(12-20-2021, 08:51 PM)OzJohnnie Wrote: [ -> ]Man, the excuse making. He's not a superstar. He's a bust. It happens.
Riddle me this: If he's not a bust and it's everyone else's fault then how's he get any better? You can only roll over about 20% of a starting lineup in year, so that's at least three years until he's got the talent that you can't blame anymore. If he were great then he would be shooting the lights out and the team still losing. But he's not. He can't read defenses. He can't make adjustments. He checks down poorly. His footwork is lame. Elevating the QB coach who was supposed to be teaching him game is not the answer. The shot caller should not be the guy who failed to improve TL one iota this year.
Anyways, I'm here cheering for one player and TL's success or failure won't affect his personal success, which is going fine. I would like to see a better QB, though, so that he could enjoy some team success.
(Emphasis added)
I have largely avoided this thread, because no matter the circumstances, the impatience never changes. It's exhausting, especially given the abundance of NFL history from which to draw.
Franchise QBs are often not microwaveable products. They need adequate time, adequate coaching, and adequate surrounding talent.
Think about some of the best QBs in the league now and in recent years...Brady, Rodgers, Mahomes, Brees.
These guys all rode the bench for most of their rookie years because better coaches than UM felt these guys weren't ready to play initially. When Brees finally got the chance to play, it took him a while to be competent.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/p...eeDr00.htm
Buffalo's Josh Allen had the reputation of being inaccurate coming out of Wyoming. His first two seasons, he didn't break a 60% completion rate. But by his third year, Buffalo was confident they were right in their evaluations and they had a franchise signal caller.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/p...tm#passing
So the question is, if none of these guys were any good their rookie years, how did THEY get better?
For starters, they weren't dismissed as busts after their rookie seasons for the most part. They were given adequate time to develop.
Besides time, coaching plays a huge role in the development of QBs.
Troy Aikman struggled his first two years in the league under offensive coordinator Mike Shula. But in year three, the coaboys fired Shula and hired Norv Turner to be Dallas' offensive coordinator. The Dallas offense began to flourish, and wound up going to the playoffs in his first year (Aikman's 3rd year) as OC, and won the Super Bowl the next season.
Steve Yong was not a great QB when he first came into the NFL. Even though he had pro experience from his time in the USFL, he did not achieve success in the NFL when he was with Tampa. Tampa gave up on him after a couple of seasons and traded him to the 49ers, coached by Bill Walsh, who had Mike Holmgren on his staff. Eventually, Young got his chance to play and he wound up winning several MVP awards, won a Super Bowl MVP, and wound up in the Hall of Fame.
Brett Favre did nothing much his first year under Jerry Glanville in Atlanta. Glanville did not run a very disciplined program. After his rookie season, Glanville traded Favre to the Packers, coached by Mike Holmgren-the same one on Bill Walsh's 49ers staff that coached Joe Montana and Steve Young. With Holmgren's guidance, Favre went on to have a Hall of Fame career.
Without the proper coaching to develop their talents, none of these guys would have had the careers they had.
Finally, QBs need adequate surrounding talent to succeed.
Aikman was drafted first overall in 1989 by a Dallas team that finished 3-13 in 1988. Aikman finished 0-11 his rookie year on a team that went 1-15. But in the aftermath of the Herschel Walker and Steve Walsh trades, Dallas added the likes of Emmitt Smith, Jay Novacek, Alvin Harper, Erik Williams, Larry Allen, got guys like Michael Irvin healthy, developed guys like Nate Newton and Mark Stepnoski, and added defensive stalwarts like Leonn Lett, Darren Woodson, Kevin Smith, Tony Tolbert, etc. and won three Super Bowls in four years.
To suggest surrounding talent does not play a role in QB success-as you do when you dismiss surrounding talent as an excuse-you essentially say there's no difference between Steve Young's mid 1980s Tampa Bay teams and his early 1990s 49ers teams featuring Jerry Rice, Brent Jones, John Taylor, Roger Craig, Ricky Watters, Harris Barton, Et al. That's a laughable proposition to anyone who has followed football for any length of time.
There is a reason teams spend millions on scouting instead of pocketing the money and randomly selecting fans out of the stands to run routes, block, etc. Talent matters.
In Allen's case, it took a couple of full seasons of experience, some good coaching, and adding in pieces around him lie Stephon Diggs and Knox.
It took Brees experience, good health, and getting to Sean Payton to develop into the HOF QB we saw with the Saints.
Think about the guys to whom TL was compared as a rookie QB prospect: Elway, Manning and Luck.
Elway only had six (6) seasons where he eclipsed 20 YDs in a season, most of which did not happen until Make Shanahan became his coach in 1994 and put Elway in a WCO (11 years into his career). His 3rd year was the first of those seasons, but even then he threw more INTs (23) than TDs (22) that year.
Peyton Manning threw 28 INTs his first year despite having a father who was an NFL QB, a Hall of Fame caliber RB in marshall Faulk, a Hall of Fame caliber WR in marvin Harrison, and a stud LT in Tarik Glenn all in their primes. How did HE improve?
Andrew Luck had success out of the box, but he had Reggie Wayne and TY Hilton as WRs amd a ,uch better OL than TL has now.
You dismiss a lack of experience, poor coaching, and a lack of surrounding talent as excuses, but history is replete with franchise signal callers who struggled early in their careers for those very reasons.
All you see is TL struggling and automatically assume he's a bust. You want him to perform like the guys listed above, but won't give him the time, coaching and surrounding talent they received.
Is TL guaranteed to be great? No. But he's not guaranteed to be a bust either.
Let things play out.