Big Blue View
Money aside, the team situation matters more in the long run
Thursday evening’s first round of the NFL Draft can’t get here soon enough. Just about everything that can be said about the top quarterback prospects has already been said, unless photos surface of one of them in a gas mask bong or having an accident driving an ATV this week.
What hasn’t been talked about very much, though, is these quarterbacks’ chances for success in the NFL depending on the team that selects them. At this point in 2023, Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud were considered QBs 1a and 1b in some order, with no clear preference for either in most analysts’ opinions aside from Young’s small stature. Their rookie seasons couldn’t have been more different, though, with Young playing poorly and Stroud wowing the league.
Are these quarterbacks really that different in quality? Did the experts miss that badly in their evaluations? Or did the team situations they were drafted into have more to do with their performance?
Young joined a Carolina team with an unstable head coaching situation, a first-time offensive coordinator whose experience had been mostly coaching running backs, the sixth worst pass blocking in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus, and only one pass receiver of note (Adam Thielen). Stroud played for a Houston team flush with draft picks the past couple of years after trading Deshaun Watson. Houston hired a much sought-after head coach, DeMeco Ryans, from San Francisco. Ryans brought with him offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, who had been the 49ers’ passing game coordinator under Kyle Shanahan. The Texans had a mid-ranked offensive line and a talented group of wide receivers led by Nico Collins, rookie Tank Dell, and veteran Robert Woods.
Hmmm...
Few will argue that Patrick Mahomes isn’t the best quarterback in the NFL today. He needed work coming out of college, though. He was fortunate to be drafted by a team coached by Andy Reid, with Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill to throw to, and with a year on the bench for Reid to coach the rough edges out of his game. Jalen Hurts got most of a season to sit and be developed by Doug Pederson and then to play with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith behind the league’s best OL when he was ready. Jordan Love got three years to sit and be worked on by Matt LaFleur, and when he did start he had two promising young wide receivers, Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, to throw to behind a top-five offensive line.
Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, and Zach Wilson, to name a few, didn’t get those advantages. Questionable coaching, unimpressive OLs, and WRs, probably thrown into action too soon for all of them. Maybe they would have failed anyway, but all were mishandled. With the just-announced trade of Wilson to Denver, we’ll get an interesting test of how much the environment matters. The Giants didn’t do Daniel Jones any favors either by firing his...
