Slow Surgeons Still Supreme

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!

Weeden (Anyone) Needs More Evaluation Than Rookie Year

Laying on my couch Thursday night watching Fox News as usual and clicking over during the commercials to another average NFL Network game, I read the scroll at the bottom of the page.  It read something like, "Brandon Weeden will be evaluated in last 7 games to see if he is QB of future", says coach Brad Childress.

My immediate thought was this is why the Cleveland Browns aren't very good.  Maybe the scroll should have read, "Browns coaches will evaluate everything they are doing to help Brandon Weeden succeed over the next 7 weeks to see if they should return as coaches next year."

If Troy Aikman was evaluated on his rookie season, we wouldn't even remember his name today.  If Steve Young was evaluated on his rookie year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, even with a nice professional apprenticeship in the USFL, he wouldn't be a Hall-of-Famer.  The quote by Childress is unfair and ridiculous to say the least.

Try what the Cowboys did after Aikman went winless as a rookie and build around Weeden to see what he can become.  From watching him play, I think he can be pretty good--that is if he had a decent coach.