Living and dying by your guy

It's not just the #'s.

A conservative QB would have never thrown the pass to a covered Rosario in the end zone that won the game at SD.

A conservative QB would have never thrown the pass to Smitty in the GB game with Woodson on him and saftey help coming.

A conservative QB wouldn't have thrown the pass to Smitty at the end of the NO when he was blanketed.

Jake and Smitty are good for each other. Jake gives him the chance to make plays and Smitty makes them.

BUT....a conservative QB wouldn't have thrown a pick in the end-zone Sat night after the long PI call on Smitty......so you take the bitter with the sweet.

I don't think Jake is great. He's OK. And it would be a mistake to let him go until we have a clearly better replacement. He's average, but fits here better because of our run orientation and the presenence of a game breaker in Smith. And there are AOLT of NFL teams that would love to have an "average" QB.

 

Best scenario, it's Matt Moore, but I don't know. I'm still not 100% sold on Moore, but he may be the best option right now.

 

Of course he would have. Time was running out and it's not like every "conservative" QB on the planet refuses to throw to anyone who isn't wide ass open. Jake's mistakes are generally not when he's taking risks, they're when he's being Thelt-level stupid. His interceptions are usually not of the "he shouldn't have taken that risk" variety, but rather the "how the fuck did he not see the defender standing right fucking there?" type.


meatpile:
Leftwich is a substantially better passer than Jake, and given that we protect the quarterback reasonably well, I think he'd have a lot of success here and be a considerable upgrade. It won't happen, though.

 

I'm guessing he's FA?

How long do we have McCown for?

 

McCown is signed for 2009 at $1.75 million, then becomes a free agent. That's actually a really good point because him being that cheap almost definitely means that the Panthers will not bring in any more veteran quarterbacks. Delhomme will be the starter, McCown will be the backup, and Moore will presumably be the #3 guy. Damn, that's depressing.

 

Yes it is.

 

At the same time, they're in a contract year. If Delhomme sucks again, he can get benched and McCown can play for a contract.

HOnestly, the way this played out, MCown / Moore doesn't scare me.

 

The problem you're missing is that ideally you'd like to have a guy get a year in the system before he takes over. So whether it's a rookie or a young guy who hasn't been a starter yet, you'd prefer to have him spend a season getting comfortable with what we do, then competing for the job in 2010. Instead we're going to have someone with entirely no experience here, unless they surprise me and stick with Jake or extend McCown. McCown is not on my list of 100, for whatever that's worth. He's a decent backup, but not someone you want starting most of your games.

 

I wasn't missing it, I was considering McCown the replacement. I'm not advocating it or criticizing it, just pointing out that the FO felt highly enough of him to give up a pick and cut Basanez for him.

If they think McCown can be Jake's successor, then they've set things up so he's familiar. Ditto Moore.

 

Prepare to be surprised. I bet dollars to donuts that Jake is the guy in 2009-2010 season.