Excellent article on Vikings and Darnold decison (Athletic; paywalled)

[GaryPinC]

21 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

There was an entire article a couple weeks back also in the Athletic about how QB's are mostly all being ruined today by getting them out there way to fast.  But the coaches job is on the line so it's done, repeatedly.

 

Recall years back my thought was that seemed like some of the better QB's in NFLK came from small schools as they didn't have 10 All Americans surrounding them. 

 

Hmmmmm.  Do All Americans still exist or am I dating myself??

I think the bottom line that's emerging is many NFL front offices need better plans to develop their QB's.  Mahomes would have been fine if he had started his rookie year.  Josh has been fine.  Mayfield could read defenses pre-snap at Oklahoma and was rookie of the year in 2018.  The wheels fell off because of coaching incompetency in Cleveland.  Baker is the most obvious example of how FOs fail their QBs.  Besides the Jets, of course.

 

For some QBs more time on the bench is a must.  But it falls on the FO knowing how best to develop their QB, and teaching their QB how best to develop themselves.  Think about all the diverse off-season work Josh has put in to grow his game.  Without this self-motivation, I think it takes him much longer to develop and maybe he never hits his ceiling.

[GaryPinC]

11 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

One name from a long time ago from a small school was Phil Simms

 

Was watching one of the post game shows today and the commentator was talking about Penn State struggles practically with passing and his exact words were "Penn St has paid a lot for these WR's!"  The absurdity of a statement like that is wild, but it's the era we now are in.

 

 

 

Waited as long as the could for the sake of the coaches jobs or for the good of the player?

Depends on if they are asking these rookies to do things at game speed that they are incapable of?  Bill Parcells was well known for only installing gameplans his QB was comfortable executing.  I think the vast majority of players learn best by doing, if it has to be a real game, they must be fully prepared and comfortable on what they're trying to do to learn lessons and grow.

[boyst]

3 hours ago, Spiderweb said:

Ohio State fan, eh?

The Ohio State 

[BarleyNY]

On 10/4/2025 at 10:14 AM, dave mcbride said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6677047/2025/10/02/jj-mccarthy-sam-darnold-vikings-seahawks/
 

A sample:

 

‘When the Vikings were winning with Darnold last season, I asked a veteran coach to watch the Vikings' offense in hopes of learning just how well Darnold was playing. The coach thought there was a big gap between Darnold's impressive 2024 stats and how well he was actually playing for Minnesota. We found relatively few high-level plays in the games we watched.

 

That same coach could not believe he was watching the same quarterback when he flipped through the Seahawks' offensive plays with Darnold this season.

 

"The whole thing was Tier 1," this coach said. "No one we know is throwing better than that."

 

Play after play showed Darnold delivering the ball accurately and with nuance, including against the rush.

 

"He used to be jittery in there," the coach said. "Now, he stands in there and looks down the barrel. A couple times, he jumped and threw like (Aaron) Rodgers does. He dropped to three-quarters (delivery)."

 

Was this really the same player?

 

"The deep ball has been accurate, making sure they can catch the ball and assuring the yardage," the coach said. "He's throwing it correctly into the short zones to keep his guys alive, which is interesting. He is leading receivers away from the hook defender, making the guy slide on the digs. He's way better. I'm so impressed."’

 

Thank you for posting. It is an excellent article. I’m gonna have to watch some Seahawks games. 

[Thurman#1]

13 hours ago, Chaos said:

This guy Josh Allen was rushed into starting 11 games his rookie year.  He seems to be developing fine despite the rush.  I am certain analysis would show that the majority of the highly successful QBs started their rookie seasons.  The "coaches" who are hanging on to "QBs are rushed", are the kind of guys who Billy Beane fired on the Athletics, because despite their massive confidence and long experience, they were simply wrong. 

 

 

The reason most successful QBs started their rookie seasons isn't that it served them well. It's simply that almost nobody drafted high does NOT start much or at all their rookie seasons.

 

Except Mahomes. And Aaron Rodgers. And Jordan Love. And Jalen Hurts. And Phillip Rivers. And Drew Brees. And Carson Palmer. And Brett Favre. Tom Brady wasn't drafted high, but not playing early sure didn't hurt him.

 

The exceptions, um, had some pretty good success.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

2 hours ago, GaryPinC said:

I think the bottom line that's emerging is many NFL front offices need better plans to develop their QB's.  Mahomes would have been fine if he had started his rookie year.  Josh has been fine.  Mayfield could read defenses pre-snap at Oklahoma and was rookie of the year in 2018.  The wheels fell off because of coaching incompetency in Cleveland.  Baker is the most obvious example of how FOs fail their QBs.  Besides the Jets, of course.

 

For some QBs more time on the bench is a must.  But it falls on the FO knowing how best to develop their QB, and teaching their QB how best to develop themselves.  Think about all the diverse off-season work Josh has put in to grow his game.  Without this self-motivation, I think it takes him much longer to develop and maybe he never hits his ceiling.

 

 

And your evidence that Mahomes would have been fine? Right, none. A completely unsupported opinion.

 

What Mahomes himself has said and thought can be seen a bit in this article from Albert Breer written about his first start of his second year:

 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/09/14/patrick-mahomes-kansas-city-chiefs-andy-reid

 

Here's an excerpt:  

 

“I made the right read and got the ball into his hands,” Mahomes said on Thursday, from the Chiefs facility. “Just stuff like that, where you don’t have to make the amazing play, you can just make the right read, put the ball into your playmaker’s hands and score big touchdowns that way. I definitely benefited from having that year to learn to not try to take the big shot at every single play.”

Mahomes is right. He didn’t take a shot there. But the result hit the Chargers like a hollow point bullet—Hill caught the ball in stride, streaking to Mahomes’s left side and taking advantage of a Los Angeles defense influenced to the right by the play’s run action. Fifty-eight yards later, it was 14–3 Chiefs. And the 22-year-old’s time at the helm of Andy Reid’s offense was, quite literally, off and running.

That was just one play exemplifying how far he’s come. By the time the sun-soaked afternoon in L.A. was over, the Chiefs had 38 points on the scoreboard and Mahomes had completed 15 of 27 attempts for 256 yards, four touchdowns and a 127.5 rating, which amounts to a lot of proof that Reid and the Chiefs did right by their young gunslinger last year.

 

(And worth noting while looking at those last few lines that the one game he played as a rookie, he had a rating of 76.4, zero TDs and one INT, while in that first game his second season he had four TDs, zero INTs and a rating more than 50 points higher.)

 

 

 

Totally agree with your second paragraph, though. Some guys need time much more than others