Quarterback go-round

The problem with the arguments of some people in regard the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback options is that if you are going to take Matt Flynn off the table merely because someone “Trent Dilfer) says he needs to be on a “throw first” team, you are also including Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees in that group. And might as well include Andrew Luck as well. Luck doesn’t want to go to a place like Seattle where the “system,” if played according to Pete Carroll’s plan, will require him to hand the ball off two out of every three plays. Luck will have visions in his mind of being an “elite”-level quarterback—meaning the Manning, Rodgers, Brees and Brady numbers. If we believe Carroll, he will not be the “focus” of the offense, let alone the team. Anything else will be a waste of his talent—and may lead to a regression in his play.

I did find interesting that Mike Salk was talking-up Russell Wilson as a possible Seahawk, likely as an alternative to Flynn if Luck and Robert Griffin III are unattainable. I grew-up in Wisconsin and I remain a Big Ten guy, and I pay attention to what’s going on with the Badgers. I recall all the buzz around Wilson when he arrived in Madison this past summer, and how high expectations were—that Badgers now had that quarterback who was going to lead them to a national championship. I admit I was wondering who this guy was that I had never heard of, and who the locals were making out to be another Cam Newton (in spirit if not in size). But Wilson impressed early, and unlike last year, the Badgers played at a consistently high level on offense. Wilson wound-up having statistically the best season ever for a Badger quarterback. There were two disappointing losses in conference play against Michigan State and Ohio State, in which Wilson almost pulled victories out of a hat in fourth quarter comebacks after sluggish play for three quarters; a lot of people, however, questioned coach Bret Bielema's clock management and use of timeouts—especially in the Rose Bowl when two timeouts were wasted early in the third quarter, which turned out to be critical mistakes. Would I be interested to see Wilson in Seattle? Why not as a mid-round pick? He’s not likely to go higher than that. There is a fifty-fifty chance that a player with his poise, movement and arm could make him quarterback material in the NFl, but more likely his size (“officially” 5-11) will destine him to back-up status; I also see him as a step or two below Flynn as starter material.

Another thing that should be looked at before drafting a quarterback like, say, Robert Griffin III (who is the kind that always looks good in college) is whether you are getting a quarterback whose instinct after the first read is to run with the ball. There is a fascinating book, “Strong Arm Tactics: A Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Professional Quarterback” by John Maxymuk, which tells us that teams with running quarterbacks are less likely to go to the playoffs, and when they do, less likely to advance past the divisional round. Running quarterbacks are also injury prone, and worse, resistant to coaching. Cam Newton may be that exceptional talent where these debits have minimal impact, insofar that his size and athleticism allows him to out-physical any opponent, or so he believes. Other quarterbacks with reputations as runners, like John Elway and Steve Young, eventually won Super Bowls, but that came long after their best running days were behind them.

What about Griffin? I’ve done my research, and I discovered that Griffin liked to run as much as pass coming out of high school. As a freshman at Baylor, he threw for 2000 yards and led the team in rush attempts and rushing yards. Since then his ratio of passing yards to rushing yards has gone up. The reason for this appears to be because he was forced to change his style. Why? Because early in his sophomore year he tore an ACL, and he sat out most of the year; of course few people seem to know this because he’s only appeared in the public consciousness since this past October. Perhaps fear of reinjuring the knee (a second torn ACL on the same knee often ends a player's career) led to more work on Griffin’s passing skills and less on the running, and there has been obvious improvement in that area. If Griffin thinks he is a one-man playmaker like Newton, the question is how long can he last against NFL defenses, since he is not the same physical specimen. As I suggested the other day, he might not be someone Carroll wants to waste draft picks on to get, if indeed he is looking for a quarterback (like Flynn) who has the intangibles and has shown an ability to perform against top NFL teams—and is still at a point where he is not the headcase who can’t be “molded” to fit into another “system.” Flynn has shown that he is highly coachable and has obviously shown the ability to absorb and excel in a “system” markedly different than the one he played in college. This should only be the more obvious when one realizes that Flynn’s predecessor at LSU—JaMarcus Russell—was one of the biggest busts in NFL history, unable to absorb and adapt to a pro-style offense.

Another tiresome excuse for not seriously considering Flynn is he is still an “unknown,” as if people don’t want to believe their own eyes. The same thing could be said about any quarterback coming out of college, but at least there is a sample of NFL play from to extrapolate from. I mentioned once before that I watched Tarvaris Jackson in a late season game against the Packers in 2006, and wondering if the Vikings could possibly be serious about this guy; the Packers were unable to move the ball most of the game, yet T-Jack kept them in the game with inept play until the Packers finally put together a drive at the end that led to a game-winning field goal. In 2011 Jackson is still in the league, so his “unknowns” is known to everyone but the Seahawks. While he has shown improvement of a sort, Jackson has never approached having the kind of performances that Flynn has had in just two starts. Numbers like 480 yards and 6 TDs in a game are real and tangible evidence that Flynn has top-end talent if utilized correctly.

NFL history has been littered with examples of other “unknown” quantities at quarterback. Kurt Warner was 28 years old when after a career in the Arena league and sitting on the bench as a third-stringer for a year before coming out of nowhere to set the NFL aflame and win a Super Bowl. Steve Young started out with Tampa Bay in unimpressive fashion before his HOF career, waiting out Montana for years before he got his chance in San Francisco. As a rookie, Johnny Unitas was cut by the Steelers because the coach thought he we wasn't "smart enough." Jerry Kramer remarked on how in the beginning Bart Starr reminded him of methane gas, because he was "colorless, odorless and tasteless--virtually invisible." That was before Lombardi arrived to revive a 1-10 team. Starr was an example of how a coach like McCarthy can mold a player like Flynn who exists in the shadows, who draft scouts downgraded because he didn't play in a pro-style offense at LSU. I kind of laugh at people who compare him to Kolb and Cassell, when a more apt comparison is to Rodgers and his situation, when he had no starts and one meaningful appearance in three years.