Rookie QB Chronicles #9
“Training Camp”
Another week of training camp and preseason games has passed and the excitement for our rookie quarterbacks continues to grow. I would like to begin with a reminder, at least of something I believe to be true. Everything we are seeing and hearing out of camps, and seeing in preseason games does not prove whether any of these young players will succeed or fail as NFL players. However, we are able to identify evidence of their potential to succeed, and identify some potential concerns in their play. But it is important not to make any definitive declarations of who is a bust, or who is an elite franchise quarterback based on their first summer as pro football players.
Mac Jones played extremely well against the Eagles this week. He completed thirteen of nineteen passing attempts and increased his yards per attempt to 7.7. While he did not find the endzone, he avoided throwing any interceptions and finished his play with a 91.1 passing rating. He opened up his game a little more than the previous week, and made a beautiful third and long completion that excited the New England fan base.
Don’t expect a quarterback controversy here yet though. Cam Newton went 8 of 9, for a tally of 103 yards passing. This amounted to 11.4 yards per attempt, a touchdown pass, and an impressive quarterback rating of 151.4. Managing to avoid any interceptions, this was far from the type of play that is going to lose Cam his starting job. This is great news for the Patriots as they have held strong on their desire for Mac to learn the system from the sideline this year. Remember, while they invested their 1st round pick, they did not trade a bunch of other draft capital to acquire Mac Jones. There is little pressure to rush him onto the field.
At first glance, if you only look at the stat line, you might think Justin Fields was awful. But statistics don’t always tell the full story. Justin’s 9 completions in 19 attempts could easily have been much better had his receivers done their part to catch the ball. He was given no help. He was only given the support of a surrounding group of second and third team players this week. I am sure the Chicago fan base is itching to see him with the first team starters. And although he finished with a 59.1 passing rating, his 46 yards on the ground in only 4 attempts cannot be ignored. Nor should we forget the talent he flashed last week as he outran defensive backs like they were pee wee players.
There is no denial that current QB1 Andy Dalton did nothing to weaken the plan for him to start the regular season. Andy completed 11 of 17 passes for 146 passing yards. He threw a touchdown and finished with a passing rating of 86.9. However, he did throw an interception and accomplished nothing on the ground, so the Chicago fanbase will continue to yearn for the mobility of Justin Fields and keep Dalton on a short leash in their patience level. While it may have lost a little steam this week, a quarterback controversy will emerge unless Chicago gets off to a great start this season with Andy Dalton at the helm.
And now Zach Wilson…I am a die hard Jets fan. There is no way for me to write about Zach and claim it does not come with bias. That is simply impossible. But, bias is mostly an issue when we don’t acknowledge or are unaware we have it. So I will do my best to tame that bias and be as objective as possible. I will however, refer back to my first blog on this site and point out that I believed Zach was extremely special before the Jets drafted him. However, the blog was written after the fact, so you will need to take my word on that. Now that I addressed that detail, let me say that Zach Wilson was fantastic last Saturday. It was exciting for Jets nation, regardless of the fact he was playing against Green Bay’s second teamers.
Zach WIlson completed 9 of 11 passes for a total of 128 yards. That tallies to 11.6 yards per pass attempt, and when you add in the two touchdown passes he finished with a quarterback passing rating of 154.7. And he has yet to throw an interception in either of his two appearances. But lots of quarterbacks around the league are posting impressive numbers. As alluded to earlier, this is just preseason. But that is not what was so exciting about the play of Zach Wilson. It was his pocket presence. It was his ability to scan the field and make quick decisions. It was his ability to get rid of the ball quickly and throw with strong velocity. His ball placement was equally exciting on most of his passes as well. It proves little, but it provides some excitement the Jets may have found their guy.
Meanwhile, Zach Wilson’s biggest antagonist, the not so relevant former quarterback Shaun King, continues to look as bad a quarterback analyst, as he was a player. Actually, his analysis looks much worse than his play when you observe the tape of Kyle Trask this week. Kyle, who is supposedly going to be better than Zach Wilson, finished 13 of 26 with 131 yards passing. He added two interceptions, failed to throw a touchdown, and averaged five yards per attempt for a quarterback rating of 32.7. Shaun’s other favorite to best Zach is Kellen Mond. Well he finished 6 of 12 with a total of 61 yards passing. That amounts to a quarterback rating of 64.9. But he did improve from his rating of 47.1 from last week.
However, there was a rookie quarterback that was not selected in the first round that did play well this week. Davis Mills improved his quarterback rating from 46 last week, to 84.1 this week. I don’t think that is going to win him the starting job over Tyrod Taylor, but his 10 of 16 for 115 yards and 7.2 yards per passing attempt was a step in the right direction. It is easy to forget that Davis Mills was an extremely high rated quarterback coming out of high school a few years back. While he may not be projected to be a great starting quarterback in this league, it is easy to believe he will develop into a decent backup.
Trevor Lawrence did not play until last night after this blog was completed, but I will cover him next week in my final blog of this series. I will wrap up with a quick look at our final rookie quarterback to see action, Trey Lance. After a slow start, I am watching him heat up as I am typing this blog. He just completed a pass on the run on a play that few quarterbacks could have made. He followed up with a beautiful 16 yard touchdown pass to Travis Benjamin a few plays later.. With Jimmy Garoppolo throwing an interception and finishing with a lowly 16.7 passing rating in his little playing time, will the quarterback controversy heat up between the organization and the fans? I will be following that story this week for sure.
The Sactown NFL Report (Jeremy Krevat)