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Texans QB
David Carr
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You can’t drive a Ferrari in the snow.
The car is a high-performance vehicle designed for dry roads. It has a rear-wheel drive
transmission delivering a lot of power to wide, low-profile tires that would be great on
baking-hot asphalt in the middle of an Arizona summer, but they’re woefully inept at
traversing cold, snowy surfaces.
If you manage to back the Ferrari out of your driveway during a snowstorm, you’re
probably going to get stuck in the slushy side streets of your neighborhood, spinning your
tires futilely before you walk back home and call a tow truck.
If you make it out onto the main roads where the plows have done their work,
you’ll still skid every time you stop, spin your tires at every restart and fishtail
around turns. For all its power and ability, the car just can’t handle the
conditions.
That’s the dilemma NFL teams face when they draft a quarterback early in the first
round. He’s a Ferrari in the garage, and they paid a lot of money for him. It’s
fun to invite friends over to drink beer, stare at the vehicle and recite its performance
capabilities, but what the coaches really want to do is get the car out onto the street
and open it up.
But the forecast isn’t good. Snow is going to be on the ground for six months.
There might be an occasional sunny, dry day to take the car out for a quick spin, but it
can’t be an every-day vehicle at this time of year. So the coaches pull out an old,
beat-up Chevy Blazer to get from place to place. The truck is just a plodder. It’s
not exciting. It’s not going to make your pulse race. But it’s not going to land
you in a ditch either.
There are a lot of positions on a football field — most of them on defense —
where a rookie can come in and start right away. Quarterback just isn’t one of those
positions. There’s too much to learn, too many opportunities to make a mistake.
It’s just too easy for the opposition to fool him.
But there are a couple of Ferraris that will drive into the blizzard this season.
Fresno State’s David Carr, the first overall pick in the draft, will likely see a lot
of playing time for the Houston Texans. And Oregon’s Joey Harrington, the third
overall pick, might be the answer to a lot of questions for the Detroit Lions, who had a
quarterback-by-committee setup last year.
Are Carr and Harrington ready? Probably not.
Defenses are extremely complex, and a rookie quarterback will never understand their
tricks until he sees them with his own eyes — a few dozen times.
A wide receiver racing three steps ahead of the cornerback may appear to be wide open
to a rookie quarterback. He launches the ball, already celebrating what looks like a sure
touchdown. But the cornerback isn’t beaten; he’s playing trail coverage. If the
receiver stops on a hook or an out, the corner will be in position to take it away.
He’s got safety help over the top.
And it’s the safety, lingering on the hash with his hips already open in the
direction of the receiver, who quickly closes the gap and leaps in to pick off the pass.
On another play, the defense crowds the line of scrimmage with eight men, threatening
an all-out blitz. At the snap, four of those men drop back into coverage, but it’s
not the four the quarterback expected. He thought the three linebackers and the safety
would bail, but two of the linebackers rushed, and the defensive ends dropped off.
It’s a zone blitz, but the quarterback doesn’t recognize it right off. He tries
to throw the ball to his hot receiver on the slant, but the receiver isn’t fooled by
the zone blitz. He’s still running his regular route. The ball gets tipped by the
dropping defensive end and picked off by the cornerback.
Rookie quarterbacks simply aren’t designed to handle the situations they’re
going to face in the NFL. Look at Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning. In 1998, he
had the best rookie season in the history of the NFL. He completed 56.7 percent of his
passes for 3,739 yards and 26 touchdowns. Those are great numbers. On the negative side,
he led the league with 28 interceptions.
The simple truth is that no matter how good he is, a rookie quarterback is going to
spin out, fishtail and slide on the treacherous terrain of an NFL field.
The best-case scenario for a rookie quarterback is to give him a year-long tutorial on
the sideline. He can watch a veteran quarterback deal with the various challenges defenses
offer. Every Monday, he studies game tape, and the offensive coordinator explains what the
defense did and why the veteran quarterback reacted as he did. During the week, the rookie
gets reps against a scout team that will test him with the same tricks that the opposition
will use.
The worst-case scenario is that a young quarterback is thrown into the action too soon
and suffers a career-ruining jolt to his confidence. Nobody likes to fail week after week,
and that’s a special danger when you’re dealing with a super achiever who’s
used to succeeding. For Carr and Harrington, their confidence is a bigger asset than any
of their physical skills, and that confidence must be protected.
Manning thrived under pressure, while Ryan Leaf, the No. 2 overall pick in ’98,
wilted. Let’s hope Carr and Harrington perform like Manning.
Reggie Rivers played for the Denver Broncos from 1991 to ’96. His Web site is
located at http://www.reggierivers.com |
