i don't have the knowledge or the insider info of a lot of the denziens of this board, but in the wake of all the finger pointing over sunday's loss i thought i'd put my trusty google connection in gear and see if i couldn't find something to help most of us (read:the guys that don't bump heads with staff or coach their own team) understand what some experts have thought makes a scout love a qb in the first place.

not that this has anything to do with deciding who is at fault for what. just something i thought could help others as ignorant as myself.

this is what i found after a sweat inducing possible 4 minutes. note that i thought it was pretty good even though its old as dirt (for an article). i really had fun remembering all these guys in all their glory. particularly walsh's words.



Quote:

The mistakes teams make in evaluating quarterbacks
Sporting News, The, Oct 15, 2001 by Dan Pompei

Picking a quarterback is like picking a spouse in that it's the most important decision a team can make. Yet very few teams make the right choice, and the result is a soaring divorce rate.

Already this season, Jeff George was cut by the Redskins, Jeff Lewis was cut by the Panthers and Tony Banks was cut by the Cowboys. All were supposed to be starters. The Lions benched Charlie Batch. The Bears benched Shane Matthews. Other teams, such as the Bills, Seahawks and Steelers, have not gotten what they expected out of the quarterback position.

"Quarterback is the most difficult position to evaluate, no question," former Packers general manager Ron Wolf says. Why is this so? To answer the question, I interviewed five men with excellent records of quarterback evaluation: Wolf, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, Vikings coach Dennis Green, Colts president Bill Polian and the man who invented the modern quarterback, 49ers consultant Bill Walsh.

There's as much gray area in quarterback evaluation as there is in a typical Seattle sky. A second-rounder to me is a sixth to you. "Everybody's got a different feeling of what their ideal quarterback is," Shanahan says. "Year in and year out, that position has the biggest disparity of opinions."

Yet, there are common mistakes that teams fall victim to repeatedly.

Physical aspects are overrated, and instinct is underrated. Instinct is the first requirement on Walsh's list when he evaluates a quarterback. "They have instincts by the time they are in sixth grade, and if they don't, you rarely can produce a quarterback," Walsh says. "You can see the ones who feel the pass rush, quickly avoid, locate someone and throw an accurate pass. Doug Flutie does it so well. Usually those kind of instinctive players are good basketball players, point guard types."

Arm strength is the rarest of attributes but hardly the most important. George and Banks are prime examples of players who can throw a ball from the Atlantic to the Pacific but haven't been able to translate that into touchdowns and victories.

"Where people make mistakes, and I've done it myself, is you see the physical and you neglect the mental and emotional, the intangibles," Polian says. "Just because you can throw a ball through the proverbial brick wall doesn't mean you're a quarterback."

The ability to make the requisite throws in a given offense is more important than the ability to throw the ball into the upper grandstand. "A quarterback never has to throw more than 55 to 60 yards on a football field anyway, so what difference does it make if he can throw it 80 yards?" Shanahan says.

Bottom line: Accuracy is more important than arm strength. Polian thinks it's critical that a quarterback prospect have a touchdown-to-interception ratio of at least 2-to-1. If a quarterback is operating out of a system that uses a short-to-intermediate passing game, like the West Coast offense, he looks for a completion percentage of more than 60 percent.

Walsh considers accuracy part of instinct. "You have to be poised to throw an accurate ball, with an adrenaline level not so high that you lose focus," he says.

Height and speed are two other physical attributes that are given too much credence. Shanahan believes both should be looked at as potential bonuses, as opposed to necessities.

"People shy away from the 6-1, 6-2 guy;, and that's a mistake," Shanahan says. "People think they can't see over the line. Nobody sees over 6-6 linemen anyway."

The ability to deal with a pass rush is minimized. Reading defenses and throwing well don't matter if the quarterback leaves the stadium in an ambulance. Yet, scouts typically pay more attention to how the quarterback uses the field in front of him rather than how he deals with the commotion around him.

"Without quickness of foot, agility and mobility, it's so difficult to play the position because they don't have time to think" Walsh says. "On about half of all passes, a quarterback has to avoid somebody and throw."

As the game has evolved with faster defenders and more complex blitz schemes, the ability to buy a second chance has become critical. Just ask Batch or Buffalo's Rob Johnson.

If a quarterback doesn't have the feet to avoid pressure (which is different from speed), he had better be strong and tough like Dan Fouts or have a quick release like Dan Marino. Otherwise, he'll never stay on the field. And staying on the field, Green says, is half the battle. Shanahan believes if a quarterback weighs less than 215, it will be difficult for him to stay healthy.

A quarterback's release is critical to Polian. "Is it quick enough?" he says. "Some of that translates to how quickly he sees things, and how quickly he processes the information from the brain to his hand."

Resilience and competitiveness are underplayed. "He has to have tremendous confidence in himself, so that when all around him are down, he can rise up," Wolf says. At some point, everyone gets down on a quarterback. The quarterback's belief in himself must be unwavering.

"It's like a guy who keeps firing up the 3-point shots," says Green, who emphasizes mental toughness. "He doesn't care what anybody thinks; he just keeps putting it up. The classic is Kurt Warner. He doesn't care what they thought about him in college or at Green Bay. He knows he can play quarterback. The more sensitive a quarterback is, the more problems he's going to have."

Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart has been accused of being too sensitive. One of George's failings with the Redskins is he didn't compete as hard as he needed to.

There are many complicating factors in why quarterbacks fail, but no factor is more prominent than the misguided. evaluation.




old ass link

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

John Barrymore