The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - Printable Version
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The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 10-07-2015
WSJ: "Why the NFL has a Quarterback Crisis"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-nfl-has-a-quarterback-crisis-1441819454
Basically, college offenses have become so dumbed down and gimmicky that quarterbacks, by and large, are grossly unprepared to play in the NFL. The article doesn't mention this but that seems to be a selling point for Stanford moving forward. "You want to play quarterback in the NFL? SC won't prepare you for it. ND won't prepare you for it. Nor will C.al, or Oregon."
This could make for some intriguing QB recruiting battles with Michigan.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis. - BostonCard - 10-07-2015
If only there were an athletic Fifth-year senior QB with 3+ years experience running a pro system in college, one who will have lef his team to four bowl games and (at least) two conference championships.
BC
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - washingtonismoney - 10-07-2015
Strange to call college offenses "gimmicky" when ... they've worked for years now! The continued resistance to admitting spread offenses are legitimate variants of the game is pretty mind-boggling to me.
EDIT: It's also pretty delightful, in the article, that the NFL coaches seem resistant to the idea...that they themselves have pilfered extensively from college offenses. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were basically running an Airraid offense for a while there.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 10-07-2015
(10-07-2015, 09:07 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:Strange to call college offenses "gimmicky" when ... they've worked for years now! The continued resistance to admitting spread offenses are legitimate variants of the game is pretty mind-boggling to me.
The very fact that NFL coaches and executives are telling the Wall Street Journal that they've never seen quarterbacks so unprepared for the pro game -- and in fact are worried about the future of the sport itself -- due to the dumbed down nature of the college game would seem to point to a different conclusion.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - washingtonismoney - 10-07-2015
(10-07-2015, 09:15 PM)ThePassionOfTheChryst link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=13090.msg133323#msg133323 date=1444277224]
Strange to call college offenses "gimmicky" when ... they've worked for years now! The continued resistance to admitting spread offenses are legitimate variants of the game is pretty mind-boggling to me.
The very fact that NFL coaches and executives are telling the Wall Street Journal that they've never seen quarterbacks so unprepared for the pro game -- and in fact are worried about the future of the sport itself -- due to the dumbed down nature of the college game would seem to point to a different conclusion.
[/quote]
1) of course there's an O tempora! O mores! aspect here. NFL quarterbacking is always hard. I'd like to see some hard quantitative evidence over simply trusting the word of executives, who as human beings are prone to exaggeration, bias, or simply misremembering stuff. Of course, many spread quarterbacks have had success, even immediate success in the NFL -- Mariota's doing great so far this season; RGIII started well and only sank when he got injured; Alex Smith has carved out a solid career as an NFL vet...
2) even if they are correct, who cares? Why must an offense be well-suited for the NFL to be legitimate? Is anyone calling Georgia Tech's or Navy's triple option offenses "gimmicks"? No, of course not. It's just people being silly.
3) the deeper problem with the article -- which I presume is based on the thinking of the NFL executives and coaches in question -- is a consistent failure to engage with the virtues of the offense. There are always tradeoffs in football, but it's unclear the NFL folks have really thought things through. They criticize the spread offenses for making things easy; well, what kind of criticism is that? It sounds like my grandfather criticizing younger people for their modern technology, like calculators.
The one part that finally did acknowledge it was the Nick Marshall section, but other than that the coaches seemed completely resistant to expanding their minds at all. Which is, of course, typical of the league: once upon a time the West Coast Offense was a gimmick.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 10-07-2015
(10-07-2015, 09:29 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:1) of course there's an O tempora! O mores! aspect here. NFL quarterbacking is always hard. I'd like to see some hard quantitative evidence over simply trusting the word of executives, who as human beings are prone to exaggeration, bias, or simply misremembering stuff. Of course, many spread quarterbacks have had success, even immediate success in the NFL -- Mariota's doing great so far this season; RGIII started well and only sank when he got injured; Alex Smith has carved out a solid career as an NFL vet...
I'm not a big fan of appealing to authority, but on this topic I do believe it's valid to point out that while human, NFL personnel folks are probably more qualified to discuss this than you and I. If they are saying college quarterbacks are unprepared, I am inclined to believe them.
As to the specific players you mentioned, Mariota has done well through the first three games of his career; RG3 has had injury trouble but by all accounts he's also a terrible teammate and a coaching headache; and Alex Smith is an historic NFL bust, took seven years to even become serviceable, and only became serviceable once Harbaugh got his old-school ground and pound hooks into him.
Quote:2) even if they are correct, who cares? Why must an offense be well-suited for the NFL to be legitimate? Is anyone calling Georgia Tech's or Navy's triple option offenses "gimmicks"? No, of course not. It's just people being silly.
Well, as the article clearly lays out, offenses must be well-suited for the NFL to be considered legitimate offenses to run in the NFL. I'm not really sure what you're asking.
Quote:3) the deeper problem with the article -- which I presume is based on the thinking of the NFL executives and coaches in question -- is a consistent failure to engage with the virtues of the offense. There are always tradeoffs in football, but it's unclear the NFL folks have really thought things through. They criticize the spread offenses for making things easy; well, what kind of criticism is that? It sounds like my grandfather criticizing younger people for their modern technology, like calculators.
The one part that finally did acknowledge it was the Nick Marshall section, but other than that the coaches seemed completely resistant to expanding their minds at all. Which is, of course, typical of the league: once upon a time the West Coast Offense was a gimmick.
I don't really like being combative but the only conclusion that I can come to is that perhaps you're the one that hasn't thought things through. Have you perhaps considered why NFL offensive folks are "resistant" to adopt spread principles? Or, more pointedly, why spread offenses work in college but have had a hard time proliferating in the NFL? It's because the level of athlete playing defense in college ball is so far below that of the NFL, spread offenses can flourish. Once you get to the NFL, however, you have college All Americans who can barely keep a practice squad spot. It's the age-old question: could the best college team in the country beat the worst NFL team? The answer is no, and there's a reason for that.
Let's look at the wildcat. In 2008, the Dolphins borrowed it from Arkansas and took the NFL by storm with it. It worked for a while, but NFL defensive coordinators -- who are better at their jobs, generally speaking, than college coordinators -- quickly adjusted and while it's still alive and well in the college game, it's pretty much extinct in the pros.
The same can be said of the read option, another college concept. In 2012, quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, RG3, Russell Wilson, and Cam Newton destroyed NFL defenses with it. By the following season, defensive coordinators had figured out how to stop it. While it still enjoys modest success in the NFL when used sparingly, there are college teams still successfully using it as the basis of their offense.
Simply put, NFL athletes are better and NFL coaches are smarter (in the football sense).
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - rudruff - 10-07-2015
Hmmm . . . if only there were a device that would allow QB's to look at dozens of defensive alignments each day without having to tie up the whole team in practice.
I have also grown pretty leary of pro personnel people explaining how hard their jobs are. Teams used to sit QBs on the bench for a few years before making them play.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - BostonCard - 10-07-2015
The NFL has a long history of deriding college offenses as gimmicky, and then appropriating plays from them for use in the NFL. And Chip Kelly seems to have done well enough as head coach of the Eagles, inheriting a team that was 4-12 and posting back-to-back 10-6 seasons.
Still, there are some reasons to think that the run/pass spread based on post-snap reads, may have trouble in the NFL. In addition to the reasons that TPOTC mentioned, I would note that the rules in college (3 yard buffer before something is called an illegal downfield block allow offensive lines to block as if for a run, even if the QB reads and throws a pass, so long as the QB doesn't take too long). In the NFL the buffer is 1 yard, which means that you would see a lot more illegal downfield blocks in a run/pass option. That means you would need to make your reads pre-snap instead of relying on post-snap keys, which means no matter what offense you ran, you would need a QB capable of reading defenses.
BC
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 10-07-2015
(10-07-2015, 10:09 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:The NFL has a long history of deriding college offenses as gimmicky, and then appropriating plays from them for use in the NFL. And Chip Kelly seems to have done well enough as head coach of the Eagles, inheriting a team that was 4-12 and posting back-to-back 10-6 seasons.
Still, there are some reasons to think that the run/pass spread based on post-snap reads, may have trouble in the NFL. In addition to the reasons that TPOTC mentioned, I would note that the rules in college (3 yard buffer before something is called an illegal downfield block allow offensive lines to block as if for a run, even if the QB reads and throws a pass, so long as the QB doesn't take too long). In the NFL the buffer is 1 yard, which means that you would see a lot more illegal downfield blocks in a run/pass option. That means you would need to make your reads pre-snap instead of relying on post-snap keys, which means no matter what offense you ran, you would need a QB capable of reading defenses.
BC
While I agree with most of this post, I feel it's worth pointing out that the Eagles are currently 1-3 and are 22nd in points per game and 29th in yards per game.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - FarmBoy - 10-08-2015
The local area Boston sports radio were discussing this topic yesterday. I assume it was initiated by this article. They were contending that there are even "questions about Andrew Luck". I'm not sure what it means to have "questions", but for the sake of the topic, I assume they mean it's questionable whether he's a valid NFL QB. I know he's had a rough start to the year, but do commentators nationally really doubt that?
Also, I don't have access to wsj.com, so I didn't read the article, but interested in what kind of data it presents to support itself. Is the % of NFL starting QBs who are <5 years out from school now different from what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago?
Using data from wikipedia on who's starting and when drafted, it appears that 16 of the 32 starting QBs in the league were drafted in 2011 or more recent. If the college QBs of today are unprepared, why are they getting the starts over veterans? I'm sure health and athleticism matter, but I wonder if the data supports this article.
If the argument is that the older QBs (Manning, Brady, Brees, etc) are better rated than the young guys, then I would says that's partly because of survivor bias. You don't get to be a 10+ year veteran without being really good. It was true of Elway, Montana and Marino.
Does the article compare data across periods?
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ThePassionOfTheChryst - 10-08-2015
(10-08-2015, 03:38 AM)FarmBoy link Wrote:The local area Boston sports radio were discussing this topic yesterday. I assume it was initiated by this article. They were contending that there are even "questions about Andrew Luck". I'm not sure what it means to have "questions", but for the sake of the topic, I assume they mean it's questionable whether he's a valid NFL QB. I know he's had a rough start to the year, but do commentators nationally really doubt that?
Also, I don't have access to wsj.com, so I didn't read the article, but interested in what kind of data it presents to support itself. Is the % of NFL starting QBs who are <5 years out from school now different from what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago?
Using data from wikipedia on who's starting and when drafted, it appears that 16 of the 32 starting QBs in the league were drafted in 2011 or more recent. If the college QBs of today are unprepared, why are they getting the starts over veterans? I'm sure health and athleticism matter, but I wonder if the data supports this article.
If the argument is that the older QBs (Manning, Brady, Brees, etc) are better rated than the young guys, then I would says that's partly because of survivor bias. You don't get to be a 10+ year veteran without being really good. It was true of Elway, Montana and Marino.
Does the article compare data across periods?
Bizarre, I don't have a WSJ account and I had unfettered access to the article yesterday but now it's behind a paywall for me too. Huh.
Anyway, it doesn't use data. It relies on (attributed) quotes and anecdotes by NFL coaches and personnel execs expressing how new quarterbacks are entering the league much less prepared than quarterbacks of the past.
As for the 16 starting quarterbacks who have entered the league since 2011, I count nine from spread/option schemes and seven from pro schemes. The two aren't cut and dry, especially these days. There is a lot of gray area. But I did my best:
Spread/Option
Cam Newton
Tyrod Taylor
Andy Dalton
Colin Kaepernick
Brandon Weeden
Ryan Tannehill
Nick Foles
Derek Carr
Marcus Mariota
Pro
Ryan Mallett
Andrew Luck
Kirk Cousins
Russell Wilson
Blake Bortles
Teddy Bridgewater
Jameis Winston
A fairly unimpressive collection of QBs on the whole, but the Pro group gets the decided edge.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - FarmBoy - 10-08-2015
Quote:Anyway, it doesn't use data. It relies on (attributed) quotes and anecdotes by NFL coaches and personnel execs expressing how new quarterbacks are entering the league much less prepared than quarterbacks of the past.
As for the 16 starting quarterbacks who have entered the league since 2011, I count nine from spread/option schemes and seven from pro schemes. The two aren't cut and dry, especially these days. There is a lot of gray area. But I did my best:
Spread/Option
Cam Newton
Tyrod Taylor
Andy Dalton
Colin Kaepernick
Brandon Weeden
Ryan Tannehill
Nick Foles
Derek Carr
Marcus Mariota
Pro
Ryan Mallett
Andrew Luck
Kirk Cousins
Russell Wilson
Blake Bortles
Teddy Bridgewater
Jameis Winston
A fairly unimpressive collection of QBs on the whole, but the Pro group gets the decided edge.
Unless there's strong data to support it, like WIM, I will be skeptical of the veracity of the article. It's like all those baseball scouts denigrating Billie Beane's Moneyball method because it didn't rely on their expertise. Old timers have a vested interest in saying that things should remain as they always have.
As to that list of QBs, I will repeat my point about survivor bias. WHenever you look at the list of players with <5 years of experience, you're going to have some mediocrity because they haven't been weeded out of the system yet. But in that list, you've got Cam Newton, Russel Wilson, Andrew Luck, and Dalton, all QBs who have shown ability to win in the NFL. The rest have a lot of open questions but that again is because they're young.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - Leftcoast - 10-08-2015
This picture of a hide-bound NFL leadership reluctant to try new offensive schemes b.ears little resemblance to what I see on TV every Sunday.Â
The spread offense has been around for 20+ years. Elements have been picked up by the NFL but the reason few teams run an all-spread offense is because it rarely works over time. In the Darwinistic NFL game successful schemes are copied and flourish. If the spread isn't flourishing beyond college after 20 years then it is poorly suited for the pro environment.
From there it's an easy jump to see why NFL executives prefer QBs who are suited for the systems they will run in the league.
Anecdotally SF fans have seen the 49ers flirt with the spread with both Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. Colin in particular had early success with spread option strategies. Once the NFL adjusted both QBs looked very mediocre and the long process of turning a spread QB into a pro set QB began. Maybe the Niners decision makers have just been unlucky but if they look for their next QB among the dwindling number of colleges running pro set offenses they will get no argument from me.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - 82lsju - 10-08-2015
(10-08-2015, 04:16 AM)ThePassionOfTheChryst link Wrote:Bizarre, I don't have a WSJ account and I had unfettered access to the article yesterday but now it's behind a paywall for me too. Huh.
to access any article on the WSJ site
1. copy the title of the article
2. put the exact title in google search (it must be google search)
3. the link to the WSJ article will be near the top of the search results
4. click on the link
the WSJ allows search hits from google to read their content
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - ChicagoCard - 10-08-2015
(10-08-2015, 08:16 AM)82lsju link Wrote:[quote author=ThePassionOfTheChryst link=topic=13090.msg133336#msg133336 date=1444302977]
Bizarre, I don't have a WSJ account and I had unfettered access to the article yesterday but now it's behind a paywall for me too. Huh.
to access any article on the WSJ site
1. copy the title of the article
2. put the exact title in google search (it must be google search)
3. the link to the WSJ article will be near the top of the search results
4. click on the link
the WSJ allows search hits from google to read their content
[/quote]
So that's why full-text access seems hit or miss. If not for the Google approach then the article could be had by most through their local public library Web subscriptions.
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - stupac2 - 10-08-2015
(10-07-2015, 09:52 PM)ThePassionOfTheChryst link Wrote:I'm not a big fan of appealing to authority, but on this topic I do believe it's valid to point out that while human, NFL personnel folks are probably more qualified to discuss this than you and I. If they are saying college quarterbacks are unprepared, I am inclined to believe them.
While this is true to some extent, it's not true of the topic here. Actually, it might not be true at all, given how bad the NFL is at sorting the good QBs from the bad during the draft, but never mind that. The key thing about the article is "Quarterbacks are less prepared than they used to be", which is a projection through time, and the sort of thing that humans are terrible at. Like, horrifically bad. Abysmal. Absurdly ridiculously horrendously awful.
For instance, every single people year say "Wow it sure does seem like there are more injuries this year!" and then someone looks at the numbers and, sure enough, there weren't. Recency bias is so brobdingnagian that unless there's an actual quantification of the trend under question, you just have to assume the person's statement is wrong. Because it usually will be.
That out of the way, how would you even quantify this? For one thing, as others have pointed out, the NFL treats QBs a lot differently than they used to, throwing them into the fire a lot earlier. The NFL of today also expects a lot more from a QB than it did even 10 years ago. Would Brady have gotten as good if he were starting right away in today's NFL? Would Rodgers have washed out if the 49ers had drafted and started him? He's said that he used those years sitting to learn a lot, so I'm really not sure.
Then you have the fact that it wasn't too long ago that people were writing the opposite, that the success of Luck and Wilson and pre-injury RG3 and Cam and to some extent Carr and Bridgewater was showing that the college game was producing better QBs than ever. These things can't all be true.
What I think is happening is that people are overreacting to the struggles of Luck and Wilson this year, combined with the fact that the QB is so important now. But there has never been a point in modern NFL history (that I'm aware of, anyway) where every team has been satisfied with its QB options. It's just that standards have changed. Look at Archie Manning's stats, he took until his seventh year playing to throw more TDs than INTs, and over his career he has nearly 50 more INTs than TDs. Do you think someone doing that now would start more than 4 years?
Re: The NFL's "quarterback crisis." What does it mean for Stanford recruiting? - MustardtheBallCarrier - 10-08-2015
Basic premise of the article seems right to me. Without saying spread offenses are gimmicky or worse than traditional pro systems, the fact of the matter is that spread offenses put less on the QB. There is a more limited playbook and the QB is not generally asked to make checks or audibles at the line of scrimmage. By and large they are taking shotgun snaps and throwing to the first read on plays spoon-fed from the sideline. No question the spread is enormously successful in high school and college. In the pros, there is good reason to think a pure spread scheme can't be as successful. Defenses are more complicated and better athletes can cover more of the field (to say nothing of the rules differences that give pro defenses slight advantages relative to college defenses). There is every reason to think that a Kevin Hogan type is going to be more prepared mentally to play in the pros than a Bryce Petty type, simply because Hogan is asked to do so much more before the play starts.
Spread concepts will continue to be implemented in the NFL and talented spread QBs will eventually carve out successful pro careers. I wouldn't put any current spread QBs in the pros in that category yet, though I would concede a few names are close. Until then, the burden of proof is on the spread QB to show he can have sustained success in the NFL.Â