Quote:Did anyone here Bradley's quote about potentially playing Gabbert? That gives me hope that the tank may be on.

 

David Caldwell said it best, "this is his rookie year."

 

Selecting a quarterback at the top of the draft today, is like picking up a large fries at McDonald's to take home. The fries a meant to be eaten at your table in the house.

 

"Leave the fries alone until it's time to say the blessing and eat dinner", you tell yourself.

 

Instead, you nibble one heading out of the driv-thru just to test-taste. You have another waiting at the turn out of the parking lot. At the traffic light, you are eating them three and four at a time waiting for the light to change.

 

By the time you are at the house, your hand is in the bottom of the bag trying to find stragglers. You've used up all your fries before supper time.

 

Any NFL owner that condones what happened to David Garrard doesn't deserve an NFL franchise. Never cut your veteran quarterback when you draft a rookie quarterback. If he gets injured, you IR him, start the back-up, and find a new veteran back-up. The veteran must be there to mentor his younger franchise associate.

 

There are two precursors to drafting a quarterback apart from making the selection at the appropriate grade.

 

1. You already have a confirmed veteran in command of your system. 

 

2. You already have a confirmed veteran back-up with experience in your system.

 

You draft a quarterback. He is one of only two things; a ) the appropriate grade value and the best of all other rookie quarterbacks or b ) a quarterback that immediately makes you a Super Bowl favorite for at least a decade. 

 

You may start type B. You unconditionally sit type A.

 

In college football, you wait a quarterback out for four years. In the NFL, you wait the quarterback in for four years.

 

You develop plan A for type A. This consists of refraining from all the external pressure to start the rookie regardless of how awful the pressure gets. When you throw the rookie to the wolves as we did with Leftwich before Gabbert, it means you have no idea about how to develop an NFL quarterback.

 

Year one - you teach the system in practice with the rookie QB as the third QB. Year two - you teach how to make the plays within the system in practice with the QB still as third. Year three - You assign him as the back-up. Year four - You prepare him as you would the starting quarterback.

 

There is no plan for type B. You play him each and every week and keep your mouth shut. Decisions about starting are made on a game by game basis. If you do not see permanent corrections in practice, you may or may not start the veteran.

 

Draft a quarterback. Sure. The best time to do that is when you already have established number one and number two, but you stick to plan A.

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