Aztec Hammer Posted February 3, 2018 Author Share Posted February 3, 2018 5 hours ago, MarkPrice25 said: On the subject of Sam Darnold, I like him a lot as a prospect. He's my favorite of the top guys, but his turnovers make me a little nervous. Is he just gonna be another DeShone Kizer? The fumbles are more of an issue to me than the interceptions. Having watched every game of his two seasons, and almost all of them live, I think the 'interception issue' is an overblown narrative on Darnold and there is context to the picks. The first season he was pretty good considering it was his first year starting. The 9 picks generally were a result of learning the game at the college level and were more inexperience at reading the game than boneheaded stuff. The second season, he had a tough time with interceptions early on in the season and was pressing a bit, but what people don't mention is that outside of the picks he was displaying arguably better all-round talent than the year before. And winning games. Some of the early picks were tipped by the receiver and some give and take nature like that. But he was having some difficulties adjusting to the woeful o-line, young receivers and simpleton play calling. As the year went on he corrected those issues quite well and fell into stretches of clean play, but the INT number was already high enough at this point to stick around in the narrative. Never mind he threw less INTs in his two years than Deshaun Watson, Matt Ryan, Jimmy Garoppolo, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning and many more top guys. The fumbles were more of an issue to me because I noticed that some tended to happen when the pocket collapsed and it would great ripped out before he could get the ball off. There isn't much any QB can do when defenders have clean swipes at their arm but coupled with Sam's Russell Wilson-like propensity to drop the ball downwards at the start of his release, I wondered if that might cause some issues in adding fractions of time for defenders at the next level. We see that with Winston getting stripped in the pros a lot. One thing I would say about the fumble numbers though is they are a bit skewed. They count a swing pass to Ronald Jones that he flopped trying to catch. That goes in the books as a Darnold fumble. There was a game against Utah (where he won with an awesome comeback and displayed high level skills) that was a disaster in fumble terms because his ball handling was awful, particularly with problems losing the ball at the mesh point with Jones in an option handoff. They go down as fumbles but they're not really concerning in a QB sense. Seeing the training video above gets me excited because he clearly has cleaned up or is in the process of cleaning up his release. Two hands on the ball and the ball didn't drop low at all. The release is also explosive and fast twitch. A lot of QBs no matter how hard they try struggle to change their muscle memory. Sam seems both young and smart enough to be able to learn and adapt quickly. It might be a blessing in disguise that he is relatively inexperienced in Quarterbacking. Because from year one to year two, and that video above, he is displaying to me at least, the ability to develop and improve as a QB in all facets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aztec Hammer Posted February 3, 2018 Author Share Posted February 3, 2018 "Going number one overall would be pretty sweet." Do the right thing, Dorsey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aztec Hammer Posted February 3, 2018 Author Share Posted February 3, 2018 Lance Zierlein is one of my favourite draft guys. I think he knows his football and isn't afraid to go against the consensus with his picks. Does a good job of judging players impartially. He just released his rankings and he has Darnold as comfortably his #1 QB. Comparison is Andrew Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FGK Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 On 2/3/2018 at 3:17 AM, Aztec Hammer said: The fumbles are more of an issue to me than the interceptions. The INTs are an issue in that they showed that he's behind the other top QBs (Rosen and Mayfield) in understanding defensive schemes and adjusting to unexpected twists thrown at him. As I've noted elsewhere, almost all of Rosen's INT's came when his team was losing and he had to press to come back. Almost all of Darnold's came when his team was winning and he pressed anyway. In the OSU game both of his picks came off of a twist they threw in where they rotated defenders to confuse the RPO. I like Darnold a lot. And I think he'll continue to mentally develop past these issues. But it is a concern that he didn't seem to do so year one to year two. Definitely not enough of a concern to eliminate him from being a 1.1 candidate though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mind Character Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Never have I been so certain on the longterm star impact of a QB coming out of the draft since Andrew Luck. Darnold is the most natural and instinctive (not prototypical and not fundamental mind you...that is Josh Rosen and Andrew Luck) passer I've ever seen in the 20 years that I've seriously studied draft prospects. The things he does naturally generated out of pure raw instinct/talent are rare on the level of Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger. The pocket poise, blitz avoidance and reset to a throwing platform, pinpoint accuracy when his feet are all over the place, etc... it's like he's playing QB in the street/backyard however his natural uncanny instinctive play WITHIN the pocket takes his game and impact ability to the next level. Most instinctive QBs can only show their prowess outside of the pocket, but Darnold natural passing instincts shine bright in the pocket when chaos is around him. Here's Waldman on some Darnold bonafides.... I'm really going to be devastated as a sports fan when we pass on him......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonanza23 Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 It’s nice to see now that the media got their clickbait out of the way that they’re finally catching up to my thoughts on Darnold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonanza23 Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 Love this kid. Dorsey DONT freaking screw this up!!!!! https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/2018-nfl-mock-draft-broncos-move-up-to-no-1-and-a-trade-for-every-first-round-pick/amp/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candyman93 Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 On 2/7/2018 at 3:16 AM, Mind Character said: Never have I been so certain on the longterm star impact of a QB coming out of the draft since Andrew Luck. Darnold is the most natural and instinctive (not prototypical and not fundamental mind you...that is Josh Rosen and Andrew Luck) passer I've ever seen in the 20 years that I've seriously studied draft prospects. The things he does naturally generated out of pure raw instinct/talent are rare on the level of Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger. The pocket poise, blitz avoidance and reset to a throwing platform, pinpoint accuracy when his feet are all over the place, etc... it's like he's playing QB in the street/backyard however his natural uncanny instinctive play WITHIN the pocket takes his game and impact ability to the next level. Most instinctive QBs can only show their prowess outside of the pocket, but Darnold natural passing instincts shine bright in the pocket when chaos is around him. Here's Waldman on some Darnold bonafides.... I'm really going to be devastated as a sports fan when we pass on him......... I’ve said his best comp is Jameis Winston. Who I compared to Big Ben. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruceb Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 I wish I had more confidence in Dorsey to do the right thing. Unfortunately, I do not. He is going to have to earn it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas5737 Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 1 hour ago, bruceb said: I wish I had more confidence in Dorsey to do the right thing. Unfortunately, I do not. He is going to have to earn it. That is pretty much my take on every hire. I was neutral on Sashi and Hue. After 2 years I was more impressed with one than the other, but that one is gone now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruceb Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 34 minutes ago, Thomas5737 said: That is pretty much my take on every hire. I was neutral on Sashi and Hue. After 2 years I was more impressed with one than the other, but that one is gone now. I was high on Sashi and neutral on Hue. Sashi rewarded my trust; we all -- except Haslam -- know how Hueball has performed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LETSGOBROWNIES Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 I was neutral on Sashi, at best, and high on Hue when they were both hired. Sashi and his philosophy won me over very quickly. Hue and his philosophy soured me on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas5737 Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 I'm still not sold on Sashi, it takes time for his plan to come to fruition. Even though he is gone 2 years down the road we will know more, most of us liked what he did with adding draft picks, including a top 5 pick this year and a slew of other picks this year. If a good number of his picks work out eventually he'll be well off in some other organization. Since we don't exactly know what we have with his picks yet Hue was able to play his "no talent" card. If we are terrible in talent and no one could do a better job than Hue so be it. It seems very unlikely of course but I suppose it's possible. It looked to me like he got the least out of his talent instead of making the most out of his lack of talent with his game plans and usage of players, but what do I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aztec Hammer Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 Really hoping Darnold blows away the combine and workout parts of the predraft. Getting a sense they are leaning towards Mayfield. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aztec Hammer Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 It's ironic. At least from my standpoint and my feelings about it all, it seems that Hue Jackson might be the only man that can save me from misery. Reading McCloughan's quotes is like a punch to the gut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.