Quote
RockRam
But the short memories are especially maddening.
Weeks before the draft, every TV GM, draft guru, former players (especially former QBs), former HCs and current college HCs, talk about how high expectations are for rookie QBs, and how foolish it is to have them. Even fans display tempered thinking. And that the best thing that can happen to most QBs coming out, no matter how high they're drafted, is to hold a clipboard for a year because there is so much to learn. Now throw in for Goff that they don't even have stable training facilities; he's about to move into their 3rd facility in a matter of 4 months. And they KNOW they don't have very good WRs and the Oline are a bunch of young guys with little experience.
AND.....typically if a kid is really good he comes out early, so he doesn't have the maturity, physically or mentally. Yes......some DO....but rarely. Goff is a skinny 21 year old.
Ah, but once the draft happens and a QB is drafted high, all that goes down the drain. Suddenly the same people who counseled reasonable expectations a few weeks earlier now go negative if a rookie QB doesn't look in his first preseason game like the second coming of Peyton Manning; then he's a disappointment. If he struggles, maybe he was a mistake.
Or like Goff, he is very inconsistent. One great throw, one head scratcher. Complex NFL defenses flumox him; he hasn't got his speed up to match the NFL speed yet.
This stuff about "MOST' NFL ready was media talk.
It was wrong to have had Bradford start in his rookie year, even though for a rookie he did well. Injury, bad habits, and ghosts of non-existent pressure started building up in his head. Bad WRs, not very good Oline. The confidence and swagger that the best QBs have never happened because a) Bradford was on a bad team, and b) he wasn't ready to start. Same thing happened to David Carr. Same thing happened to Couch. Guys whose career trajectories might have been very different had the team they were on surrounded the QB with much better players, and had the young man had a year to learn while not under duress.
I have no idea how Goff is going to do in the long run. Nobody here does either. When I watch the good passes he makes that fly like lasers into tight windows, it is amazing. I see him deal with the spotlight very well. He stays positive and doesn't deny it when he doesn't do well. I think he's going to be a darn good NFL QB, but I've been wrong before (I truly thought Bradford would grow into it, but to be battered, bruised and beaten and seriously injured changed the entire equation).
We'll see. But I have said since before training camp, that my druthers is that Keenum looks sharp during camp and preseason games, and he starts the season as the QB with Goff on the sidelines learning, observing, and safe.
I got the wish.
