LouisVille Cardinals ~ 6024/204
1 ~ Processing Speed
2 ~ Precision
3 ~ Pocket Presence
4 ~ FirePower
Processing Speed is my measure for a Player's capacity to Rapidly Read & React to the dynamically developing Tactical LandScape. This Capacity is crucial to the success of all 22 Players on the Field, but above all to the QuarterBack. Diagnostic Acuity supports this and is also crucial, but Knowledge without Processing Speed is fatal.
Precision speaks above all to Mechanics: A QuarterBack's consistency with his Stance, his Set Up, and his Delivery. I refer to consistent Accuracy in the Short & Intermediate Zones, where the best Offenses all make their Bread & Butter. In breaking it down, I'm looking at Timing, Placement, and Leading Receivers to DayLight.
Pocket Presence is all about how the QuarterBack responds to Pressure. Precision against mediocre Defenses or within simple Schemes matters not, if a QuarterBack mentally locks up under genuine Pressure against the better Defenses in The Only Games That Really Matter. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure that I even need this Category, because I strongly suspect that how a QuarterBack handles Pressure is far less about Testicular Fortitude than it is about Processing Speed.
FirePower is another Category that I am ambivalent about including, for it is simply DownField Precision. Furthermore, I don't consider it anywhere near as Short & Intermediate Precision, because DownField Precision makes for lovely HighLight Footage, but it's Short & Intermediate Precision that Moves The Chains and wins Championships.
Please note, if you will: I list FirePower last of the 4 Attributes I value most...and don't list 40 Speed at all.
Beyond this point, my Fellow FootBall Fanatics, you will find a lengthy Dissertation about QuarterBacks. Should you wish to take a look, I will of course be honored. But should you wish to spare yourself, the actual Scouting Report is far below!!
Yon Rambling Dissertation
Arm Strength is vastly overrated, and scrambling ability, while exciting, is ultimately worse than useless, because History makes it clear that noteworthy Scramblers, over the years ~ and indeed, the same could be said about the thousands of QuarterBacks who've failed despite a great Arm ~ ultimately fail to focus all their energy on QuarterBacking.
Mobility, alike, is vastly overrated. Steve Young is the only Scrambler who ever won a Super Bowl, and he won it because he was on a great team, because Barry Switzer can't coach at the NFL level or the CowBoys would've rolled the Miners again in 1994, and because he eased up on the scrambling. He became a QuarterBack.
Mind you: I'd hardly suggest that Arm Strength isn't nice to have...But the temptation to let'er rip ~ and to relying on that Capacity ~ can have a crippling effect on developing those skills that most matter, deep in the Heart of Winter.
And often they have been.
Countless times, in fact.
And don't get me started on Scrambling.
Processing Speed and an insatiable Work Ethic, producing that relentless Devotion to mastering every possible Aspect of the Job ~ the Aspects I've listed above ~ and Balls are what ultimately win Championships.
It's not as easy as simply counting the Rings, because Fortune & Circumstance play a large part in the Fates of Men.
And it sure as Hell isn't racking up gaudy Statistic during the regular Season. It's the Capacity and the Will to do the thousands of little things that put one's team in the best position to win, day in and day out ~ and doing them well ~ that is the ultimate measure of any QuarterBack, albeit one ~ ironically ~ that's impossible to quantify.
It's the ability to Read & React with Speed & deadly Accuracy against the nastiest, wiliest Defenses on the Planet, deep in the Heart of Winter...and the Will to dedicate Years to intensive Training & Study in order to be able to.
That ~ and his willingness to Use The Whole Pig ~ is what once separated Tom Brady from the Pack.
Precision. Outstanding. Commands an intensively developed level of Touch, Timing, & Precision to all levels of the Field.
Pocket Presence. Phenomenal. Rock Steady Under Fire, always his eyes DownField. Balls of a Lion.
FirePower. Excellent. Not overpowering, mind you, but strong Mechanics, Velocity, & DownField Precision.
The Draft Process will doubtlessly do what it always does over the course of the next 7 months, which is to make most Draft Ghouls sick to tears of hearing Teddy BridgeWater's name…which will unconciously open them up to anything ~ anything ~ detrimental to the lad, in order to assauge the grind of relentless Praise.
Such is The Nature of the Beast.
But as Starlite Lotulelei, effusively praised all Summer, Autumn, and Winter, over the course of the 2012 Season, was indeed ~ in my allegedly humble opinion ~ the Premier Pick of the 2013 Draft all along…So do I expect that I will probably still be singing Teddy BridgeWater's Praise, come late April.
There's no such thing as a Perfect Prospect.
Only a Fool would think otherwise.
But Teddy BridgeWater is ludicrously prepared to succeed at The Next Level.
He is a potentially awesome Scrambler who has long since realized that his best Path to Greatness lies elsewhere.
His Diagnostic Acuity, Before the Snap, is outstanding.
And his Processing Speed Under Fire ~ which is 1000% more important ~ is magnificent.
He was already far and away the best Draft Eligible QuarterBack in this entire Class, at the end of 2012.
And then he got better.
He is Humble.
He is Driven.
He is by all accounts a phenomenal TeamMate, and a natural Leader of Men.
He was born to play QuarterBack…and he is worth far more than merely a single #01 Pick.
Thanks, as always, to the extraordinary Work by the men of Draft BreakDown!!
Buy!!
Perceived Market Value #1!! | Yankee Grade #1!! |