When it comes to the care and feeding of rookie quarterbacks, NFL coaches are clueless. They can beat the Tampa 2, they can create endless stunts and blitzes, they can detail the intricacies of the spread offense, but they can’t figure out how to handle a rookie QB. NFL teams spend millions of dollars on wildly successful college QBs and then they turn them over to their coaches and cross their fingers.
In spite of the article, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for a rookie QB to do well eventually. But I think it’s safe to say that no team should expect a rookie QB to be effective at all that first year. The kid is basically learning on the job, and should be expected to make mistakes (and learn from them). Any team that starts a rookie is basically treating that whole season as pre-season games. And they better have a good O-line, because the guy is still learning how to evade tackles.
That rookie QB also needs good coaching no matter when he plays. The article talk about how badly Jets QBs have fared, but I would chalk that up to the Jets’ historically poor coaching more than anything else. (As much as I loathe the Jets, I have to begrudgingly admit that Saleh is doing a good job now, and Rogers doesn’t need any coaching anyway, but their prior coaches’ ineptitude is well documented.)
Total Agree on the Jets. You mess up with that many rookie QBs, it’s likely not poor drafting that’s to blame, you definitely look at the coaching situation. Take the guy who is starting for my Vikings as an example: Sam Darnold. He failed with the Jets and Panthers, had some good signs of improvement under Shanahan with San Fran but was still backup to Purdy because Purdy is just good, and now (granted only 2-game sample size so far) may be having his comeback moment ala Mayfield last year with Minnesota under KOC, a former quarterbacks coach, who also was able to get a few solid games out of Josh Dobbs with little to no prep time and was himself planning on not throwing JJ McCarthy to the wolves right away. A coach who knows how to handle the QB position can make a world of difference to new QBs coming into the league and supposed “bust” QBs who weren’t handled well early but may still have potential.