Agreed. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to interpret it. But that’s exactly what strikes me as not smart.
I like Minshew a lot, but recognize that he has limitations. He’s a smart player and an utter gym rat. But, his arm strength is only average.
My wife went to WSU, and is a lifelong Coug, so I watched him a lot when he was in college. Minshew Mania was a thing in my house before he went to the NFL. He has always been an interesting guy and fun to watch in games. I also think it’s awesome that he made it to the NFL, and has been able to stick around for four years. That’s no small feat. Only the best QBs at any given time can say that. The NFL represents the best of the best football players anywhere, and the QB position is the most elite one. You don’t get many players from WSU to make it to that level.
But rated against other QBs in the NFL, he’s average to below average in my opinion. As you said, he has limitations. On the right team he’d probably be okay as a starter.
It’s a fallacy that QBs “learn to succeed” by sitting on the bench backing up a mediocre veteran. If you expect Richardson to be your future franchise QB, you gain nothing from waiting unless he’s completely ill prepared to execute the playbook.
Thats quite the bold statement on a topic that doesn’t really have a ton of evidence either way and ignores the plethora of other influences that determine the development of rookie QBs.
Years ago I got free tickets to a Lions preseason game, so I went with a friend. Steve Mariucci was the new (or newish- not sure if it was his first or second year) coach, and there was a feeling in the air that this was The Big Season for the Lions (that feeling that us Lions fans usually only experience in the very early going of a new season). The Lions played the Steelers and won! It seemed like a very good sign.
Then the Lions went nowhere, while the Steelers won the Super Bowl. And I read an article a sportswriter wrote while the Steelers were still celebrating, describing the difference between a champion like the Steelers of that season and an also-ran team. And he cited that very preseason game I had been to! He had watched it, and saw the Steelers do things like run the very same play over and over and over-- to the point the Lions repeatedly stopped it easily, knowing it was coming. Because the Steelers weren’t trying to win a meaningless game, they were practicing and getting better. After that, I never watched a preseason game the same way again.
Patrick Mahomes says hello.
Mahomes played very little in his rookie season, as Alex Smith started all but the last game of the season. Mahomes started (and won) the meaningless last regular-season game, but did not play in the Chiefs playoff loss to the Titans.
Alex Smith, of course, was not a ‘mediocre’ veteran. but he was traded after the season, and Mahomes has been the Chiefs QB since then.
It doesn’t really prove anything because we don’t have a “Mahomes that started week 1” to compare to.
Well, yes, but as you note, Alex Smith was considerably better than a “mediocre veteran” – in fact, Smith went to the Pro Bowl the season before the Chiefs drafted Mahomes, as well as in the following season, when Mahomes was his backup. And, in the extreme case, you have an Aaron Rodgers, who spent full seasons three seasons riding the bench behind Brett Favre before he became the starter.
I think that Omni’s point is that, if your veteran QB is a marginal starter or journeyman (e.g., Minshew), and you have a talented, first-round draft choice rookie QB, it likely makes more sense to start him earlier rather than later, assuming that your rookie is actually capable of running the offense right away.
I’d view it differently if the Colts had a solid veteran QB starter, and Richardson had been drafted as the QB of the future (as had been the case in Green Bay for Rodgers), but that’s clearly not the case in Indianapolis right now.
OTOH, there are certainly a lot of cautionary tales in the NFL about rookie quarterbacks who got thrown into the starting role immediately, floundered, and wound up not achieving anything close to their potential. I do think that this is a scenario that’s even more likely on a less-talented team, where the QB may not have the supporting cast (offensive line, receivers) to set him up for success.
There’s some other factors that could be considered as well.
I’d say the quality of the offensive line matters quite a bit in how soon you can toss a rookie QB into the fire. Indy does not have a trashfire line, so it’s not likely Richardson will be running for his life on every play, like some rookie QBs have had to do for bad teams in the past. Somebody probably has already done a “Top 10 ‘bust’ QBs whose careers were cut short by bad offensive lines”
That’s true in general. The QB may be the single most important player on the team, but it’s still a team game, and the quality of the other pieces, the quality of the coaching, the talent development, etc are going to play a much larger role than we, as fans, typically consider.
That was my point.
You can absolutely start a rookie and succeed. Russell Wilson won the starter job as a rookie, led the team to the playoffs that year, then went to the Super Bowl twice the next couple of years, winning one of them. Of course, he was backed up with a great running game and historically good defense, if he had been asked to carry the team he might have ended up a cautionary tale.
(Actually, if Denver sucks for another season, he might still end up a cautionary tale for different reasons.)
There’s no definitive answer to the “sit and learn” vs. “start right away” debate. For every Mahomes or Rodgers who found success after a year or more as a sub, there’s a Peyton Manning or Justin Herbert who were thrown right into the fire and succeeded, if not immediately.
(Herbert is a weird example – he was supposed to “sit and learn,” but the starter got hurt in week 2, and Herbert did just fine.)
Multiple variables – coaching, offensive line, receivers, the running game and more – probably have more to do with success than how long the young QB rode the bench. And I think some QBs just have “it” and will succeed no matter what, while others don’t, and won’t.
You can never know what “would have” happened and everybody is different but Tom Brady showed quite an improvement from a little regarded QB taken inthe 6th round in the 2000 draft and the one that led the Pats to the superbowl after a season and a bit holding the clipboard.
It’s also a bit deceptive to describe it as “time sitting on the bench” or holding a clipboard. That time specifically is not what helps develop a QB. But an extra year of practices and scrimmage games, working alongside good coaches and an experienced QB, probably helps quite a bit.
Yes, but I actually would go further. Sitting behind an elite starter (or any veteran) has little to no effect on the young QB’s long term prospects. You’re simply waiting longer for him to blossom, they don’t “season” while watching someone else play from the sidelines. Waiting certainly might be better for the team if they are in win-now mode and don’t want their rookie QB to take his lumps at the expense of a potential post season run. But those teams are trading short term benefits for long term potential, which is reasonable under the right conditions.
There’s a cohort of rookie QBs who start right away and there’s a cohort of QBs who waited a season or more to start.
I haven’t done the analysis (I imagine someone has) but even so I’m not sure the sample size would be large enough to be statistically significant. It would be near impossible to determine causation vs correlation in either scenario due to all the external factors. For that reason, I am obviously making an assumption-based statement here.
For every anecdotal example of a Mahomes, Brady or Rodgers there’s a mountain of QBs who waited and never did shit. For every Roethlisberger, Manning and Burrow there’s a mountain of QBs who started early in their rookie seasons and flopped. I suspect the proportions of each are almost identical. I don’t think starting earlier “ruins” QBs any more than sitting on your ass and not seeing game speed for 12-18 months “ruins” QBs. QBs will succeed for fail based on their talent level and to a lesser degree the surrounding talent. Starting in week 1 vs. starting in week 15 (or season 3) is just time (and often opportunity cost) and that’s it.
To take this discussion into a bit of a different vein…
What is your definition of a ‘successful’ NFL quarterback? Obviously there are a multitude of factors that one could consider, but IMO it comes down to two things: how many games did he start, and what was his winning percentage in those games.
I would consider a QB to be successful if he started at least 50 regular season games, and won at least half of those games, or if he started at least 100 regular season games, regardless of his winning percentage.
For example, Eli Manning finished with a career record of 117-117 in regular season games, but I think he is a success. Likewise, Matthew Stafford was 89-101 (mostly with a terrible Lions team), but is also a success, in my book.
Obviously, these are arbitrary numbers/factors, and YMMV. But I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say on this subject.
Mahomes had only started 17 games when he won league MVP and led his team to the AFC championship. Was it too soon to call him a successful QB?
My definition of a successful QB would be one who leads a weaker team to wins they have no business winning, and leads a stronger team into positions where they can win championships. Eli Manning and Stafford would both qualify, but then you can also include Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and others.
That seems like a reasonable standard to me.
Right, but then you have to establish what is a weaker or stronger team. Mahomes started for a team that had made the playoffs four of the previous five years. He did win a playoff game, something that Alex Smith had done just once in those five years.
Had Mahomes suffered a career-ending injury after the 2018 season, would he have been considered a success? I don’t know, but it makes for an interesting discussion.
IMO, a “one and done” Mahomes likely would wind up being remembered more like Robert Griffin III (though probably a little better, as Griffin didn’t have a win in the playoffs) – a very promising young player, but too limited a body of effective work to be considered a “success.”