Interesting critique of Caleb Williams and, to some extent, CFB in general - Mark Schlereth

[gamecockcat]

One man's opinion: MS raved about his physical tools but, from his analysis, CW locks onto his primary, is slow to come off the primary, very rarely gets beyond the secondary option and doesn't appear to make any pre-snap reads. Going further, he stated that evaluating college QBs is almost impossible. They aren't given much to process and, for the most part, aren't playing even a somewhat similar system to an NFL system so they come into the league with generally great measurables/athleticism but pretty much no knowledge whatsoever of how to play QB in the NFL.

At least with Coen, our QBs were basically running a dumbed-down NFL system. I hope Hamdan can continue to incorporate NFL concepts to some extent (while being effective on the college level) so that remains what I perceive as a recruiting tool.

He quoted a stat re: college QBs along the lines of 75+% of 1st round QBs drafted don't really pan out and rarely get a 2nd contract. If they do, they're 2nd or 3rd string backups who rarely play. Have no idea if that is accurate but there have been many, many good college QBs who don't last in the NFL much beyond their rookie contract.

 

[JHB4UK]

Some Tenn Titans folks said the same thing after they drafted Malik Willis from Liberty. Showed up at camp and had zero idea about taking a snap under center, had never done 1 in CFB ir HS, or calling a play recieved from the headset to his teammates in a huddle, or reading if the D was zone or man pre snap, or looking for secondary or 3rd recievers.

Bears said a lot of the same about Fields, Jags about Lawrence.

 

[gamecockcat]

Levis certainly seems fairly comfortable in an NFL system with the Titans. He's a smart guy regardless, but surely it helped that he had a couple of years in more of a pro offense than is prevalent in CFB.

In the NFL, there is a LOT more to playing QB than throwing the ball 65 yards in the air, running a sub-5 second 40-yard dash, shuttle, etc. Knowing where to go with the ball before it's snapped and where the 2nd and 3rd option should be if Option #1 is not open is more important than physical gifts. Lots of QBs with great football IQs have stuck around for a decade or more when they couldn't hardly throw more than 15 yards down the field.

 

[trueblujr2]

Levis certainly seems fairly comfortable in an NFL system with the Titans. He's a smart guy regardless, but surely it helped that he had a couple of years in more of a pro offense than is prevalent in CFB.

In the NFL, there is a LOT more to playing QB than throwing the ball 65 yards in the air, running a sub-5 second 40-yard dash, shuttle, etc. Knowing where to go with the ball before it's snapped and where the 2nd and 3rd option should be if Option #1 is not open is more important than physical gifts. Lots of QBs with great football IQs have stuck around for a decade or more when they couldn't hardly throw more than 15 yards down the field.

Let's hope the Titan's splurge for some protection for Levis or he'll get Tim Couched out of the league in a hurry.

 

[3632]

This stuff goes back a long way now. While some of Tim Couch’s issues were related to the Browns inability to protect, he also was the first guy produced by these simplistic route/read offenses and short open space throws and there would be reports about his struggle to run an offense professionally.