I just finished watching Mel Kiper say that Tim Tebow could be another Frank Wycheck and that the Florida QB should move to H-back. Of course, that’s just absurd.
Why is the NFL mentality so blind when it comes to mobile quarterbacks? It’s not like Tebow can’t pass. It’s not like he doesn’t have the size or arm strength to play the game.
I’m sure critics will point to Alex Smith and Vince Young as examples of guys who didn’t pan out who came from spread systems in college. But every year there are guys from pro-style systems who don’t pan out either. What’s Matt Leinart doing these days? Did Brady Quinn take the league by storm?
The one thing all these guys have in common is that they are all relatively young. The NFL offenses are so complicated, it takes time to learn, no matter what system you come from.
If I were a GM, I’d trade for Vince Young and draft Tim Tebow as soon as I could. Then, I’d play them both in the backfield at the same time. Yeah, I’d think out of the box and try to make use of their talents.
But instead, someone will draft Tebow and then spend the next five years teaching him how to make all his checks so he can take a 5-step drop in order to throw a 6-yard pass for a 4-yard gain. They’ll teach him to stay in the pocket and to fight the urge to do something with his feet. In other words, they’ll try to make him look like all the other stiffs out there.
Hopefully, the college game will continue to evolve in such a way so that the NFL will have no choice but to ditch its unimaginative offensive style–a style that serves mainly as a tool for keeping old football coaches employed.
Fear not, my West Coast NFL-watching friend.
With so many guys like Gus Malzahn and Urban Meyer implementing spreads, combined with its ever-increasing usage on school teams, drafts will feature more and more “spread quarterbacks” and other spread personell over the years.
As an added bonus, the sheer abundance of wide receivers in a typical spread formation have the potential to reduce touches for the No. 1 and No. 2 options at wideout.
Which will signal the beginning of the end of prima donna wide receivers like T.O. and Chad Ocho Cinco. When their tasks become even more outsourced due the appearance of four or five wide receivers in NFL spreads, things will change markedly in that department.
On the flip side, the disappearance of the tight end as we know it will mean that Tony Gonzalez’s career marks will probably remain unbeaten for quite awhile.
Thinking about the NFL makes me sleepy.
Can you really blame GMs… Running QBs don’t work. They do not have a history of winning at this point. Look at Michael Vick (ignore the dog fighting thing) and the best he did was a couple of playoff games. Donovan McNabb made it to the Superbowl but it was his best passing season and had nothing to do with his legs. It is hard to blame GMs when there is no line of success. That said I do wish that running QBs would become the norm but it isn’t going to happen for a while.