How Can a 5 Year Vet QB NOT Know How To Read a Defense? A Different Viewpoint

[The Wiz]

10 minutes ago, ShadyBillsFan said:

in chemical engineering !!!   So you do know him.    

smart as hell but dumb as a rock 

The type of person that can't work a toaster but probably could cure AIDS.

Edited January 10, 2018 by The Wiz

[wiskibreth]

20 minutes ago, 2003Contenders said:

There are different levels/types of intelligence.

 

A scientist or policy-maker may have a high IQ but may need time to analyze information at hand before moving forward. Meanwhile, with lives at stake, a surgeon has to be able to make good decisions quickly. The same is true of police officers, firemen, etc.

 

Tyrod has shown repeatedly that he struggles to make proper decisions quickly. That does not mean that he is "dumb" -- just that the way in which his brain is wired, he is more calculating in his decision-making process than is required to be a successful QB at the NFL level.

 

No one doubts Ryan Fitzpatrick's IQ -- but he often made poor decisions on the fly. At least he was usually quick in making those decisions (good or bad).

 

After all, Jim Kelly wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was great at reading a defense and making quick (and usually "intelligent") decisions.

 

This is a VERY good analogy.

[row_33]

15 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

The type of person that can't work a toaster but probably could cure AIDS.

 

he could probably fix a toaster blindfolded, he wouldn't know how to handle an attractive cougar cornering him at a bar

 

 

[PolishDave]

10 minutes ago, row_33 said:

 

he could probably fix a toaster blindfolded, he wouldn't know how to handle an attractive cougar cornering him at a bar

 

 

Rule #1 - Check her for an Adam's Apple

[phypon]

8 minutes ago, PolishDave said:

 

Rule #1 - Check her for an Adam's Apple

 

20 minutes ago, row_33 said:

 

he could probably fix a toaster blindfolded, he wouldn't know how to handle an attractive cougar cornering him at a bar

 

 

Lmao!  Too funny...and true!  Man, those cougars can be dangerous!!!

[The Wiz]

9 minutes ago, PolishDave said:

 

Rule #1 - Check her for an Adam's Apple

Just go the crocodile Dundee method.  It's quicker.

[Haslett_Stomp]

46 minutes ago, dpberr said:

I remember when someone posted Rex's real voluminous defensive playbook from his time with the Jets.  I was paging through it and I know that my brain isn't wired to memorize and then recall all that on a moment's notice in a game.  

 

I think "reading" a defense is just as much a skill as is passing the ball.   You need to have a part of your brain that's got a predictive analytics department in it.  It's what makes Tom Brady special.  It's why he's still shredding the defenses from predictable coordinators at 40.  

 

 I'd go so far to say that's why some amazing college talent never cuts it at the NFL level while others flourish.  

 

It also helps that he has Ernie Adams telling him the defensive formation 5 seconds before the ball is snapped.   

[K-9]

The biggest challenge isn't reading the safeties, etc. It's having a full understanding of the entire offensive concept at work as well as a full understanding of the defensive concepts used to counter. And even if the QB can master all of those elements, he is reliant upon his teammates to have similar understandings of their roles relative to those concepts as well; especially his receivers who also have to make sight reads on the fly. Unfortunately, not many QBs possess the kind of insight into their own offenses to know what a defense needs to do BEFORE hand to prevent a play from succeeding. 

 

But often times though, it isn't even that complicated. It's a simple question of creating matchups and whipping the guy in front of you. 

[Coach55]

1 hour ago, BadLandsMeanie said:

If a man treats the other 6 months as a full time job, he would have five 8 or 9 hour days per week. I thought I would call a typical day being 2 hours working out and 6 hours of study. Say in one day he sits and analyzes two games of offensive plays. So he spends 3 hours on each game watching and studying and coming to understand the offensive plays in that game. There are about 130 offensive plays (65 each team) in a game. It might go slower at first but that gives him about 3 minutes per play to study it.

 

This is not a heavy workload here we are just talking about 2 hours of fitness and then the rest of a regular workday sitting in an easy chair watching football plays.

So if a man did that 26 weeks per year for 5 years, he would have seen 130 plays per day Times 5 days per week Times 26 weeks Times 5 years = 84,500 plays.

The defenses are complicated but they are not that complicated that a man shouldn’t have a pretty good idea what is going on after having seen it Eighty Four Thousand times.

 

And that doesn’t even count all the time they spend learning and being taught for all the months they are with the team.

 

When I think about it like that, it doesn’t seem like a stupid question to wonder how in the world could somebody not understand how to read a defense after seeing 84,500 plays?? (not counting training camp and practice and all that).

I am willing to bet heavy that very few, if any, quarterbacks are studying film 6 hours a day for 26 weeks of the offseason.  More realistic bet - 2-3 hours/day for the week leading up to OTAs and 2-3 hours/day for the 2 weeks leading up to training camp.  Total film study hours spent during offseason (my bet) - 30-45.  Using your logic - this would result in ~750 plays/year or 3750 plays for 5 years.   If someone were to study game film for 6 hours/day in the offseason, they would truly be elite - maybe that is what makes/made players like Brady and Manning so successful as they have been known to go the extra mile (both during the season and in the offseason). 

[Heathcliff]

I believe another critical piece to reading the defense is also knowing the offense (where the receivers are going).  Not a Tyrod supporter, but in his time in Buffalo he has had multiple OC (offensive systems) and too many receivers to even remember.  So he is trying to read the defense along with remember the offense AND understand how his receivers are reading the defense.  Frequent changing of systems (OC/DC) is one of the factors (probably very important) as to why we had been toiling in failure for so many years.

 

I am becoming confident that McDermott is here for the long haul.  We need to establish both defensive and offensive systems that will also be in place for the long haul.  I am not sold on Dennison, but changing offensive systems AGAIN may not be the panacea we all hope for.

 

---EDIT-----

K-9 I like the way you think.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Heathcliff
add info

[row_33]

8 minutes ago, Heathcliff said:

I believe another critical piece to reading the defense is also knowing the offense (where the receivers are going).  Not a Tyrod supporter, but in his time in Buffalo he has had multiple OC (offensive systems) and too many receivers to even remember.  So he is trying to read the defense along with remember the offense AND understand how his receivers are reading the defense.  Frequent changing of systems (OC/DC) is one of the factors (probably very important) as to why we had been toiling in failure for so many years.

 

I am becoming confident that McDermott is here for the long haul.  We need to establish both defensive and offensive systems that will also be in place for the long haul.  I am not sold on Dennison, but changing offensive systems AGAIN may not be the panacea we all hope for.

 

It seemed he didn't grasp the concept of throwing the ball to where the WR was going to be a second after the release of the ball. 

 

 

something that six year olds start working on with their friends.

[BadLandsMeanie]

35 minutes ago, Coach55 said:

I am willing to bet heavy that very few, if any, quarterbacks are studying film 6 hours a day for 26 weeks of the offseason.  More realistic bet - 2-3 hours/day for the week leading up to OTAs and 2-3 hours/day for the 2 weeks leading up to training camp.  Total film study hours spent during offseason (my bet) - 30-45.  Using your logic - this would result in ~750 plays/year or 3750 plays for 5 years.   If someone were to study game film for 6 hours/day in the offseason, they would truly be elite - maybe that is what makes/made players like Brady and Manning so successful as they have been known to go the extra mile (both during the season and in the offseason). 

That is just what I am thinking.

 

I bet they do it like you say. Which is to say, not much.

Until this morning actually, I believed in the special almost magic talent model. With the Mannings and Brady's being the chosen ones.

 

But now I am thinking more like if they watched enough, anybody could read a defense. I think I could if I had five years. They just don't do it.

 

[PolishDave]

44 minutes ago, K-9 said:

The biggest challenge isn't reading the safeties, etc. It's having a full understanding of the entire offensive concept at work as well as a full understanding of the defensive concepts used to counter. And even if the QB can master all of those elements, he is reliant upon his teammates to have similar understandings of their roles relative to those concepts as well; especially his receivers who also have to make sight reads on the fly. Unfortunately, not many QBs possess the kind of insight into their own offenses to know what a defense needs to do BEFORE hand to prevent a play from succeeding. 

 

This is why simplifying things can work well - as in the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos offenses in the 90's and the modern day Patriots offense.

 

Let's consider the 90's Bills as an example.

 

Kelly and the receivers always knew who was going to be where.     That happened because the offense was limited.    They ran the same plays again and again and again and executed most of them well.     And by doing that so often, it allowed them to master (or at least get really, really good at) a limited number of plays they could execute.   Just like the Patriots do today.

 

And with Kelly calling the play at he line, there is no doubt that Kelly (as soon as he chose the play) pretty much knew where he was likely going with the football even before the ball was snapped.    And again, he got better and better at doing it because they kept running the same limited number of plays.

 

That system, in some ways, made it mentally easier on Kelly and the receivers.    Kelly had the extra challenge of deciding which play would be best, but that decision would be made pre-snap when there was time.   Then after that he could simply react instinctively rather than think and analyze anything.

 

I am willing to bet that is a large part of the reason that Bill Parcels told Anthony Lynn to throw out half the playbook as advice to him when he got promoted into the offensive coordinator position.    It makes sense.    Choose a limited number of plays you can execute well and master them.    Don't over-complicate it or you will get mistakes.

[The Wiz]

3 minutes ago, BadLandsMeanie said:

That is just what I am thinking.

 

I bet they do it like you say. Which is to say, not much.

Until this morning actually, I believed in the special almost magic talent model. With the Mannings and Brady's being the chosen ones.

 

But now I am thinking more like if they watched enough, anybody could read a defense. I think I could if I had five years. They just don't do it.

 

When you listen to Romo do his color commentary, he calls plays left and right based on the way the team is lining up.  I'm sure it comes naturally to him having played compared to these other guys that are just a "good commentary voice".

 

[hemma]

When they were clearing out their lockers the other day, one of the players (or maybe it was Beane) mentioned that Taylor is a hard worker and that you'll see him out there stretching.

 

So maybe he's chosen to be really loose and flexible.

[Shaw66]

Meanie -

 

Short answer:  it simply isn't easy to do.  

 

For one thing, I've heard QBs say it takes four or five season ON THE FIELD before they really understood what the defense was doing.   So after a while all that off-the-field study your positing doesn't matter, it doesn't advance the learning of the QB.    You could study how to fly a plane for five years, but I'm not going up with you on your first solo flight.  

 

Learning to fly is an interesting comparison, because you CAN practice flying in a simulator.   There are no QB simulators, at least not yet.   Madden is on it's way to getting there, I suppose.   Some teams put cameras on the QBs head, put him in a scrimmage, then review the film afterward.   They can coach the guy about whether he's looking the right way, and looking fast enough.   But that's a long way from real experience.  

 

You have to train your brain to recognize and process information quickly, and the information is always different, always changing.   The pass rushers are coming from different places, depending on the defense and on who has missed his blocking assignment.   The defenders are playing zone, or man or a little of each, some are free lancing.    Oh, and the defense you're facing this week is different from the one you faced last week, and we know those week to week changes are important.   Players started complaining this season about how difficult it is to play on Thursday night because there's no time to prepare for the game. 

 

On top of all that, it's simply a matter of brains.   People don't all have the same level of computing power, and being an NFL QB requires some really high football IQ.   Most people can't do it. 

 

Oh, and anothr thing is the ability to operate under pressure.    Standing in the pocket is a highly pressurized environment, essentially standing in the middle of a battlefield while your comrades try to protect you the invading horde a couple of yards away.   It's very well know that many people behave and perform less well in a threatening environment.   Mistakes go way up under pressure like that.   That's why the military drills and drills and drills, to try to minimize mistakes under pressure.   But for the vast majority of military, they're drilling in something that is generally pretty simple and doesn't have nearly as many variables as an NFL QB faces.  

 

These guys have really speacialized, almost unique, skill sets.  

25 minutes ago, BadLandsMeanie said:

That is just what I am thinking.

 

I bet they do it like you say. Which is to say, not much.

Until this morning actually, I believed in the special almost magic talent model. With the Mannings and Brady's being the chosen ones.

 

But now I am thinking more like if they watched enough, anybody could read a defense. I think I could if I had five years. They just don't do it.

 

I don't think this is correct.   Kids now are working like crazy in high school, trying to learn this stuff.   There are plenty more guys with the dedication to the task that don't make it than there are guys that do.   Eli grew up in the same environment Peyton did.  Why isn't Eli as good?   

[Jobot]

Totally agree.

 

I was just having this conversation the other day.  The fact that there are only 32 of these positions in the world available for employment... how is every qb not great at this?

 

I guess D-coordinators are also in high demand... but listening to Tony Romo rattle off the defensive breakdowns pre-snap after being out of the league for a year.... it just makes you wonder how this is possible.

[Gray Beard]

Another thing that I’ve wondered about is what schools turn out the best QBs. The power schools often have simple reads for the QB, and a strong running game.  EJ Manuel,  AJ McCarron, Tyrod Taylor, Vince Young, and Cordale Jones come to mind.  Sometimes the best QBs come from smaller Schools with more creative offenses. 

[PolishDave]

4 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

Another thing that I’ve wondered about is what schools turn out the best QBs. The power schools often have simple reads for the QB, and a strong running game.  EJ Manuel,  AJ McCarron, Tyrod Taylor, Vince Young, and Cordale Jones come to mind.  Sometimes the best QBs come from smaller Schools with more creative offenses. 

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/schools-that-produce-most-nfl-quarterbacks-2017-8

 

And here is a good read:

 

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000359077/article/what-school-is-qb-u-usc-among-teams-that-can-make-claim

Edited January 10, 2018 by PolishDave

[Elite Poster]

The ability to process dynamic things is a skill. That's not something you can teach. 

 

It's like the best brain surgeon, you can't just teach any ol' surgeon those procedures, its about god given ability.