One more time, gbn draft excersize

Okay, scratch Croyle from that list. He's a very good career backup, but a career backup nonetheless. Maybe the next Steve Beuerlein.

I'm not finding a lot on Olson, and what I am finding isn't flattering. Scratch him, too.

But I'd still take Cutler long before I'd take Young.

I've been watching video and reading up on Young all afternoon, and everything I'm seeing still screams out "Michael Vick" to me. Phil Simms said the best thing the team who drafts Young can do for him is sit him on the bench for at least a year and work on mechanics, because he almost doesn't have any. As Vick is finding out, eventually NFL DCs will figure out how to corral him, and he'll be forced to throw the ball from the pocket like a traditional QB. If he doesn't have the mechanics down, he'll be exposed, just like Vick has.

 

YIKES! LIONS.COM? ok really nfl.com

I wouldn't touch Croyle with a 10 foot pole, mostly because I'd be afriad of breaking him, but he's got an above average arm NFL, and I've watched him plenty. It ain't Cutler's cannon, but he's in Lienhart and Young's class. I wouldn't be suprised if he threw one measured with more zip.

But those distace throws aren't really the best way to measure velocity. The best way is just watching, though the ESPN pass track is pretty cool.

 

the magnus effect

 

>>But I'd still take Cutler long before I'd take Young.

Too each his own. Cutler has the cannon, and a lot of moxie. But I think he'll rival Jake, Plummer, and Brooks for Karazee passes.

>>I've been watching video and reading up on Young all afternoon, and everything I'm seeing still screams out "Michael Vick" to me.

I've watched him, and he seems more "McNair with Kosar's release" to me. He's not as athletic as Vick at all, nor does he have Vick's gun. But he's a lot more accurate, and his release is quicker. He just has a funny release, and the same footwork issues Leftwich had coming out for using the shotgun.



>>Phil Simms said the best thing the team who drafts Young can do for him is sit him on the bench for at least a year

This is true. But the thing is, his mechanics aren't that much worse than Phillip Rivers. And Rivers has little of his upside. Production got Rivers taken high....


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/peter_king/04/24/mmqb/2.html

 

Quite possibly, and that's a bad habit he might have picked up in college out of sheer desperation. Seems he has the same kinds of things being said about him coming out of Vanderbilt that were said about Favre last year -- great arm, bad decisions, "forcing" too much, horrible mechanics (especially throwing off the back foot), best player on a bad team, etc. Not that I'm saying Cutler is the next Favre, mind you. I'm just saying that he seems to have the build, intangibles, and arm strength that can't be coached into a QB. The mechanics can be fixed. But he's another one who should definitely ride the pine for a while until he gets those things worked out of his system.

I think he's probably more athletic than we think -- much like Matt Jones was coming out of Arkansas last year. He's so lanky, it never looked like he was doing anything until he blew right by someone. Granted, Young doesn't have 4.2 speed. But he's a lot bigger and a lot stronger overall than Vick, and he breaks a lot of tackles. Judging by his highlight reels, he's a lot better receiver than Vick, too.

I don't know for sure, but I have a hunch that McNair was a fairly polished passer coming out of college. That's what he was known for -- not his running. Young and Vick are both known for scrambling and making big plays with their feet when a play turns to crap, and for throwing the deep ball. Both are described as "raw", both came out as juniors, and both have largely gotten by on pure athletic ability and improvisation.

According to Phil Simms, Young didn't play in a pro-style offense at UT, either (I saw some option in his highlight films, so that makes sense), so that makes his learning curve even steeper. We all know about his Wonderlic, but I wonder what Young's academic record at UT was. Everyone says he's got "football knowledge", which is great, but it takes a lot more than college football knowledge to make it as a top-tier NFL quarterback.

I'll take your word on that one, because you guys know NC State football vastly better than I do, and I didn't do much research on Rivers anyway.

But I'm not saying his problems can't be fixed, potentially. It all depends on how he's handled. If a team throws him into the fire to generate SportsCenter highlights and ticket sales, he'll suffer the same fate Vick is now. DCs will use what they've already learned about Vick to corral him and his deficiencies will come back to bite him. Not that it will be his fault -- not if he wasn't coached to be any different than he is right now.

 

I don't know if I'd say he was polished, because he ran a lot of shotgun and came from a pretty small school without the best instruction, but he was definitely further along in his development than Young simply because he was in a hyper-passing offense. I think Randall Cunningham is a better approximation, although comparing players is generally an exercise in futility anyway.

Gah. Sometimes I'm flattered and sometimes I'm annoyed when "experts" point out something I said months before, although in this case, I was more specific than that. It's not just that Young wasn't in a pro-style offense, because most college quarterbacks aren't, but that UT's offense didn't really feature many pro routes at all. All Young had to do on 95% of his passes was throw to a stopped receiver or lead a receiver downfield. The complete lack of timing routes bothered me enormously back when he was being discussed as superior to Leinart. No one really has any idea whether he can make those throws, because he never had to. I don't know if it was realistic to suggest that Mack Brown coax him back for another year and complicate the offense to better prepare him for the NFL, but it would have helped his development tremendously.

Young is definitely super-athletic, but I think Piper was saying that Young's playing style has very little in common with Vick's, and I would agree. Young does run, but he doesn't fly around the pocket like a chicken with his head cut off (that's why Vick gives up so many sacks). Young generally does look downfield for his receivers, and thus is a pass-first guy (except on certain plays where he knows from the snap that he's going to pull it down, like the last touchdown against USC). So you can't really just sit back in coverage and wait for Young to screw up. He is capable of finding and hitting open receivers, especially if he's facing a zone. If I were designing a defense to stop him, I'd use a lot of man to man with blitz packages from the strong side.

 

That's what I had on the tip of my tongue yesterday while watching tape of Young, but couldn't quite put it together. His highlights only show exactly what you posted -- go routes and stopped curl routes. And he seems to do a good job of hitting those (particularly the go routes), but I have yet to see any tape of him throwing underneath on the quick hitches, crossing routes, and short slants in heavy traffic. If that is indeed the case for the UT offense, that equates to an enormous hole in his game, IMHO. Not that he can't learn it, but that moves his development back significantly, I think.

 

Agreed, and he's flat out not going to get the experience he needs while sitting on the bench. That's why he would have been much, much better off over the long run by spending another year in college if Brown would have been willing to update the offense. Of course, Young would have struggled some with the transition and thus dropped maybe even further in the first round next year, but he's simply not going to learn how to make those throws in practice or by watching film. If I drafted Young, I would absolutely send him to NFL Europe to get some desperately needed experience.

 

That would be some funny shit. Vince Young in Europe. I assume this would be after he slid to like the 6th round.

No way you ever see a 1st rounder in Europe early in his career. Now maybe he'll be the next Akili Smith and get there because there's no other choice.

Sometimes you really do talk alot of shit.

 

CC, you'd do yourself a great big favor if you'd learn to shut the fuck up occasionally. Seriously, you're completely useless. You're just as confrontational as I am, but without any positives whatsoever. You don't know anything, you don't add anything, and you don't contribute anything meaningful. Really, do you think I'm wrong about that? Would you dispute the idea that you're a great big asshole yourself?

And for the record, the Cowboys sent Drew Henson to Europe just after spending a third round pick to get him, so it's not as far-fetched as you think. Young needs playing experience in a pro-style offense and he's not going to get that by riding the bench.

Now if you don't mind, hasbeen99 and I were having a good discussion that other people were probably enjoying. If you go buy a gun and splatter the wall with your brains (and I seriously think the world might be better off with you dead, because as I noted, you add nothing positive while adding quite a bit of negativity), we'll be glad to get back to football.