Thurman#1

https://mattwaldmanrsp.com/2018/08/16/matt-waldmans-rsp-nfl-lens-lb-lorenzo-alexander-bills-pre-snap-psychic/ Nice breakdown on one play where Alexander anticipates and shoots a gap left by a pulling guard. Nice.

As a DC, maybe. As a head coach, I think he threw his chance away.

Brad Johnson had a really good year that year. Really good. 8th in TDs while sporting an insane 22:6 TD/INT ratio. 10th in YPG. 4th in passer rating. 8th in completion percentage among guys with 200+ attempts. They didn't win in spite of Johnson. Johnson was no journeyman. He was a guy who could be really good but only managed it inconsistently. Did the Steelers win that Super Bowl Ben's rookie year? Or did they lose it the same way they did a couple of years earlier with O'Donnell at QB. Only after Roethlisberger got authentically good did they win a title. I have to give you Dilfer, a game manager and not a great one but Flacco had a good year and a terrific playoffs. He's been pretty bad since but he was a major reason they won that SB. It's true that great defenses with a mediocre QB win a SB occasionally. (McMahon, Doug Williams, Dilfer, Flacco if you want to count him and maybe a few others, but not Rypien who was probably top two in the league that year before he took what at the time seemed an unexplainable nosedive before we heard about his concussion problems , not Foles who isn't in the SB without Wentz, and not Hostetler who also isn't in that game without Simms playing most of the year.) But it tends to happen around 10% of the time. That's not the route you want to model. You want to model the method that wins 90%.

Those games you're referring to were from 2015, right? McCarron's 2nd year. Mightn't he have improved? More, the four games you're talking about (I assume, anyway) there were against the 19th (Pittsburgh), 29th (San Fran), 1st (Denver) and 8th (Baltimore) ranked defenses, and Pittsburgh was actually 11th in defensive scoring allowed, they were better than they appeared. That was a tough slate, though SF was a nice little letup, but they scored 24 against SF. I'm not a huge McCarron fan or anything. I'm pursuing this half-heartedly. But those four games against tough defenses as a 2nd year guy just do not even begin to show he's not a good QB. Oh, and as for Average Andy, in 2015 he was on fire. 66.1% completions. 25 TDs in 13 games and 7 INTs, an 8.4 YPA and a 106.2 passer rating. The guy was ripping it up. Very few QBs were playing as well as Dalton was that year.

The league spoke pretty loudly, but with the little game time he's seen, what they were doing is guessing loudly. It's an educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. Sometimes the league gets it wrong.

Sure. But Oakland's not letting him go for a first. That just isn't happening.

Over the next few years, you're saying? Yeah, I agree. Not convinced yet, but the indications are really good, as good as I've seen since the Kelly-Polian-Rusty Jones era.

Active, I would guess probably not. On the roster, sure. They might think Peterman would not be plucked if they put him on the taxi squad. If they think that it might make a good way to keep all three. Since they probably think that especially the early part of the year is purely developmental for Allen, I could easily see them keeping all three.

Not sure you're right about Mack vs. Donald, but you could be. I see the odds on the Bills getting either one as being infinitesimal. Just an opinion, obviously. They could use either guy but the new F.O. has said they don't believe in building through high-ticket FAs, and their history backs that up. We'll see, I guess.

Not everyone needs development. But most of the pros, pundits, front offices, etc, will make it clear they believe in it for some guys. And that it is possible to ruin a guy who might otherwise have had a chance. But most often the pressure comes and the guys who need the development get thrown in early. It's not a mistake that it's FOs with job security like Andy Reed and McCarthy with the Packers, FOs with a decent alternative (Jon Kitna keeping Carson Palmer off the field under Marvin Lewis, for example) that takes away the urgency to put the new guy in, those are the FOs who develop guys. Look at Mayock and what he said about Allen. Mayock has tons of contacts in personnel departments and scouting departments around the league and he often says that you shouldn't draft one guy or another unless you're willing to sit him and develop him for a year or two. (Exactly what he said about Allen.) He wouldn't be saying guys can be ruined if he wasn't hearing it from the personnel guys. It's the accepted wisdom from the guys who make their living at this. Oh, and as for pros who think being thrown in too early can hurt guys, throw in one more: "... sometimes quarterbacks can get thrown in there too early and that can have a snowball effect on them during your career. So coach is going to do the smart thing." - Josh Allen https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2018-nfl-training-camps-bills-wont-rush-josh-allen-into-starting-qb-role/

But that's not the only way it works. Some guys don't have it and get it from sitting on the sidelines and developing. Other guys might well have had it but they're thrown in early and end up embedding bad habits, stopping the work on their mechanics and begin to think that the reason they look bad is because they are bad. Lacking development, in other words. Which is why developing is a thing. Not everyone needs development. But most of the pros, pundits, front offices, etc, will make it clear they believe in it for some guys. And then the pressure comes and the guys who need the development get thrown in early. It's not a mistake that it's FOs with job security like Andy Reed and McCarthy with the Packers, FOs with a decent alternative (Jon Kitna keeping Carson Palmer off the field under Marvin Lewis, for example) that takes away the urgency to put the new guy in, those are the FOs who develop guys. Oh, and as for the short passes, the Bills are saying that he threw very few if any of those in college and it's almost a new skill for him. If true, that's a really good reason to think he might develop and be able to throw them later on. EDIT: As for pros who think being thrown in too early can hurt guys, throw in one more: "... sometimes quarterbacks can get thrown in there too early and that can have a snowball effect on them during your career. So coach is going to do the smart thing." - Josh Allen https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2018-nfl-training-camps-bills-wont-rush-josh-allen-into-starting-qb-role/

I hear you. Good post. I don't think the league disagrees with me. To me it seems more like there are plenty of cases where teams would rather sit a guy but instead finally feel too much pressure and put him in. Guys are indeed often thrown in. A lot of that is because - IMHO - first round QBs generally go to teams that are absolutely desperate for a good QB right away. The GM and coach are often on hot seats and the fan base is dying to see the new guy and get some wins. Guys like that do often get thrown in early, but not necessarily for good reason. And when a good team picks a QB that early, or when a team for different reasons sits him for a while, well, the development of Carson Palmer, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers are pretty good ones to model. Didn't hurt them to sit for a while. With our QBs and hungry fans, I guess we'll probably see Allen sometime this year. I hope it's week 17, personally, but realize it could be earlier. Unless either McCarron or Peterman surpasses expectations and looks really good, there'll be pressure to see Allen on the field. If he does play, I just hope he's ready. Some guys are, but plenty aren't. I'm hopeful. Won't be convinced, though, by anything less than results.

Yes, yes, I know. The theory of gravity is only a high probability from the standpoint of the scientific method. From this viewpoint there's no such thing as a fact. But only a scientist would say that. It's why I several times used the words "accepted scientific fact" in the posts. I don't disagree with you that it has limits and depends somewhat on an individual's abilities. If you doubt that Allen has the mental and physical abilities to learn from mental reps at QB, I would have to politely disagree with you about that opinion.

Agreed that most fans do have the patience to let a guy - especially at QB - take his lumps for a while. But it is much less common to have the patience to let a high draft pick NOT take his lumps, even when what he needs is time to be developed. One of the main reasons that Allen was hated by many or most on these boards before the draft was that people understood that he was likely to need time on the bench to develop. Many of the pundits were saying he would likely need a year and very possibly two. The fans didn't want that. Now since we drafted him they love Allen and he's magically considered by many to now be ready. That "development" stuff is forgotten and ignored by many, including many of the same folks who didn't want us to draft him because it would mean we'd be drafting a guy who might not play for a while. Allen could still play well enough to convince the brass that he doesn't need development time. Many high draft picks end up starting early. It hurts some of them and taking lumps isn't the only negative effect starting something too early can have.

Yeah, not surprised the words "scientific fact" caused such a negative reaction from you. After all, if you read something new, you might learn something. Wouldn't want that. It's much better to stop reading when you hit something you disagree with, I find. It won't improve your understanding of the world, but hey, confirmation bias makes people feel good about themselves.

Missed the point yet again. You're not usually so clearly unprepared. You usually seem to at least manage to read the posts you reply to thoroughly. Not in this conversation, though. That's not one isolated study, as I pointed out. Wasn't even the one I was originally referencing. It was just the first one I found on google when searching. Here's yet another I found, again after a quick google search. "In this integrative review, we examine four (non‐exhaustive) cases in which mentally simulating an experience serves a different function, as a substitute for the corresponding experience. In each case, mentally simulating an experience evokes similar cognitive, physiological, and/or behavioral consequences as having the corresponding experience in reality: (i) imagined experiences are attributed evidentiary value like physical evidence, (ii) mental practice instantiates the same performance benefits as physical practice, (iii) imagined consumption of a food reduces its actual consumption, and ..." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spc3.12257 This isn't one study, it's been researched exhaustively. It's accepted scientific fact. It's generally called "motor imagery" if you want to research it. I referred only to the part of the research involving strength gains, as it's easily understood and surprising to those who don't know about it. But it's not just a strength thing. Doing mental reps of complicated skills has been shown to increase proficiency. It's why you hear constantly about guys taking "mental reps," from the sidelines and the bench. "In some medical, musical, and athletic contexts, when paired with physical rehearsal, mental rehearsal can be as effective as pure physical rehearsal (practice) of an action." Doing mental reps only, without physical reps, won't do the job, which is why teams do actually hit the practice fields. But if you're also doing physical reps, the mental ones you do can in some areas be as effective. The quote is from the Kappes and Morewedge article "Mental Simulation as Substitute for Experience." The person I was replying to - QuoteTheRaven83 - said "I never understood the theory behind learning by sitting." I was pointing out that whether or not he understood was immaterial. It's a scientifically accepted fact at this point, not a theory. "Jump in a lake." Oh, Golly. Wow, well, you really threw in some advanced reasoning there.

Yeah, there are plenty of cases of guys damaged psychologically or physically by being put in, early or not. But that's FAR from the only reason you don't put a guy in too early. Physical habits take a long time to be grooved to the point where they're in muscle memory and happen automatically. And when a guy is in a game, he's not going to be thinking, "watch your feet, watch your feet." He's going to be thinking, "Where's the second and third reads, is that guy open enough to throw to and am I going to get killed unless I scramble." And so all the good mechanical habits that he's been trying to imbed go out the window. And you can ingrain bad habits that you don't have time to unlearn as a starter. Allen is actually a good example. He improved his mechanics a ton over the offseason, visibly getting more accurate while working with Jordan Palmer on getting his feet in order. And then in camp when he throws inaccurately people notice it's because his feet are off. You can't take time to think about this stuff when the bullets are flying. When you're not starting, you can. You also can't spend too much time thinking about how to read defenses and other crucial but less immediate skills when you're trying to work on your own playbook for the week and figure out how to attack the specific defense that's across from you this week. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3158386/ And that's only one example. Hard to make a point when you don't bother correctly understanding what you're replying to ... and then don't bother to think before you answer. Your post shows this, very clearly.

It's scientific fact that you can learn by sitting and watching. Not only learn, you can even become physically stronger. Have you heard the experiment where they had three groups of people, one that did no exercise, one that lifted weights and one that did imaginary repetitions of lifting weights? The weight lifters gained the most, but the ones who imagined it gained almost as much strength. It ain't an accident that when the armed forces train pilots they have them spend a ton of time in simulators. Of course you can learn by sitting. Again, it's a scientific fact, not to mention an extremely widely accepted and understood phenomenon. Does there come a point where you need to get in and give it a try? Yeah, absolutely. But the "has it or doesn't" argument simply doesn't make sense. For plenty of guys they don't simply can't show they have it ... till the light bulb goes on. Aaron Rodgers is a terrific example. He played very little his first three years. He was terrible in his first two training camps, but in his third camp he looked like a different guy. It had come together for him. And your McCarron argument ... come on! Nobody's trying to argue that with sitting, every QB can succeed. Or that every QB is good enough to succeed if they just sit. The argument is that everybody learns while sitting, unless they are truly spectacularly lazy and uninvolved. And that while some guys don't need to develop, they're ready to go immediately, others do need time and development to reach their potential.

Nah. Despite the changes in the rules, then and now have about the same percentages of great QBs, franchise QBs, mediocre QBs and simply not good enough QBs. Been about the same through the history of the NFL. Playing QB has not gotten all that much easier. The stats have gone up but that just means that higher stats are necessary to be considered decent. It's still spectacularly difficult to play QB very well in the NFL.

As to the OP's question? First, do we really need to ask that question about guys like Roethlisberger or Matt Ryan? Anyway ... There's no way to be absolutely sure. But yeah, several guys likely were ruined. David Carr is the most obvious answer. But there are plenty of guys there who might have been ruined. Again, no way to be absolutely sure (either way). But Losman was handled very poorly. Might he have done better if he'd been given more time and a better situation? Yeah, maybe. It's possible. Other guys from the OP's list who are maybes: David Carr Losman Might Derek Carr be better if given more time? Maybe. Tannehill (he looked good enough to start but stalled. Fairly reasonable guess that he might have been better if he'd been allowed to acquire better habits from more development) Manuel Vince Young Sanchez, maybe There are a bunch of guys that I certainly don't know enough about, and maybe nobody does, but while it doesn't stick out, it could still be true. Or not. But it could be, guys like Ponder, Weeden and Jason Campbell. We can be sure just from the laws of probability that not all of these guys could have been saved with more development. But probably some.

Yeah, everyone knew Brees was going to be an all-time great. Oh, wait. That's simply not true that they usually show it. Some guys do. Some guys don't. Some guys take a short time to pick it up and some guys take a long time.

I'm sure that would be a lovely discussion for you to have with someone. I totally understand. You have no confidence he'll make my relatively easy benchmark. If calling a weasel a weasel is something you would consider bitter, then yeah, you'd consider that post bitter. Boring and off-target both at once. You're on a high today. Go read what I said. That way you won't misunderstand it post after post after post after post. In my very first reply to you I gave you credit for the third day and said that's 20%. Mr. Geary's post then means that you still have credit for the same day, the 3rd day, which means you're still 20% of the way there. And plenty of writers say someone had the best day if that's what they feel. Joe Buscaglia and Nate Geary in the stories you pointed out, for example. Or Buscaglia's report on Day 4, when he said, "McCarron has the best day of the bunch but Peterman improved, too." And I'm only asking for one for each day.

I gave a benchmark. Now you're trying to weasel. How surprising. If you'd like to have a separate discussion about other things, fine. Don't do it in reply to me. And again, I didn't ask for a "good 5 day stretch." Five days. Not five days in a row. Five days. The best, five times. And since Joe did not say he was the best on Day 1 or Day 2, he has been called the best on one day, Day 3, by Joe B. Five days isn't a very high benchmark. TC is, what, 20 days? And I didn't insist on multiple writers. The very fact you're weaseling says something.

No, it checks off one box. Best of one day, though it was a day where in 8 attempts he threw an INT he was totally to blame for, if we ignore the other INT. I didn't ask for "best over a series of multiple days." I asked for best of the day, on five days. That's one of five. So we're now 20% of the way to where it should be taken even slightly seriously. Hadn't seen the Joe B. article. Thanks for posting it. I respect his stuff. He's the only one who has said so about any day, including day three, but I thought about it when I asked for one. Again, 20% of the way to where it would be reasonable to believe he's a factor.

The prettiest throw and two picks? That's "more than the other QBs"? https://buffalonews.com/2018/07/28/qb-watch-day-3-allen-makes-prettiest-throw-has-two-picks/ Yeah, not seeing that at all. I'll start believing that the minute you can produce at least one article (professional writer, not a Bills fan) specifically saying that Allen had the best day. On, say, five days. Not the best throw. The best day. And there hasn't even been one day like that so far.