Outstanding thinking there. Hadn’t thought of that before. This is actually a known thing in baseball, where a lot of minor league hitters just MURDER those 85 mph fastballs and mediocre breaking stuff but when they get to the majors where most pitches are 95mph or just filthy breaking stuff, they see a lot fewer mistakes to feast on.
So yeah, a QB failing to find weak spots could definitely struggle if that’s what he’s been reliant on. I guess that could be applicable to any player in the NFL other than special teams players.
Another factor that I don’t see being discussed here for QBs is “Leadership”. It’s one thing for a college QB to act as a leader to a bunch of other 19 year old kids. It’s quite another to step into the NFL and act as a leader to grown men, some who may be 10-15 years older. Some of the mystery of why a seeming good QB doesn’t land a starter spot, or is a bust after 2 seasons could be this intangible that doesn’t always show up in the stats. It definitely shows up in the locker room and on the practice field where the coaches and GMs are evaluating players.
And then you have Tom Brady, who’s combine workout was one of the worst in NFL history, the pics of him with his shirt off made him the laughingstock of the combine and the draft. And there was some truth to the laughing, he didn’t have a good combine and he hadn’t spent much time in the weight room, but very little if any time in the weight room. But he always won when he was at Michigan, or came damn close. And it turned out he was motivated by notes on him by the coaches, which he happened to see during his rookie season, the biggest mark against him was that he needed to do everything faster. And being drafted behind a bunch of other QB’s was also motivating. There’s a good documentary about the Brady 6 (the Qb’s who were drafted ahead of him and there’s an especially hilarious part where Bill Walsh is literally jizzing his pants over the fact that he and the 49ers drafted Hofstra’s Giovanni Carmazzi, with Walsh going on and on, “Well we managed to swoop in and grab him we had heard at least 10 other teams were going to pick him so we were lucky to grab him.”
Tebow scored off the charts on intangibles. I still maintain that the only reason he’s not an NFL QB is that Josh McDaniel was the only guy willing to build his offense around Tebow’s abilities. Most coaches get a QB to fit their system, they don’t want to fit their system around a QB.
Don’t forget that after a few years in Seattle he actually came BACK to Green Bay and was forced to play in a few games and looked pretty good in those games.
Definitely, though Flynn was only in Seattle for one season (2012). In 2013, the Seahawks traded him to the Raiders, where he played a bit, then got cut, picked up briefly by Buffalo, and cut again.
Meanwhile, in Green Bay in 2013, Rodgers suffered a collarbone break for the first time (he had another one last year). His backup, Seneca Wallace, suffered a season-ending injury in his first start, and the third-string QB, Scott Tolzien, was ineffective in several starts. After Flynn was cut by Buffalo, the Packers brought him back, to act as Tolzien’s backup, but he soon became the starter. Flynn rallied the Packers to a tie when he was brought into replace Tolzien mid-game, and went 2-2 as a starter that year.
Um, just saying, if you want an example of a Packers backup QB named Aaron* going on to success as a starter, Aaron Brooks might not be your place to start…
Fair point that Rodgers has had a far better career as a starter than Brooks, but the point I was making was that the Packers had sent a series of their backup quarterbacks on to other teams, where they became starters.
I’m not denying it happens, but WHY does it happen? The QB position is glamorous, but it is incredibly punishing, as almost all QBs take several hard hits a game from the blind side, or when completely defenseless. How could somebody play four years of college ball if he doesn’t like football? And why would somebody play college ball for free, when it is taking valuable time away from his studies, and then not play for millions of dollars, when he can devote full time to it?
I think part of it is exactly the fact that it does become a full-time job, and probably an order of magnitude more intense, and more complex, of a job than it is in college ball.
And, the large amount of money involved probably also adds to the pressure.
Manziel said that when he got into the NFL he was completely unprepared for the amount of work and pressure involved in comparison to college play. I guess you can party and have fun in college and get by on talent on the field. As a professional even the best player needs to put in a ton of work. The idea that it becomes a job seems to be very apt.
And offense isn’t Green Bay’s problem, it’s their defense. Their overall defensive rank in 2010, when they won the SB: 5th. Since then? 32nd, 11th, 15th, 15th, 22nd, 22nd.
Based on a lot of stories I’ve read over the years, I think that there’s more than a little truth to that.
In addition, as many stories (and NCAA investigations have shown), if you’re a talented player at a football school, like Manziel was, the school does a lot to make your life easier, and it’s possible to “go to college” without working nearly as hard at the school end of things as your non-football-playing classmates.
Fair point that Rodgers has had a far better career as a starter than Brooks, but the point I was making was that the Packers had sent a series of their backup quarterbacks on to other teams, where they became starters.