On the Job Training

[SACTOBILLSFAN]

Guys develop in 3 ways. 1) game experience 2) off season training and preparation 3) practice.

 

Some guys take a little longer to develop (ie Drew Brees), but the fact remains we took JP in the first round so he must be given the opportunity to play more than 4 games. Its just like in baseball, if a team drafts a guy in the first round and gives him a big bonus he will be in the show eventually regardless of his minor league career, because the team made an investment and they will throw him to the wolves cuz hell he may surprise some people. JP is an athletic guy with a strong arm and some quicks, and the Bills INVESTED a first round pick in him. So regardless of subjective "facts" (which is an oxymoron) of who is good and who is a bust, they have to throw him in there to see if they made the right call in drafting him. If he doesn't pan out then he doesn't pan out. Its just like taking the PSAT in highschool, i got an equivalent of 1100 on that stupid thing, and my college list would have been a lot shorter if they just assessed me based on that "practice" score, but i took the SAT got 1425 and had my choices greatly increased. You can't judge a guy only in practice you have to let him show you what he can do and that takes a lot longer than 4 games. The Bills made the decision to draft JP and if he sucks then you cut your losses after a few seasons and live with the fact you drafted a bust. If fans would rather have 8-8 seasons and having the front office continue with the tired "we're on the verge" statements then they really don't want a winner. They need to throw the kid in there and see what they have, because hell he could be right there as a new Favre, Young, Elway etc, but we won't know until he plays more than 4 games thats for damn sure.

[colin]

nice board people, seems to have more humour and wit than the other 2 bills boards i post at.

 

anyhow, the key differnce between palmer, manning, manning, and even carr and harrington is those guys were all drafter VERY high.

 

they were all drafted with the expectation that they would be a franchise quarterback and soon. they all signed massive contracts with huge bonuses, so the team literaly couldn't afford to keep them on the bench not contributing for longer than perhaps one year or so.

 

JP was the 4th quarterback taken in the first round of that draft. manning and rothlessburger obviously started, and manning took a while but is playing well now. the second QB taken in that draft is sitting on the bench and no one knows if he is any good, but he isn't playing because we can all be just about certain that he isn't as good as the guy who is.

 

we aren't paying JP so much that he has to start, he isn't really consting anything more than holcomb is. JP is also not the same kind of prospect that the guys taken before him are, the knock on him is his lack of maturity and the fact that inspite of his physical gifts he is FAR from polished enough to be a first year starter (and from the looks of it he isn't ready to be a second year starter either).

 

chad pennington was seen as a dissapointment for the jests, who kept vinny for a while longer and left chad on the bench. chad eventually played, but it was his 3rd year.

 

mcnair spent plenty of time on the bench coming along slowly, and joe frikkin montana didn't start till his 3rd year or so.

 

so sometimes starting a player too early destroys him, and sometimes guys struggle early and then blossom into fancy little QB flowers, but you can't just say that since you have a 1st round QB he just HAS to play now, inspite of how much he struggles.

 

there is some big time on the job training when the guy is sitting on the bench and practicing. look how good crowell looks right now, he didn't even have a sniff of a chance of starting at the WILL spot if spikes was healthy, but he has come on strong.

 

at some point he will have to go in, but when is that?

 

I think we might have to play kelly against KC, and until it looks like we are mathematically eliminated, but if jp has shown something that makes him look like he won't suck as hard as he did at first (he really was the worst QB in the NFL for 4 games) then perhaps he should be thrown in now.

 

the god awful game planning and o line play we often get doesn't help him either, if clements has him running plays that give him no chance at all then he won't develope, and he showed zero signs of improvement in his first 4 games, so clements might not be a good enough coach to bring along an unpolished and immature player like JP.

[johnnychemo]

Here's a hypothetical question:  suppose JP, like most first rounders, turns out not to be a starting caliber qb.  Suppose he is a Heath Schuler.  We won't know that by the end of the season, even if he plays the remainder (or at least we won't be prepared to admit it to ourselves - remember how long it took to turn the page on Bledsoe).

 

So in next years draft we do not draft a qb.  Then next year we stink again.  So in '07 we draft a new qb.  He doesn't start playing until '07 or '08.  So even if this one is good, and we start nosing to 8-8 in '07 and '08,  we don't get real productivity out of the position until '09.

 

Developing a QB takes time, no question about it. When do you start the process? Keep JP on the bench, start the process next year. If he is a bust, then you are looking at '10 or '11 for a decent qb (unless you find someone in FA.) Start the process now-that's my point.

 

That is an eternity as far as the rest of the team is concerned.  Almost all of the talent we have accumulated will be gone by then.  Will all those years of bad-to-mediocracy and not contending for anything be an acceptable price to pay in order to grow our own starter?

 

Much of the talent we have on the team is not producing at this point. The easy part of the schedule is over. The next weak sister we play is NYJ (at NY) in the last game of the season. Can you honestly see getting more than 2-3 wins when you are facing KC, SD, NE, Carolina, Cinci, Denver, Mia, and the Jets? The season will be an absolute meaningless waste unless we use it to work toward a long term answer on the QB question.

 

So in my mind we field the most competative team we can.  When JP looks close to KH in practice, you start playing him.

 

I've been seeing KH having many moments where he looked like JP in that last few games!

 

So even if this teams loses the next 3 games, and is essentially eliminated from the playoffs, you would still start KH? To what purpose?

 

As for you comment about getting a top ten pick, with todays salary system I would argue that that is actually something to be avoided.  The last thing we need are yet more MW-type contracts for unproven players eating into our cap.

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Ok, so you don't want a top 10 pick. I disagree. But there are plenty of teams that would take it in a heartbeat. It would be good tradebait at the very least.

[plenzmd1]

No, but at what cost?  Why is it acceptable to enter an unknown period of years in which we toil at 3-7 wins a season, playing a succession of newly drafted quarterbacks until we find one that sticks?  Why do we have to sacrifice being competitive for this search,  when we can sit a guy on the bench and see how he develops in practice?

 

While we are at it, why don't we make similar arguments about every other position on the field?  Why aren't we starting Preston?  Teague isn't the answer at center.  And what about starting King over Clements?  After all, we're not going to the playoffs and Clements will be gone at the end of the season...  The same goofy logic extends to starting Parrish over Moulds, and even - gasp - Gates over WM,  since by the time our QB is polished enough to lead us to the Superbowl WM will probably have priced himself out of town. 

 

Ok, those examples are ludicrous, but they reveal an underlying assumption:  that we are looking at drafted quarterbacks differently,  or more accurately we are looking at first round picks differently.  For me that's an argument against using a first round pick on a quarterback.  If a first round runningback or lineman or whatever is a bust, you limit their playing time and move on.  You don't doggedly start him for two years if he stinks.  But we here seem to be making the argument that you have to do that with a QB in order to find out if he can play,  and that's a pretty steep price for any team to pay.

 

So you don't give up trying to find the perfect quarterback,  but you have to keep a competative product on the field.  And IMO that means not starting a guy until you are confident based on what you see in practice that what you'll see in a game isn't too far of a drop-off.

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Fink,

 

I see your arguments, but would respond in this way. I think the basic differance in our opinions is that a basic premice of both our arguments is differant.

 

I'm guessing you believe the Bills have a shot at the playoffs this year, and that the rest of the team outside of QB is strong enough to get us there.

 

I believe that the Bills stand no shot at the playoffs, even if Johny freakin Unitis was playing QB. It is also why I agree with most of the moves you thought were ludicrous, in theory.

 

Secondly, I do not believe Kelley Holcomb is the answer at QB. If i believed that, I would have preferred to keep Drew, and I was all for his release.

 

 

So, with those two basic assumptions, I am a firm believer that the only way to get better is to play in games. Practice to me just cannot replicate game conditions. If JP was a seventh rd pick, I'd be saying the same thing. Now, if you believe the Bills are playoff caliber, and all they need is a QB to manage the game,than stay with KH by all means. I just do not buy that argument.

 

 

 

 

It is also why I cannot for the life of me figure out why we have Shane Mattews as our 3rd QB. Matbe a guy like Rohan Davey could be getting reps there, or someone who has some upside. But we do not even have a qb on the practice squad as far as I am aware

 

 

Now for a little tangent, ever notice the stinkin Pats draft a QB every year, and ALWAYS keep youngsters at the position. Get so tired of hearing Brady was lucky. It was not, it is part of their philosophy.