ABQB is your source for QB information (Pro, college, high school). Former NFL QB Jeff Carlson trains QB's privately and in groups in Tampa, Florida year round @ AmericasBestQB@gmail.com or 813-789-9255. Join the discussion as he blogs on relevant QB topics.
When John Elway jettisoned Tim Tebow for Peyton Manning, who was trying to return from serious neck issues, there were plenty of questions left to be answered. 2012 was a pretty good year for Manning and the Broncos and could have been magical if not for a defensive brain-fart in the AFC Championship game.
Fast forward to 2013 and Manning has taken the new rules of patty-cake treatment for wide receivers catching passes and exploited it to what may turn out to be the most prolific and efficient season on record, which is no easy task.
Through four games, he has a record 16 TD passes and is just making it look to easy. There really is no answer from the defensive side, other than to beat a lineman and knock him down before he is ready to throw. But, he has made that very difficult as well by getting rid of the ball quickly and keeping the offense running at a very high tempo and thus keep the defensive linemen tired and frustrated.
If the Broncos offensive linemen can keep Peyton upright all year, John Elway may have made the managerial move of the century--albeit only 13 years thus far!
Before Peyton Manning chose the Denver Broncos, I said this was the team that he should go to because it was the easiest road to the playoffs, with the Chargers being the best of the worst the division had to offer. Beating the Raiders, Chiefs and Chargers to win the AFC West was a much better option than trying to beat Tom Brady and the Patriots if he would have chosen the Miami Dolphins or Matt Schaub of the Texans if he liked the feel of Tennessee.
Playing in the new Mile High Stadium gives the Broncos a real physical advantage as well as a mental one and with his expertise now almost exclusively from the shotgun, they are one tough team to get up on. Yesterday Manning outmaneuvered the Buccaneers with a fast-paced tempo that kept the Buccaneers in a base look defense on almost every play, but also kept the defense from getting a moments rest between plays. One time the Bucs tried to make personnel changes and Manning quickly got his team to the line of scrimmage and snapped the ball. He didn't get the penalty for too many men on the field that he was looking for, so he went to the sideline and got John Fox to call a timeout and make the challenge. Of course the Bucs were found to have had an extra guy just barely still on the field, but rules are rules and the referees had to give it to him. It is this kind of mastery that has made Peyton Manning legendary in his understanding and manipulation of the game.
I don't know if the Denver Broncos will be able to wind their way through the playoffs and get into the Super Bowl, but clinching the division on December 2nd is not a bad way to get back in the league after last year's missed season!
Steve Young was a scrambling quarterback that eventually found his way to the Hall-Of-Fame by distributing the football to his receivers more than his rambling runs around and through defensive secondaries. Michael Vick looked like he might usher in a new wave of "Best Athlete On The Field" plays quarterback, just like in elementary school, but he derailed his career with prison stay. Who knows what he may have been able to do after taking the Atlanta Falcons to the NFC Championship so long ago. Vick's star barely has a glow left in it as he tries to make it back on the field following another concussion, the biggest concern coaches have with employing a mobile QB.
What hasn't changed in the NFL and isn't going to any time soon is that the slow-footed surgical passers are still what is going to win with regularity. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning ran 5.0 forty yard dash times as they got ready to enter the NFL. Neither has gotten faster over the years, but after a decade in the game, they stand far above the rest as the best the game has to offer.
Knowledge of the game and their respective offenses and getting the ball out of their hands and putting it into their receivers hands with great accuracy is what separates QB's in the NFL. Fast quarterbacks that rely on their legs as much as their arms eventually have to make a significant transition in understanding how to play the game with their minds. Vick has not been able to make that transition well enough to take the Philadelphia Eagles to elite status and it looks as if they will move away from him to their young pass Nick Foles, a significantly different style player.
The guy that might meld the two together the best is the up and coming Colin Kaepernick of the San Fransisco 49ers. He can pass with great accuracy and is a very big man as well and won't get knocked around like Vick when he does choose to use his legs to his advantage, but in his short time as the starter in San Fransisco, he seems to run the offense and see the field very well for a young guy. As he matures, keep watching those old guys carve up defenses and put their teams in position to win championships!
A couple of years ago I was being interviewed on local Tampa radio and I said I wouldn't trade Josh Freeman for anyone in the league, which caused a bit of scoffing laughter back in the studio. The radio host asked again the question again and threw in names like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning (prior to his neck injury) and I reiterated that no, I wouldn't trade Freeman for those awesome QB's. My reasoning wasn't that Freeman was better than either of those future Hall-of-Famers, but where the Buccaneers were in building a franchise for the next decade, those other quarterbacks were on the back half of their careers.
Josh Freeman is a young fourth year QB, coming out of Kansas State early and his physical potential is beyond either Brady or Manning, especially for the coming decade!
Following the 2011 disaster season, the Bucs punted Raheem Morris to the Washington Redskins and brought in the no-nonsense Greg Schiano from Rutgers. His attention to detail may be unmatched, although I'm sure many would like to dispute that, but he has taken a completely unprepared (physically and mentally) Bucs team and reshaped it into a hard-nosed tough football team that has prepared itself for situations before they happen and the success has already shown itself on a number of occasions.
Last Sunday the Bucs didn't play very well, giving up two scoring chances in the red zone, including a TD run by rookie of the year candidate Doug Martin, that should have been called a touchdown, but his fumble came too close to the line, was ruled a fumble and not overturned on video review.
In Josh Freeman's short career, even dating back to 2010 under Morris, he has shown a knack for bringing his team from behind to win. The team didn't play well, didn't get any big plays from the defense or special teams, which it had in previous weeks, but Freeman led the Bucs back against the Carolina Panthers Sunday with a TD pass and a two point conversion to tie and force overtime.
The Bucs drove the field in overtime and Freeman found Dallas Clark (yes, that Dallas Clark) on a "wheel" route up the left sideline. The call was great, the catch was fabulous, but the throw was mediocre. While Josh Freeman has shown he can throw the deep ball well and has both Mike Williams and Vincent Jackson making great catches down the field, Freeman's weakest point as a QB is his medium range accuracy.
It is easier to criticize him on a game-winning OT throw now than after a loss on an interception when lots of people like to pile on.
The 2012 version of Josh Freeman is still not in Brady's or Manning's league and he will not join that league unless he becomes more efficient and accurate on medium range throws. This improvement will have to come through improved mechanics and I am using this magnificent game-winning play to show my point. Watch the video and watch what direction Freeman's front (left) leg steps to make his throw to the end zone. His step goes directly towards the sideline instead of towards the pylon at the front of the end zone. Before he releases the football his entire body is directed to where Dallas Clark IS, not where he is GOING TO BE! Without watching the finish of the throw, alignment mechanics guarantee that the ball will be behind the receiver. The result? An awesome spinning backward catch by Dallas Clark to win the game!!
Brady and Manning have had receivers make great catches on poorly thrown balls, but far less often, because they are more precise in their mechanics, Brady being signifcantly better than Manning. Freeman would do well to study Brady's ALIGNMENT before the ball comes out and he will take a big step closer to joining their league of Elite QB's.
While being quite disappointed that the Denver Broncos and John Elway didn't want to keep Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning on the same team and take advantage of both of their abilities. There wouldn't have been a threat to Manning and would only have been replaced because of injury. We all saw what happened to the Indianapolis Colts when they went to a back up QB, so why not go back to what took the Broncos to the playoffs last year if Manning goes down with a serious injury. Who are the Broncos going to hand the franchise to if Manning goes down early in 2012? They had a better backup plan than probably any other team in the league and one that was proven successful.
Instead, Elway and Company shipped Tebow to NYC and the Jets, where they just inked Mark Sanchez to a lot of guaranteed money. This should secure him as their starter, but with his up and down performances, Jets fans will be quick with the hook (boos after their first 3 and out each Sunday) and will cause all kinds of contension in the locker room, coaches room and Big Apple in general. At least New York is big enough to handle all of it and it sure will be fun to watch!
His name hasn't been on the lists of hot free agents, but a weapon that any team could use is Buccaneers QB Josh Johnson. He is 6'3 with 4.4-4.5 speed that can play quarterback and be a "slash" wide receiver, backfield motion guy for special plays.
If Peyton Manning chooses somewhere other than Denver to play then Josh Johnson to the Broncos would be their best option for not only having another option for keeping their "Tebow Offense" in place, but have a key weapon for creating more space for everybody, if he was brought in motion and Tebow faked a handoff to him or gave it to him now and then. His run/pass options would be phenomenal!
I thought the Philadelphia Eagles could have used Michael Vick in this same capacity in his first year back from prison. It would have created much more room for Donovan McNabb and neutralized the D-Linemen and LB's just enough so that they wouldn't be able to get upfield so fast.
Johnson's starting experience and numbers weren't great in Tampa, but that had more to do with the overall state of the Buccaneers offense than anything else. And when Josh Freeman took over the reins at QB, they only put him in on a couple of run plays from shotgun. They also threw a deep ball down the sidelines where he had badly beaten the defensive back, but Freeman threw it out of bounds.
The Denver Broncos should have him on speed dial in case they lose Manning and they probably will, since rarely does the team with the first visit actually get the player.
Luke Skywalker battled many stormtroopers and worse for two "Star Wars" movies before meeting Yoda and becoming a Jedi Knight. Tim Tebow did well in his second year to lead the Broncos to a playoff win last season, but having Peyton Manning mentor Tebow for two or three seasons would be the best thing to extend Tebow's career and have him emerge a "Jedi Quarterback", able to do far more than he would be able to do if he just keeps doing it the way he is now.
The Broncos know they cannot win regularly enough in the fashion that they played the second half of the year and although Tebow is extremely durable and tough, his bravado won't hold up year in and year out in the NFL. And it is much easier to find QB's that fit the standard model of pass first, run if necessary, versus ground and pound with the QB and slip in a play-action now and then for a big play. Finding another player like Tebow to run his style offense is actually impossible, because there is only one Tim Tebow.
So, no matter how much you love Tebow, you can't blame the Broncos brass for hedging their bets on the long-term health of their battering ram signal-caller.
Of the teams seemingly in the Manning sweepstakes, the Denver Broncos seem to be the best fit for Manning to have the most success. Beating the intra-division Raiders, Chiefs and Chargers seems to be the easiest road to the playoffs and a possible run to another shot at a Super Bowl.
For Tebow, he would develop his mind and probably his throwing techniques more in this scenario than any other. Unlike when Brett Favre said it was not his job to help develop Aaron Rogers, Peyton Manning wouldn't feel threatened by Tebow's presence and would probably welcome the mentoring situation. It would also be easy and fun to develop a special package for Tebow to be involved in the offense on some special plays that would help him stay involved and probably be a real "X Factor" like he was his freshman year at the University of Florida that coincidentally ended in a national championship
Following one of the worst looking games by an NFL quarterback and taking the massive flak that only Tim Tebow can generate, he weathered it and came back the following week by winning a division game on the road. Tebow ran and threw for over 100 yards and he got help from the rest of his team, including a special teams touchdown. If the Denver Broncos are willing to change their offense to fit his skills, they will probably be very competitive in most of their games, but by the beating he took against the Raiders, the Broncos will have to be ready to go back to their standard offense with either Kyle Orton or Brady Quinn, because neither of them are going to run the offense the way Tebow does. This is the dilemma for any NFL team that takes a college QB that runs the spread option, but has tons of athletic ability. The Carolina Panthers are bound to find out what it is like to play without Cam Newton sometime as well, but he hasn't taken the pounding in starting all of their games this year as it seems Tebow has in his 2 starts.
The Denver Broncos wore candycane-like socks to the battle, but the comic book looking football team took out the retroly-dressed New England Patriots 20-17 in overtime. It also gave Josh Daniels a win over his old boss Bill Belichik. It also kept the Broncos undefeated at 5-0 on the season and made the Patriots look mortal, dropping their overall record to 3-2. Tom Brady was 7-0 in overtime games coming in, but Kyle Orton was able to notch the win in his column after a 35 of 48 for 330 yard performance, keeping the ball out of Brady's hands in the overtime session. He also had 2 TD's and an interception.
Jay Cutler and Kyle Orton switched teams this spring by way of a trade in April. The new Chicago Bears QB dissed the Broncos' fans today, rating Bronco fans a 6 and Bears' fans a 9. I don't know why Jay Cutler would act so childish (both before the trade and now), especially against the fans of Denver. I got my very first playing time in a preseason game at the old Mile High Stadium to a sell-out crowd that was rocking the stadium--in a preseason game! I thought they were great, but Cutler goes low at the fans instead of management, who he got so upset with earlier in the offseason. And by the way, Cutler doesn't know much about those Chicago fans yet does he? On the other hand, Kyle Orton acted like a true professional when asked about Cutler's remarks, taking the high road and complimenting both city's fans. As a QB coach/trainer, Cutler may have more athletic ability, but his mechanics aren't good and here's hoping Orton's very good mechanics take the Broncos further than the Bears this year.
How many disgruntled players have left their bad situation to prosper in a new one? There have been a few to be sure, Corey Dillon did OK in New England after splitting with the Bengals, but there are more Terrell Owens and Randy Moss' creating more trouble for the next club than fixing their own personal issues. However, those guys may be Prima Donnas, but they aren't quarterbacks. John Elway forced the Colts to trade him after drafting him and Eli Manning played the same hand 20 years later, but they didn't play for a club, get "disenfranchised" with the situation (coaching or otherwise) and then go somewhere else and flourish. Jay Cutler is saying he had a conversation about keeping the offensive coaching staff intact with the Broncos' owner Pat Bowlen and Bowlen says it didn't happen. Regardless, now Cutler is a whiner to Denver fans that see him wanting out as soon as he doesn't like the team's moves to get better. Throwing for a lot of yards doesn't always mean that you or your team is any good. Bowlen likes success and is trying to improve the team. Did Cutler not like what Josh McDaniels and the Patriots offense has been doing the last few years? Give it a chance kid. Instead, you now just look like a baby that is taking his ball and going home--where home is, nobody knows at this point. Please respond to this post if you can give me an example a QB demanding out of one city and doing well in another.
Denver Broncos Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler did not like the idea of being part of a trade deal, no he did not like it one bit. But, when you lead a team that is coached by a two-time Super Bowl winner and he gets shown the door, there might be some rumblings about who is the on-field leader as well. Throw in the fact that the new head coach is the former New England Patriots offensive coordinator who just coached Matt Cassel into a franchise tag and there just might be some interest in continuing that relationship. Now that the Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs consummated the trade that makes Cassel the new Chiefs QB, Jay Cutler continues as the Broncos signal caller for the time-being. And the time-being may be key as Cutler is upset enough at Broncos management to cut off communication with them, for the time-being anyway. The rumor was that Cutler would be going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that wouldn't have made Luke McCown very happy, as he was just told he would get a chance to win the starting position, but that would not have happened if the Cutler deal went through. McCown will have to wait it out as free agency continues, because if they were looking at that deal at the start of free agency, then there will be others considered as well.
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When John Elway jettisoned Tim Tebow for Peyton Manning, who was trying to return from serious neck issues, there were plenty of questions left to be answered. 2012 was a pretty good year for Manning and the Broncos and could have been magical if not for a defensive brain-fart in the AFC Championship game.
