Who was the last great QB taken on the 1 pick who saw this amount of "posturing" pre-draft? Who was the last guy who wasn't the #1 prospect on anybody's big board? The 2014 draft order is indeed somewhat unsettled. Jadaveon Clowney is #1 on many boards and no lower than #2 on any of them. Jake Matthews is #1 on a few boards and no lower than #5. Anthony Barr ranges from #3 to #5. Teddy Bridgewater floats between #3 and #9 on all of them. He's been as low as #12 recently on one major board. That's not where a great QB prospect coming out of college sits at this point in the draft process. The position is so important that if the guy is truly a great prospect he is #1, no questions asked.
I'm not saying it's his fault that he played a weak schedule during his tenure at Louisville. But it's not like he was playing the cream of the crop. I just don't see how people can say he's going to be so amazing when we just haven't seen him go up against any great talent.
You are making this more complicated then it should be. I don't know how much you have watched of Bridgewater, the way you post about him, I'm guessing not a lot. ..but here is the thing. You watch the tape, you watch what he brings to the table, you just get a strong feeling that he is going to be a very special player in the NFL. It's simple, call it an eye test, whatever, he has much higher odds of being successful then any other QB in this draft. Easily the highest odds. When you look at QB's from the past you just kinda have a feeling that they might be bad in the NFL. Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler, JaMarcuss Russell, Brady Quinn, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, Jake Locker, Tim Tebow, Brandon Weeden, etc.. Most of these QB's I could'nt believe they were being drafted where they did, especially the 2011 draft class for QB's. Team's were incredibly desperate that year. When I look at most of these QB's in this draft I don't see a lot of good ones at all, it may just be like the 2011 draft class in which a lot of scrubs get drafted early at the position because of desperation. I don't think it will happen, but we will see. I don't think that Bridgewater fits the mold of uncertainty like a Tim Tebow, Brandon Weeden, Jake Locker, Christian Ponder, Blaine Gabbert, etc.. He is more on par with an Andrew Luck, Cam Newton... Do I think he is as good as them coming out of college, no I don't. Do I think he is far and away better than anybody else in this draft. Hell yes I do. Teams would be absolutely foolish to pass on Bridgewater for some other QB in this draft. If Manziel is the first QB taken, that will be an epic fail. I don't think he will be anything in this league and I think he is on par with the other pretenders like Tebow, Quinn, etc.. You can just see the "it" factor with these guys sometimes and I can see it with this kid, he is hands down above and away the smartest QB in this draft and that is going to go a long way in his draft stock as well. I hope the Jets are the one floating all this bullshit around the media, if we landed this kid I would lose my mind in joy. No question about it. It wont happen but It would be sweet tits if we did.
Maybe so, but Bridgewater takes a lot of big hits. That's not going to work in the pros for long. He often throws to where the receiver is not where he's going to be. Davante Parker made him look really good with some adjustments on balls thrown in the air. If you have a 5 yard gap on your defender it lets you slow up and make the catch anyway. He made more than his share of throws into a contested space where the defender could make a play on the ball but didn't or dropped it once he did. That's not going to work in the pros for long. His touch on screen passes is not great. He often threw the ball to a location where the receiver had to adjust to the throw before he could turn up field. His ball placement on deep passes had a strong tendency to be where only his receiver could catch it, leading to a lot of great catches and a lot of over throws. I just don't see a great QB there. If you put really good people around him he can definitely do the job and will probably be very good but if you have average talent around him he is going to be average.
I get the feeling you have no idea what you are looking at Bridgewater is better than a lot NFL qbs at anticipation throws and throwing to where receiver will be... Have you watched Bridgewater at all??? draftbreakdown.com/players/teddy-bridgewater/[/url]
LOL so true. Some guys here just don't want to draft a QB this year and will say anything that pops into their head. Whoever wrote an analysis about Teddy not throwing to spots where a receiver will be or not having touch on screens or on deep balls has never seen him play. Too funny. _
I didn't get the feeling he takes too many hits, but pretty much on the rest I agree. I only watched three Louisville games this year but I came away with similar impressions... I like everything about him except for precision. Here is what I wrote after the Miami game... I just finished the Louisville/Miami game. I have every action play down for Bridgewater. He had two plays that were amazing, both on that last drive of the 1st half. Other than that, he was not very impressive throwing the ball. He was high or behind the receiver on almost every pass that wasn't a screen or a dump off. I'll post everything I wrote down once I'm not posting from my phone. Teddy Bridgewater, to me, is someone who is much better at knowing what to do than being able to do it. *edit* Well,that's not quite right. I'd say Bridgewater's biggest weakness is his accuracy. I saw it every game of his I watched all year and this one was not different. Here are his pass plays: 1st Quarter 1. Didn't see CB blitz, took sack for safety. 2. Rollout, hit out route for 1st down. 3. Out route, thrown behind receiver (this became a recurring theme), adjustment and caught for 1st down. 4. Play-action, open TE in flat,caught for 1st down. 5. Scramble to avoid sack, found Parker (WR #9) open for first down 6. Missed/overthrew go route by 4 yards on a 20 yard route 7. Was high on out route, exposed WR to coverage, was dropped. 8. Recognized confused coverage pre-snap, hit hot slot receiver on slant. 9. Tons of time in the pocket, overthrew corner route to open TE. No pass rush. 10. 3rd & 15, stepped up in pocket,nobody open, hit FB for 6 yards allowing 43 yard FG. 11. 1st and 5, hit slant for 1st down. 2nd Quarter 12. Throwing to a stop route, deflected by DT. 13. Nicely timed WR screen, looked off to right, throw went to left. 14. Out/Flag route to TE, thrown behind receiver, TE was hit and dropped ball. 15. Multiple progressions, checked down to RB for 2 yards on 3rd and 3. 16. Stationary Parker 5 yards downfield complete, CB misses tackle. 17. Rollout, hit RB but thrown behind receiver again. RB got hurt getting hit turning back around after catch. 18. Strike to stationary Parker on stop route. Good timing. 19. Good throw on post... had 1:1 coverage, let Parker get inside corner to catch TD. 20. Out route thrown behind receiver AGAIN, dropped, almost picked. 21. 2nd read, hits WR on shallow cross1 yard short of 1st down. WR had to stop for ball (read: thrown behind receiver) and was tackled immediately. 22. Throw to covered Adams broken up by Gunter. 23. 1:35 left in quarter, throw to WR over the middle for 3 yard gain. 24. !!!! Scramble out of pocket, hit improvised corner route to #7. Beautiful touch on the move. Superb play. 25. Stop route to #7. Complete for 7 yards. 26. Slant thrown VERY HIGH to Parker (had to jump for it) but complete. 27. !!!! Post-corner route TD. Again, very nice touch. 3rd Quarter: 28. Threw behind on a route that looks like a circle route but from the WR alignment. WR had tostop to catch the ball instead of catching in stride. After the pass, Bridgewater seemed upset the WR turned to take the ball back the other way, but it's because he had to stop for it. 29. Designed wheel route, complete 30. PA go-route, underthrownjump ball. Parker vs. Gunter, incomplete. 31. WR screen, big gain. Bad tackling, good blocking. 32. Bootleg TE drag, good pump fake to neutralize blitzer to complete pass. 33. Found RB checkdown on circle after 1st read covered (+8 yd) 34. Middlescreen to RB #32 Perry, nice power for 30 yard TD. 35. Underthrew Parker who had Gunter beaten by a full step. Underthrow allowed Gunter to break up pass. 36. Complete out route to slot receiver who had LB matched up on him (either 1st read or pre-snap read) for 14 yards, first down. 37. PA Rollout, hit Parker on drag route. 4th Quarter 38. Dump off to RB who turned it into 20 yard gain. 39. Complete to Copeland (WR #7) who ran a drag and had stopped over the middlefor 3 yard gain on 2nd and goal from the 8. 40. Bootleg run for TD. 41. Hit Parker on slant route from slot (was behind receiver again), nice catch. 42. On rollout, nice job avoiding sack, ran for +4. 43. Overthrew WIDE OPEN Copeland on post, but was under pressure 44. Go route jump ball won by Parker when CB stumbled just before pass arrived. CB was in position to make play on the ball before stumble. 45. Threw high to TE on slant. Jumped to catch ball and got lit up by LB on the way down. LB got called for targeting and ejected. 46. Complete on 5 yard out to right sideline on second read. 47. RB middle screen, no gain. 48. Rollout, hit Copeland on sideline. 49. Slant to WR #6, behind receiver nice twist back to catch and turned into a big gain. He throws high on a lot of vertical routes and behind on a lot of crossing routes. Overall, I like him a lot but those are significant problems that quick corners are going to knock down (horizontal) and active safeties are going to pick (vertical). Both prevent YAC. Look at the YAC in that game, the screens are where his receivers got significant YAC. Again, I like Bridgewater, but he has warts just like all the other QBs in this draft. JMO. *Edit* Also, prior to the Miami game, he threw to a whole bunch of stationary targets. Vs Houston, he completed (IIRC, may have been 5) 4 passes the whole game to a moving target that was beyond the line of scrimmage. He threw 29 passes that game.
The reason this stands out for me is that Bridgewater has a rep for keeping his eyes down field under pressure. The rep is well deserved. This however means that he gets creamed periodically when he is scrambling around in the pocket looking down field and somebody hits him from an unexpected direction. The pressure he faced this year was pretty consistent and he generally reacted well to it but he did take a few crushing hits in the process. I didn't see him cover up and go down once in the full game tapes I watched. This even when he had somebody right in his face and the ball still in his hands. In the NFL I think that's going to have to change. Either his team is going to have to protect him much better than Louisville did or he's going to have to start watching out for the head hunters.
Brady Quinn? Seriously? Notre Dame players are always grossly overrated. I never thought Quinn was worth a crap either. I thought the same thing about Jimmy Clausen too. Of course if he goes to Houston he'll have it easier and be on a better team initially, but I disagree with your statement that if he goes elsewhere that his career might be less. Who knows what will happen? Houston could not only continue to struggle, but actually do worse under O'Brien. Add Bridgewater and the right other players to any of the other teams save Oakland, and they could move past Houston in fairly short order. Cleveland already has Josh Gordon and Cameron Jordan. With where they're picking in the draft, they could easily come out with another topflight WR prospect or two, another good TE prospect, and still have great picks to shore up their OL and/or D. They also have at least $20 million in cap space, so they could also sign some additional offensive help in FA. Of course he'd suffer in Oakland, because that's a black hole. He'd also suffer some in St. Louis because he would have a clueless OC in Schotty, at least for a while. Jacksonville is pretty bereft of offensive talent, but they do have a few pretty good players in Maurice Jones-Drew, Cecil Shorts, Clay Harbor, Justin Forsett and Marcedes Lewis. They also have one of the best young LT prospects in the NFL. Again, picking early, they could add both excellent WR and TE prospects, and shore up their OL. It wouldn't be a high pressure situation and he should be easily able to beat out Blaine Gabbert or Chad Henne. Their D has some good young players. Atlanta has no need for him. Tampa Bay and Minnesota both have some pretty good to great talent on their teams.
I saw about 4 of his games this year and never once saw him take a big hit, nor have I read that anywhere else. Where are you getting that? I never saw the things you describe either. One of us needs a new pair of glasses. ;-) The only knock I've heard on him is that he needs to improve his accuracy on deep passes. His placement was excellent on most of his throws. I've seen him throw many perfect passes and fit a number of them into tight windows with plenty on the throws. He's poised, smart, doesn't panic, mobile, and all the things IIMeanDean said. I'm not a gambling man, but if I were I'd bet the ranch that Teddy Bridgewater becomes a star in the NFL. Any team that passes on him will regret it. I think the probable reason some of those GMs who missed horribly in 2011 are poo-pooing Teddy is because they're gun shy. They know they can't tell a good QB from a bad one, so they're just writing the whole class off, which is stupid. Either that or they're just blowing smoke hoping that Teddy will drop to them.
When you dump on every single QB coming out this year, this is what you should expect. You compare Teddy Bridgewater to Brady Quinn. _
A lot of nitpicking in this thread I see regarding Bridgewater - kind of sad. Yet we have some here throbbing on Geno Smith (even though he's a Jet we should root blah blah). Geno hasn't proved anything in this league. Geno Smith's football IQ isn't even close to what Bridgewater brings to the table. People questioning his toughness, should really read up on Bridgewater's story before they judge.
In 2012, Louisville played and beat UNC, Kentucky (a SE conference school), Pitt, Cincinnati, and Florida, and lost to Syracuse and Connecticut. In 2013, Louisville played and Kentucky, Connecticut, Miami, Cincinnati, and lost only to UCF. They also played Temple, Rutgers and others schools. I'm sure that Louisville and Teddy faced some great players. If you're going to rule out prospects or grade them way down because of strength of schedule, you're going to miss out on a lot of great players. Every year there are players from small schools who become stars in the NFL. You can't just look at the competition. You have to look at how the player fared against his competition. Teddy not only succeeded, he flourished and dominated.
Every player (and person for that matter) has bad days, and occasional bad throws. I can only tell you that in the 4 games I saw, I saw very little of what you saw in that Miami game. All prospects and players in the NFL have warts. No one is perfect.
He seems to have a good feel for pressure, and moves quite often. I'd much rather have a QB who stays in there to complete the pass and takes the hit rather than one who constantly bails as he's throwing the ball or who has no escapability. He's a smart player. It won't take but a big hit or two in the NFL, and he'll adapt. Hopefully, he'll wind up with a team that will give him good protection so he won't be running for his life.
I know! That was my observation. There are some really good QBs coming out this year-some REALLY good ones. Yet there are folks here who hate all of them, and you have to question their motivation if they can't find anyone that isn't too small or too inexperienced or too hyped or came out too early or too late or assuming there is some obfuscation going on. With ALL of them. You at least like some of them. :smile: _
