will be available. If Clintn-Dix falls that would be pretty sweet, we always need the secondary help it seems, but I really realy doubt he will be available.
I watched his game against U. Conn at draft breakdown. I picked that game, because his stats weren’t gaudy (21-37 (56.8%), for 288 yards, 1 td, 1 int.) and because U. Conn had the #9 defense in college football, so it was a very good defense.
I thought he looked very good. He showed me the ability to make reads and go through his progressions (the first drive was good evidence of it), his ability to keep his poise while his guys are dropping balls (from :50 to 1:40 or so his guys dropped three passes, including a nice 30 yard pass that hit his guys in the hands), poise under pressure (2:28), keep his eyes downfield while avoiding pressure (great TD pass at 3:08), great touch in the middle of the field (4:40), ball protection (took a sack at 5:00 rather than make a bad pass), good pocket awareness (6:45), and good touch on deep balls (10:45 he throws a great pass on 3rd and 28 for a first down).
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses. He wasn’t pinpoint accurate and left a couple plays out there (missed a guy at 3:52), could have had another pick at 6:45, and sometimes used too much touch instead of zipping the ball in (7:30), and his interception was a bad decision when he got rattled under pressure), but I came away very impressed in his play in that game. It was a tough defense, and I thought he not only played a lot better than his stats for the game, but that he also showed a lot of the skills I want in an NFL QB.
Of course, YMMV.
I think the NFL actually made the draft less interesting by pushing it back. There’s only so much rehash about the same stuff before it gets boring.
CFB passing statistics are notoriously suspect. There’s a list a mile long of efficient, producting college QBs who were terrible, and far worse, than less efficient or productive QBs. How did Colt Brennan work out?
Point is, based on the eye test and his measurables he doesn’t look like a NFL starting QB to me at all, add in the collapse at the Pro Day and I have questions about his ability to handle pressure.
I think that actually favors Bridgewater more, because he was in a more pro-style offense than Geno, who was running a spread offense with easier throws.
Maybe we’re watching different games, because, as I pointed out, even in one of his most pedestrian games, I saw more to like about Bridgewater than I ever did in Smith.
Care for a Smith v. Bridgewater wager?
It’s a trap!
Chris Brown posted his breakdown of the top QB prospects (he doesn’t include Carr). He calls them “1st round talents with 5th round flaws.”
Reading it has me favoring Bridgewater. Like Beef, it’s hard to see what’s wrong with him other than he didn’t nail the combine-related nonsense. For all we know, all the pessimistic talk is just disinformation put out by teams hoping he drops into their laps.
I’ve decided that I really want to see the Falcons sell the farm to trade up to the Texans to grab Clowney. I want to see if the stars and scrubs plan of fantasy football would work for a real NFL team.
Watched a couple games for Bridgewater, Bortles, and Manziel. (Draft Breakdown is awesome.) I didn’t really have an opinion on these guys before hand.
Teddy Bridgewater – Really looks like he belongs. Excellent at pocket presence and dealing with pressure, very good at his progressions, makes good decisions, clean mechanics (especially when throwing on the run), great touch/accuracy on lofted passes. Only problem is a poor deep ball, which could be fatal depending on just how poor it turns out to be. I’d be happy spending a mid-1st rounder on him, and if my team badly needed a QB I wouldn’t hate him in the 8-10 range.
Blake Bortles – He does two things better than Bridgewater: he has a strong arm (which isn’t nothing), and he runs very well. Inconsistent mechanics/footwork, made skittish by pressure, some iffy decisions, etc. Accuracy is pretty good, but, again, inconsistent mechanics means inconsistent results here. For someone with such a strong arm, a surprising amount of his production comes from screens and little hitches; many of these plays are successful, but I don’t think he’s very good at them: his timing is a little off, seems eager to get the ball out, etc. Beware.
Johnny Manziel – I was much more impressed by Manziel than I expected to be. It’s baffling to me that anyone would draft Bortles ahead of him; Manziel does everything that Bortles does, only better. Character concerns could make a difference to me if it was close, but it’s not. He reminds me of nothing so much as a smaller, faster Brett Favre. That’s mostly great, but he does sometimes fall in love with his ability to improvise and make something happen, so he’ll probably commit one or two howlers per game. Throwing mechanics are a little inconsistent, but that doesn’t really matter because he’s *great *at throwing sidearm, or in mid-air, etc. I would absolutely feel comfortable with my team drafting him in the top 5. I guess my main concern would be health: Ben Roethlisberger can mostly get away with the crap he pulls because he’s huge (and even he’s a lock these days to miss a few games a year). Manziel is going to take a pounding if the coaches can’t drill some of the moxy out of him, and I doubt his small frame can handle it.
I don’t think that Manziel has the ability to do pre-snap reads or to survey the defense while dropping back that Favre did extremely well. And it wasn’t until Favre actually started listening to Holmgren that he developed those talents so well. I also think Favre was exceptional at moving within the pocket and hanging in there until the last second to make a big throw. Manziel, however, gives up on called plays waaaaayyyy to quickly, gets skittish in the pocket, and is too quick to run. Finally, I think Manziel doesn’t have the arm, or the accuracy, that Favre did.
Michael Vick, I think, is a much closer comparison to Manziel than Favre is. If you think Vick and his two playoff wins and career 80 passer rating is worth a first round pick, then Manziel would likely be worth it too. I also think that any team that takes Manziel will have to taylor their offense to his strengths to make him successful, because I’m not sure he’d be willing to change his game to suit a coach. So I think the risk is even higher. A perennially bad team like the Jags might be able to make such a change, but I’m not sure many teams would.
I also agree there’s little to no way he’ll survive playing his college game in the NFL, much like Vick who has suffered more than his fair share of injuries in his career.
If you could take rookie Michael Vick with a first rounder this year, you wouldn’t do it?
I don’t agree that the Lousiville offense was “pro-style”. It’s not a spread, but it was also hyper conservative with a emphasis on power running. It feels like a pro-style offense from 20 years ago. It’s pretty comparable to the Seattle system, but not to most of the “modern” passing offenses.
Bridgewater may be a good fit for a defense first team with Seattle and Russell Wilson, but those teams probably aren’t looking at a QB in the top 10 picks if that’s their MO. Top 10 picks shouldn’t be replaceable game managers which is what Teddy looks like at best.
Particularly, I hate the small hands thing. Manziel and Russell Wilson were small but have big-to-huge hands.
Hell no. Geno Smith is terrible, I’m not interested in betting on which turd sandwich tastes worse.
I don’t know if the small hands thing has changed at all recently with actual NFL talent evaluators, but man did the hand size thing come out of nowhere amongst draft pundits and general public awareness. 5 years ago, no one was talking about it - now it’s just a tick below 40 times it would seem.
FWIW, Aaron Rodgers’ hands are 1/8th of an inch bigger than Bridgewater’s.
Sure, but I guess my point would be that Favre didn’t come into the NFL fully formed in that regard; he had to learn, and so can Manziel. Perhaps.
There are plenty of differences of course, but I don’t see why it’s terribly improbable that a good coaching staff could rein in Manziel’s worst tendencies enough to turn him into an efficient “gunslinger” type. I don’t love the Michael Vick comparison, if only because Manziel seems WAY more accurate, which alone will make him a qualitatively different kind of passer even if their games have a similar feel. Manziel Comp%: 68.9; Vick: 56 (and 56.2% in the pros). I think Manziel is just a better passer (which is not a high bar to clear, but it they’re not even in the same ballpark).
Since I already know that career Vick has had, wouldn’t that question simply come down to my level of risk aversion? Would I rather have a guy who could start in the NFL versus a guy who I have little to no clue about? I’m not sure it’s necessarily worth anything to compare the known with the unknown.
I’d rather have a guy I was guaranteed could be a starter for a few years in the NFL than I’d want to roll the dice on a draft pick QB this year, yes. But that would be true of almost any even average QB. That would be true for Vick, Cutler, Kaepernick, Wilson, Flacco, E.Manning, Bradford, Dalton, Griffin, or the slew of other average NFL QB’s over the years.
That’s an interesting question, actually. I wouldn’t spend a 1st Rounder on him if I knew he’d have the career he wound up having (even minus the dog-fighting). Well, maybe a late 1st.
Ridiculous potential, though. Depends on how much NFL teams can alter a player’s career trajectory by putting him in the right (or wrong) context, with good (or bad) coaching, etc. I think it makes a pretty big difference where a player lands – none of these guys are finished products – so I guess I’d take him outside the top 10 in most drafts and hope I handle his development better than the Falcons did. Or maybe not, I don’t know.
Well, we know how the Vick dice came out the last time they were rolled; he wouldn’t have the same career under different circumstances of course.
What I mean is if Manziel represents a Vick-type talent to you (although I agree, like I said in whatever other thread, that Manziel’s shown NFL-elite-type finish on his throws, which Vick never did), isn’t that actually acknowledging that he’s a pretty good gamble? I feel like Vick’s actual career was closer to his worst case than his best.
Oh, wow. OK. Minus the dogfighting, I don’t think I’d bat an eye at taking him at, say, 10th overall.
I was referring more to the passes the QB was asked to make. The tape I saw on Bridgewater had him throwing a wide variety of passes, from hitting a guy running down the seam, a roll out hitting the second option on a crossing pattern, throwing a quick slant, throwing a quick slant to the second receiver, throwing a quick out, and throwing the go route (which he didn’t particularly do often or well). When I watched Geno, it seemed to be almost all 3-7 yard hitches, quick crosses, WR screens, and maybe a deep go every once in a while. I didn’t see, or if I did I wasn’t impressed, with Smith’s ability to make all the NFL throws.
Which is why I specifically said: " I can’t see him as a top 15 pick". I don’t think Bridgewater is nearly as replaceable (just look at the garbage at QB out there) as you, and I do think he has much higher upside than just a “game manager”.
Take one of your big body, big arm, little brain guys you like so much then. You can have Bortles or Savage, I’ll take Bridgewater, and we can see how it works out long term.
I would agree that Manziel is a better passer now than Vick was even a couple years into his NFL career, but I’m not sure Manziel will be as accurate in the NFL as his college completion percentage would indicate. I also agree that it is completely possible that Manziel will be able to develop his game to become able to run a NFL offense that isn’t one tailored right for him. I’m just not sure he’s worth the risk.