He very easily could have come away with 4 INTs from that game. Lucky he didn't. It wasn't a good game for him. But it wasn't terrible for a rookie. 

 

Still - he obviously "feels" pressure naturally and is usually pretty smooth eluding it (though looked a little jumpy/skittish about it a couple of times yesterday.  Nothing to fret over though. )

 

I still feel really good about his upside and think the picks will decrease in frequency next year after he has time to really work on understanding the playbook, his progression of reads, and recognizing match-ups in the defense.  He's still got work to do on some mechanics - but he's already improved them to some degree. Just has to keep moving forward there. 

 

I, for one, don't have much issue with dialing up lots of short stuff for him early in games while they establish the run. Obviously they have to keep it honest with a few deep attempts, but I think it makes perfect sense to keep him out of possible INT scenarios and let the run game do some work.  

 

I would have liked one or two more deep attempts in the first half vs Cincy - but other than that - I thought they used him pretty well. 

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