Low pay, and aiming at that will get you there. The thing is, most rookies are on pretty low contracts once they pay taxes and convert, not to mention living expenses being up here. After all that, even if you come in at 100k, what are you sending home? 25-30 maybe? For anyone with a family, it isn't a living wage being a rookie QB up here. Id say they have good talent. Skill levels, I mean, you always end up picking a tool kit that balances one of arm strength, and accuracy/touch. That's really all throwing sports. And part of the struggle in developing QBs. No different than MLB teams developing pitchers. The throwing talent is completely separate from throwing athleticism, and extraordinarily nuanced. You usually hope to end up with a guy who throws just hard enough and has the ability to put the ball where it needs to go, or a guy with a cannon and athleticism who is as much playing spray and pray in the pass game. Intangibles can be tough to quantify, beyond what you'd expect as well. Because basically all the QBs coming up are at best 2-year starters, it is very hard to tell what is a product of an intangible and what is a fluke or other factors. Back in the day, when every QB going pro was a 3-4 year starter, and a 3-4 year HS starter, you could get a much better evaluation of the guy. Yeah, I mean, teams and players don't want to wait. But at the same time, you only learn so much on the bench. I think young prospects need more seasoning in the first year and a half or so, then after that point. You really have to stress test them. Practice isn't a source of that at all anymore. So we see young guys who have sat for a year or two, know the system, understand most of the nuances of the game, but haven't been battle-hardened enough to be able to make use of those assets. If I were running a team, this is what I would do. Break down the QB prospects into 2 lists. Long list guys, and short list. Long list guys are ones that you've scouted extensively and are ready to keep around for 2 years, almost no matter what. Like how we waited out dru browns early struggles. The short list is guys who have the raw tools you like and may or may not be available. These range from flyers to guys you would watch for a few months to a season to get a better read on while they are on the team. Bring in 4-5 max of these guys. Assuming you have no real QB2, but a starter. You do install with your starter and give heavy, heavy rep time to the prospects. You likely would be lucky to have more than 1 long list guy at a time. So 3-4 short list guys, and as you see critical red flags, you replace them with other short list guys. Mainly, a lack of mental toughness, mental ability to read/progress/improvise, or a lack of the balance of touch/accuracy/release/strength required. You break camp with 3 on the ar, but any time you get one, you should take a vet for QB2. So you end up sitting with 2-3 developmental guys. Any long list guy, or a short list overachiever, goes on the 6-game out of camp. You test the mettle of the remaining kids, cycling them through pr, scout team, heavy drill use, and short yardage stuff on the ar. As they break, you replace them. At 6 games, if any are left standing, you switch them for the first group and sit them on the ir for 6, giving the first group a chance. So you sit a max of 2 QBs on the IR, with a starter/backup, and 2 guys going from pr to ir fighting for a spot. Repeat that grinder until you have 2-3 guys who are at least ready to be between qb2/3. Guys, you can't expect to easily replace them with free agents. Then, you run the blender again with them. You do this and hope to go into the next camp able to move on from QB2 or not being crippled if you lose qb 1. To run this blender, you need to be airlifting and cycling DBs and WRs as well. You can't really practice with QBs facing a real rush, but you can run a ton of Skelly. And you force them to run it on double time to create that friction to struggle against. You call snap, get the QB the ball, and he has to rely on post-snap read and reaction. Shorter than 5-second routes till whistle and next QB up. You'd also need more offensive coaches than D to facilitate running this. You'd each scout to dedicate more time to QBs than the rest, or maybe 1-2 almost full-time on QBs. You probably need to have 2 years to get to the point you want to be at. But most teams' QB plan amounts to either, Hope you hit the lotto, Hope your guy doesn't get hurt/diminish/retire/leave in FA, or Hope someone else can develop a guy who goes to FA that you can poach. Which is how you end up with 40 year old qbs with injury records longer than all the pages Stephen King has written. We are on the cusp of losing BLM, Zach, and Harris in this league. MBT and Masoli are basically done in all but paperwork. Vaj and Fajardo are 33-34 with a ton of wear. The pest hasn't played well outside of or been healthy-ish since 23. As bad as the coming rule changes are, the biggest crisis that the league faces is QBing. If that ship isn't righted with a new group of younger talent, the rest of the stuff will just be the straw that breaks the camels back.
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