Re: OT: Bears Talk - Justin Fields era begins
Posted: Tue May 4, 2021 8:11 pm
dougthonus wrote:dice wrote:TheSuzerain wrote:That's a case of correlation and not causation.
exactly. there's really no way of knowing whether they guy who starts from day 1 and succeeds did so because he got the early exposure or because he was GOOD ENOUGH to handle the early exposure and learn/grow. every case is different
The historical opinion has just as little evidence to support it. Maybe the QB position is just so different, but what other position in the NFL do you think would learn better by watching rather than doing? You have something like 6-7 months to look at game film and and other stuff, what more watching do you think is truly beneficial here? Especially since not starting you also won't get full reps with the 1st time offense and actually develop chemistry with guys you will play with?
The idea that it is better to start your QB from day one is a far more logical conclusion than he will be better and more prepared and less likely to fail if he waits longer and doesn't play at all. His skills are far more likely to get rusty by sitting rather than improve. I can't imagine any athletic activity that you have practiced for over a decade is going to get better by taking a year off and watching someone else do it. The whole concept is absurd on the surface. The only reason anyone buys into it at all is that it is conventional wisdom.
I think part of the reasoning behind sitting a rookie, no matter what the sport, but esp. at QB, is that you don't want him to lose his confidence. Instead, you bring him along slowly, put him at the end of blowouts against other teams backups, maybe start a couple meaningless games at the end of the year. That way he gets his feet wet slowly. We've seen it happen where rookies get thrown out there, throw a bunch of picks or get mauled in the pocket, and then seem to lose confidence, start second guessing their instincts, etc, and it just goes downhill.
In practice, even if he's going against the second team, he's still practicing against nfl players. So it's not useless. If you get in 3-4 practices a week, for say 10 weeks, that's 30-40 practice sessions against nfl players to get up to speed, get used to the offense, get used to nfl defensive schemes, etc.
There are pro's and con's both ways I think.