[BostonCard]

I'm with Burg, Burns is in his fourth year in the system. If he's not ready by now, he will likely never be ready.

I'm unsure why there's such resistance to entertaining the notion that Burns may just not be very good.

Oh, the possibility that Burns is not very good is definitely real, but I don't think we've exhausted other possibilities, which is that Burns would be decent if given decent protection.  The evidence for that lies in the Kansas State game, where he started completing his first nine passes, and for which his protection was pretty good.  He also led the game winning drive at UCLA, so he is certainly capable.  He only really started sucking against UW (though he was not great for much of the UCLA game), and that coincided with the offensive line becoming a sieve.

Now, it is certainly possible that Burns' highlights, such as they are, are anomalies, and the Burns we have seen the last four weeks is about as much as we can expect.  I am not against trying Chryst per se, but I haven't seen anything in his appearances that would lead me to believe that he is better than Burns.  Still, at this point it may be worth a shot, to see if a QB knowing that he was going to be in for the whole game and not putting added pressure on himself to shine during "his" series, might be a bit more effective.  However, my expectations are not high for that; I think the biggest problem is the line.

I am hopeful that as we face weaker defenses in the tail end of the year, and as our offensive line and running backs heal (and hopefully if we don't have any more injuries), that we might see a step up from the QB position, no matter who is behind center.  But I think having a weak offensive line and an inexperienced quarterback is a recipe for what we have seen.  Maybe somebody with a lot of experience playing the college game can figure out how to make the best out of a collapsing pocket, but I think it would be asking a lot of even a pretty good QB (say, a Hogan quality guy) without much game experience to do much when he is being sacked once every 10 or so dropbacks.

[BostonCard]

I'm with Burg, Burns is in his fourth year in the system. If he's not ready by now, he will likely never be ready.

I'm unsure why there's such resistance to entertaining the notion that Burns may just not be very good.

Oh, the possibility that Burns is not very good is definitely real, but I don't think we've exhausted other possibilities, which is that Burns would be decent if given decent protection.  The evidence for that lies in the Kansas State game, where he started completing his first nine passes, and for which his protection was pretty good.  He also led the game winning drive at UCLA, so he is certainly capable.  He only really started sucking against UW (though he was not great for much of the UCLA game), and that coincided with the offensive line becoming a sieve.

Now, it is certainly possible that Burns' highlights, such as they are, are anomalies, and the Burns we have seen the last four weeks is about as much as we can expect.  I am not against trying Chryst per se, but I haven't seen anything in his appearances that would lead me to believe that he is better than Burns.  Still, at this point it may be worth a shot, to see if a QB knowing that he was going to be in for the whole game and not putting added pressure on himself to shine during "his" series, might be a bit more effective.  However, my expectations are not high for that; I think the biggest problem is the line.

I am hopeful that as we face weaker defenses in the tail end of the year, and as our offensive line and running backs heal (and hopefully if we don't have any more injuries), that we might see a step up from the QB position, no matter who is behind center.  But I think having a weak offensive line and an inexperienced quarterback is a recipe for what we have seen.  Maybe somebody with a lot of experience playing the college game can figure out how to make the best out of a collapsing pocket, but I think it would be asking a lot of even a pretty good QB (say, a Hogan quality guy) without much game experience to do much when he is being sacked once every 10 or so dropbacks.