What Philadelphia Eagles coach
Chip Kelly exactly saw in quarterback Sam Bradford seems unclear, unless like
St. Louis he had an unwanted quarterback to trade, and Bradford was the best he
could do. After a promising rookie season, injuries and overall inadequate
play, including a seeming inability to make plays downfield, Bradford hasn’t
progressed at all in Kelly’s offense. He has had only one “good” game this
season, and his 26-46, 205 yards, no TDs and one interception against Carolina
has been rule rather than exception, regardless if the defenses he faced were
good, bad or indifferent.
The problem is that Bradford is a
one-dimensional pocket passer and entirely predictable. He had what is a
slightly below “average” completion percentage with the Rams (when he was
actually on the field), and one may note that his yards-per-completion was even
lower than the average. When his completion percentage is down with the same
YPC, as he is with the Eagles, efficiency in the passing game obviously
suffers. Tom Brady can get away with low YPC because his completion percentage
and typical yardage per pass is consistent enough to move the chains.
Some will say that Bradford is
still “new” to Kelly’s offense. This explanation simply doesn’t wash. He’s had
at least as much time to “learn” the system as Mark Sanchez did last season,
and Sanchez showed if not a “mastery” of the system, an ability to function
adequately in it. In fact, Sanchez can clearly be seen now as a better fit in
the system. Last season in nine games he had an 88.2 passer rating, completed
64 percent of his passes, averaged over 270 yards passing per game, and threw
14 touchdown passes, although 11 interceptions obviously was a reason for his
many detractors to continue to detract him. Sanchez can also do things that
Bradford apparently can’t do, like use his feet (he scored 13 career touchdowns
compared to Bradford’s 2), and throw downfield (7.8 yards-per-pass compared to
6.4).
Bradford through seven games has
a 76.4 passer rating, 9 TD passes and 10 interceptions. Unfortunately for
Sanchez, none of this matters, because for whatever reason his detractors have
their own dark reasons in the back of their minds that they don’t want to stain
their own reputations with publicly, and they don’t want to give Sanchez the
same consideration they give quarterbacks with lesser skills. His reputation is
unfortunately tied to his years with the Jets, which under Rex Ryan put a low
priority on the offense, as can be seen now in Buffalo. Instead of being
allowed to develop, he was simply thrown into the starter’s role expecting
miracles to happen, and the team only regressed personnel-wise after Sanchez’s
second season.
Not only that, but the Jets
didn’t have a coherent offensive identity to begin with—even Brett Favre the
season before couldn’t quite “master” it with the same personnel)—having
neither a star-quality running back to establish a running attack, nor talented
non-headcase receivers to provide a confident consistency in the passing game;
one may recall that a wild Favre had such a receiver in his early years,
Sterling Sharp, who would have had a
Hall of Fame career had it not been cut short by a neck injury.
Sanchez’s career seemed to find a
personal renaissance in Kelly’s offense-first philosophy, and his overall play
improved dramatically, at least statistically. No doubt this demonstrated he
had abilities that could have been improved upon had he started his career in a
professionally supportive environment on a team that already had a ready-made
supporting cast and “system.”
The question now is why
commentators and analysts are not talking about what a poor fit Bradford’s
“skill set” is in this offense, and the equal probability that Sanchez’s does,
and how long is this charade going to continue; it is already surprising that
Bradford has remained upright this far into the season.
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