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"Ruining" a QB by starting him too soon


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I've never believed you can ruin a QB by playing him. The exceptions are guys whose careers are altered by injury.  However, what is a team supposed to do, wait until they find a way to make it impossible to get injured?  If he's the best QB you have, or is close to the best, you play him. As I see this roster, there's no way Peterman or McCarron are a lot better than Allen. The Bills are not winning more than a game or 2 extra keeping Allen on the bench. Play Allen and let him learn on the job so that the Bills can contend for a championship in 2019. They have a much better chance to win it all with Allen having a year of on field experience under his belt than having him sit in 2018 and still have growing pains in 2019 when a game he loses due to growing pains keeps the Bills from a division title or getting an extra home playoff game. Look at the next season's records of the teams that started a highly rated rookie QB, there are a lot of leaps forward in his 2nd season with the rookie year on the field out of the way. 

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I think the real question that should be asked is if Josh Allen is going to be put in a position to succeed so that he does not have to carry the team.....are we there?

 

Ben R. had a dominant defense holding teams down and getting him the ball back......and a dominant running game.  He was not asked to do too much his first year.

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2 hours ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Aaron Rodgers

Tom Brady

Eli Manning

Big Ben (injury forced him to start) 

Drew Brees

Carson Palmer

Phil Rivers

Jared Goff

kirk Cousins

Matt Stafford

 

 

no offense but you couldn’t be more wrong on this. In fact, it seems like most of the really good QBs sat at first.  

 

Well said.  I gasped after reading that no good QBs sat.  Add Brett Favre, Steve Young, and Joe Montana to that list as well.

 

Edited by Dadonkadonk
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47 minutes ago, MURPHD6 said:

If you believe in sports pyschology, yes.You can damage a QB by throwing him in too soon. 

And lets be honest here. This fanbase does not have a very good record of being patient when it comes to QB development.

Start Allen too early and people will be calling for his head too quickly. And in the age of social media that can really mess with a guy's head. It already happened to Kizer last year, and I hope that it doesn't happen again with Allen.

Kizer was never very good & never will be.  He was starting because he was on a team that was horrible and didn't have a viable NFL starting QB on the roster, so they threw him in knowing if he was really bad they would be able to draft another QB in a QB rich draft and if by some miracle, he vastly exceeded expectations, they would be set at QB.  He didn't and was bad enough that he was jettisoned for a low pick without even considering keeping him and developing him further as a backup.  Nobody ruined Kizer because there was nothing to ruin. 

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As in almost all cases in life and economics, it depends.  Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman were terrible their rookie years.  Doesn't mean they should not have started nor does it mean that they did not benefit from the playing time.  

My preference would be to sit and learn for a few games even up to an entire season.  That said and like I said in another thread, if Allen is the best QB by far then play him game 1.  If he isn't ready or AJ is playing well then let the kid sit and watch.  

 

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3 hours ago, jrober38 said:

If a QB can play, they usually show it very early on. 

 

 

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.

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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.

 

 

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This is probably one of the bigger debates out there. I used to believe in the Aaron Rodgers approach, but I didn’t think that’s possible in today’s NFL.  GM’s get a 3 year window or they lose their jobs, so they get desperate. 

 

Garoppolo is an interesting case. Did he get that good behind Brady or was it just there?

 

I don’t buy the confidence thing.  To be an NFL QB who’s going to make it, a bad season isn’t going to ruin you. If it did, then you weren’t going to make it anyways.  

 

I think the examples given are poor.  Most of the greats start with limited playbooks and average about 150-200 yards a game.  Look at Big Ben and Brady.  You also had the pure gunslingers like Peyton and Stafford.  They just were never going to be slowed down and had to learn in different ways. 

 

The biggest factor overall is “can they learn?” I don’t put any stock into a teams success until game 9 when other teams get enough tape on you.  That’s when defenses adjust and shut you down.  THAT is where the good QB’s get separated from the bad.  Just like a hitter off to a hot start in baseball. Pitches learn you can’t hit away and you fall apart. Great hitters learn to lay off. 

 

They either have the intelligence to adapt and confidence to push through or they don’t.  Brady had a crap deep ball and learned.  Rodgers was inaccurate and learned.  

 

Confidence and ability to overcome with the basic skill set. 

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48 minutes ago, Elite Poster said:

 

The problem is the timeline. These guys all seem to have come long ago when the rules and offenses weren't built around elevating the passing game and protecting the QB.

 

 

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.

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1 hour ago, mannc said:

I think it’s possible that Peterman was ruined by being forced to start the SD game, but you could never convince me that he would have amounted to anything anyway.

 

His first throw in camp convinced me that I don't need to see him lined up under center ever again.

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4 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

I could argue Carr, Manziel, Winston, Gabbert, Smith, Freeman, Ponder, maybe Tannehill.  Just looking quickly through the list.

And, we'll never know what would have happened, otherwise.

 

I'd like to add, perhaps it is not an issue of "too soon" and more an issue of "right circumstances." Carr would be the obvious example of being started in the "wrong circumstances" not necessarily "too soon."

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I never understood the theory behind learning by sitting. A QB either has it or he doesn't. If a QB was to learn a lot by sitting and watching, AJ McCarron must be an AMAZING QB to sit for so long.

 

Only way to learn and improve is to play, get hit and learn from your mistakes. Can a QB take a big hit and get back up like nothing happened like Tom Brady? Or will he take a big hit and get rattled like Trent Edwards. This is stuff that you'll NEVER be able to observce in practice cuz they're not allowed to get hit and is a BIG part of the "IT" factor. Remember when Tom Brady got BLOWN UP by Clements? I was impressed by the hit but I was even more impressed by the way he just popped back up like nothing happened.  You can never "RUIN" a QB by playing him too early. That's a BS idea. If he plays early and he doesnt show anything in his first 2 years, then he never had it at all. You learn A LOT about a QB from when he gets hit. Josh Allen needs to start day 1. 

Edited by QuoteTheRaven83
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29 minutes ago, QuoteTheRaven83 said:

I never understood the theory behind learning by sitting. A QB either has it or he doesn't. If a QB was to learn a lot by sitting and watching, AJ McCarron must be an AMAZING QB to sit for so long.

 

Only way to learn and improve is to play, get hit and learn from your mistakes. Can a QB take a big hit and get back up like nothing happened like Tom Brady? Or will he take a big hit and get scared like Trent Edwards. This is stuff that you'll NEVER learn in practice cuz they're not allowed to get hit. You can never "RUIN" a QB by playing him too early. That's a BS idea. If he plays early and he doesnt show anything in his first 2 years, then he never had it at all. You learn A LOT about a QB from when he gets hit. Josh Allen needs to start day 1. 

 

 

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.

Edited by Thurman#1
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2 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

 

Basically if you start a guy who starts to believe his limited arsenal is enough you will ruin him, and every qb starts with a limited arsenal.

 

 

So every QB who started in his rookie year was ruined?

 

Do you know how stupid that sounds?

 

 

7 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

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.

 

bull ****

 

Seriously, what in the actual !@#$ are you talking about?

Edited by Domdab99
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3 hours ago, MURPHD6 said:

If you believe in sports pyschology, yes.You can damage a QB by throwing him in too soon. 

And lets be honest here. This fanbase does not have a very good record of being patient when it comes to QB development.

Start Allen too early and people will be calling for his head too quickly. And in the age of social media that can really mess with a guy's head. It already happened to Kizer last year, and I hope that it doesn't happen again with Allen.

 

 

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. 

10 minutes ago, Domdab99 said:

 

So every QB who started in his rookie year was ruined?

 

Do you know how stupid that sounds?

 

 

 

bull ****

 

Seriously, what in the actual !@#$ are you talking about?

 

 

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.

Edited by Thurman#1
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****

Either a QB has confidence or he doesn't. Peyton wasn't ruined, Goff wasn't ruined....hell, when he finally got a chance to play, Favre was awful. But he wasn't ruined. Why? Because he and the others had confidence in themselves, the results be damned. 

 

Allen has confidence. He oozes it. He's like Ryan Fitzpatrick, but with, you know, actual talent. 

 

Everyone saying putting him behind a disastrous OL like what happened with Carr would be bad, and I agree, but no one knows how good or bad this offensive line is going to be yet. Same with the wide receivers. Maybe they'll be crap, maybe they'll step up and fit really great with Daboll's new scheme. Who knows? 

 

Let's see what happens. I trust the coaching staff to put him out when they think he's ready. They're not going to let him be a goddamned sacrificial lamb to be offered up to the "scary" defenses of the Ravens, Chargers, and Vikings if he's not ready. But if he plays, then they believe he's ready. 

 

One more thing: strength of schedule is bull ****. Who's good and who's bad changes yearly. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

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.

 

From your linked article:

 

It is concluded that high-intensity strength training sessions can be partly replaced by IMC training sessions without any considerable reduction of strength gains.

 

That's a far cry from "The weight lifters gained the most, but the ones who imagined it gained almost as much strength."

 

Oh, and go jump in a lake. 

Edited by Domdab99
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6 hours ago, jrober38 said:

If a QB can play, they usually show it very early on. 

And if they have fundamental deficiencies, they are almost never coached out of them.

 

This is why "waiting to play Allen until he is ready" is a myth.

 

Get him in there and get him in there right away.  He is either going to have it, or not have it.

 

No need to waste any time figuring out which it is.

 

 

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