mistertim

Again, most college QBs, especially young ones vs 5 year starters, are going to have some footwork and mechanical things to clean up (that's especially true when he had one OC in 2022 coaching him to use one type of footwork and a different OC in 2023 coaching him to use different footwork). And it's not like his footwork is godawful. It's mostly inconsistently on shorter drops. I don't necessarily see it as a reason to make him sit half the year unless he gets to camp and he looks dreadful. And as far as Daniels, what about all of the red flags? You seem to basically be hand-waving them away when they're actually very concerning. NFL QBs practically make their living deep down the middle into tight windows. And anticipation throws before WRs make their breaks are often the difference between a completion and an interception in the NFL. If he continues his historically low amount of times he throws after being pressured I fear he's going to get absolutely demolished when he takes more hits than necessary.

There's really no reason that Maye would have to sit and Daniels wouldn't. They both have things going for them and against them. Maye: Pros for starting soon - Has shown a full repertoire of NFL level throws in his tape. Tight window 2nd level throws over the middle, anticipation throws. All throws that are essential to be able to make in the NFL to be successful. Size and arm talent. Cons for starting soon - footwork gets sloppy, especially on shorter drops, less starting experience, can play too much hero ball and make bad decisions (though a fair amount of that may have to do with a poor supporting cast). Daniels: Pros for starting soon - Has a lot of starting experience. Very accurate on short drops and deep on the boundaries. Nice bucket throws. Legs could help him get out of trouble early. Electric runner. Good footwork/mechanics. Seems to go through progressions pretty well. Cons for starting soon - Really bad P2S ratio, really low percentage of times when he throws after being pressured which could lead to lots more bad hits...often drops his eyes almost immediately when pressured (seems to panic a bit when pressured). Very few tight window 2nd level throws down the middle, likewise with anticipation throws before his WR breaks. So this whole narrative of "Maye needs to sit a year" is simply not necessarily true. Yes, he has to clean up his footwork and some of his decision making, but that's true of basically every college QB coming into the NFL and it's really overblown. And it seems to be me that, at the same time, the red flags for Daniels are sometimes just ignored.

Kurt Benkert has been in the tank for Daniels from day one. If you watch his film breakdown of Daniels he goes out of his way to blame everything and everyone but him for the most part. It was the scheme, it was bad routes (nevermind the fact that he had two ultra elite WRs), it was bad OL play, etc etc. Even when Daniels just blatantly panic tossed an underthrown deep ball into double coverage that should easily have been intercepted, Benkert somehow, with a straight face, said he had no problem with the throw and blamed the WR. And Johnny Manziel is.........well, he's Johnny Manziel. I'm actually shocked that he wasn't drunk in that video.

I don't think it's so much that nobody "wants" to hear all the positives about Daniels. It's that there are so many red flag. From his lack of 2nd level throws, lack of anticipation throws, how rarely he throws when pressured and moved off his spot, etc etc. @Ghost ofhad a good post with a breakdown of some worrying analytics, some of which put him in a who's who of high level recent bust.

Thank god someone finally brought up the other issues with Daniels besides his frame. Lack of 2nd level tight window throws between the numbers, lack of anticipation throws, bad PTS ratio (and they talked about his entire career, not just his final season), historically low number of times he passes when pressured (and they acknowledged that, while it may have yielded some big plays in college, it's less likely to as often in the NFL), the fact that those red flags are still there after 5 years of starting. If seems like most breakdowns talk about how athletic he is, how fast is he is, his big 2023 season, and then just mention the frame as a negative and often simply hand wave everything else away.

I tend to agree, but at the same time I also think it's likely that as a scout he's done much more on Maye prior to this draft season than with Daniels. Maye has been considered a likely top pick for a couple of years now so it would make sense that he's watched him a lot, etc. With Daniels he probably knew of him and watched him casually, but as Daniels wasn't on anyone's radar before this past season, his analysis likely wasn't as deep. So if he started the deep dive process for Daniels just this draft season and really liked him, then I could possibly see him being a bit more on the fence between the two. Just playing devil's advocate.

Sure. Could be a few possible lessons. - Don't become too enamored by uber athletic running guys - Be cautious about drafting guys with a tiny amount of starting experience - Be cautious about drafting guys who played in small school conferences against mostly inferior opponents Maybe a combination of all of them. Who knows.

Trey Lance had basically one year of experience.

Wow those two pressers were very different, and Maye and Daniels have super different personalities it seems. Maye is clearly more extroverted and gregarious; more of a natural speaker, etc. Daniels seems more reserved and almost nervous, but came across well in his answers overall. Neither of those are all that surprising though, as we've heard before that Daniels is more of an introvert and tends to lead by example while Maye is more of an extrovert and vocal leader. I'm very curious as to how much of a role that plays in the decision making process for GMAP and DQ. From what I can tell so far, I think they both seem to lean more towards the vocal type of leader, but who knows

Ouch. That's pretty rough for Penix.

If you polled all NFL offensive coaches or head coaches and asked them "Would you rather have a mobile QB who, when pressured,: 1) uses his legs to slide in the pocket, escape pressure, and keeps his eyes downfield in order to make off platform throws, then runs if there's nobody open and he has green grass in front of him or 2) usually pulls his eyes down quickly and looks to run as soon as possible?" The vast majority of them would pick option 1.

The potential issue here is that I'm not sure coaching can do anything about it. It's just the way certain peoples' brains and bodies react to external stimuli. His reacts in a way where he goes much more limp and splays out. Some guys react in the opposite way, where they automatically get compact. Yeah you can condition that stuff over time. MMA fighters and boxers condition their bodies on how to take hits properly. But that usually not only takes a long time, but also takes getting hit a lot, and I'm not sure that's a great idea for an NFL QB's training regimen.

When he has a clean pocket and open guys? No. When he's pressured? Absolutely he does. And that shows in the numbers as well. He was at about 50% run when pressured vs pass or sack, which is a huge amount. You can see it in the tape as well. Often when he's pressured he's very quick to pull his eyes down and look to run, regardless of whether there's room to stop up or slide in the pocket or if there's an open guy downfield after he gets moved off his spot.

Most NFL QBs do not get hit like this every Sunday As @Rufus T Fireflynoted it's also the way he takes hits and how his body reacts to them. Some guys have a natural instinct to get compact and tighten up when they get hit, but some guys are the opposite and basically splay out and flop like ragdolls when it happens. That's how Daniels seems to be. It was also how RG3 was. It's a bit concerning because that's going to open you up to more potential ligament and joint damage.

It very well could be other factors at play. IIRC his coach from ASU stated something along the lines of he was coached to run. Not sure if anyone said that with LSU, though. The problem with that is that, even though he may have been coached to do it, at least early on, it's still all we have to go on. So we don't know if he would do that if left to his own devices. We don't know how easily it could be coached out of him. We don't know if pulling his eyes down is an instinct thing or a coaching thing. Sort of like the lack of tight window and anticipation throws. He has done it, but not much. So we have no clue if it's something he can do consistently like he'll have to at the NFL level. What's on the tape is what's on the tape, and on tape he bails very quickly when pressured. And yes, the same thing can be said for Maye and his footwork and short area accuracy issues. He has done it, but we don't know if it can be fixed or how easily. But that's where I weigh those things and personally think that the issues Maye has aren't quite as daunting when it comes to unknowns, but obviously opinions between the two will vary. As far as it being a negative vs positive, it's sort of like a guy who has a huge arm and often throws ill-advised bombs into coverage. When it works, it's awesome and a huge "wow" play. When it doesn't work, it's just a big cringe. The running quickly thing worked well for Daniels in college because he was just so much more gifted than most of the guys he was playing against. But IMO he's going to be facing a much tougher time in the NFL if he runs that often when pressured (and since he's probably going to get pressured much more in the NFL than he did at LSU). Even if he does manage to pick up some really good runs, he's still going to get hit a lot, just by the nature of basically turning into a RB when he bails from the pocket and takes off. And with a guy with his frame, every single hit is going to have us all wincing and watching to see if he gets up this time.

Do you think it's a bad idea to assume that a tendency in college may very well continue as a tendency into the NFL? At least until that tendency can be coached out? I mean, I get the hyperbole here, but you're not really even addressing the point, just mocking it without offering an alternative explanation or theory.

Pressure to sack ratio isn't a "twitter analytic" insofar as I assume you mean some random stat made up for the specific purpose of pushing an agenda. It's been around for many years and most analytics houses, including PFF, do a pretty good job of going through the tape when they compile it. As far as Daniels, I think he'll get sacked a fair amount and hit a lot, because of those two intertwined numbers I noted. I think he's going to face pressure he never faced in college, and even with a really good OL he still rarely threw when pressured and often immediately dropped his eyes and looked to run. IMO that worrying tendency is going to be magnified in the NFL. And that's bad news for a guy who's as slight of build as Daniels and who has shown a propensity for not protecting himself very well.

I mean...I guess this is one way of dealing with the issue. Just make it vanish? "Evanesco pressure-to-sack ratio!"

I am concerned about it with Maye. The reason I'm more concerned about it with Daniels is that I think it directly ties in with another worrying statistic, which is how rarely he throws vs runs when pressured. He is historically bad in this category. You can see it on film as well. The majority of the time when he's pressured he tends to almost immediately drop his eyes and look to run. And that was with a really good OL who usually gave him plenty of protection; he probably isn't going to have that in the NFL, at least at first. I just don't think that's at all sustainable in the NFL, especially running it that much with his slight frame.

Oh my god. You have to be trolling me. You have to be. Why is this so difficult to understand? The pressure to sack ratio is about the number of sacks relative to pressures. So when a guy is pressured, how often is he sacked? If he gets sacked a lot relative to how many times he's pressured then that's a concerning thing because it may mean he responds very poorly to pressure. If a guy is sacked 22 times but was pressured 160 times, then that sack number isn't that concerning because he had a low percentage of times he got sacked when pressured. If, on the other hand, he was sacked 22 times but was only pressured 90 times, then that's an issue because there were a very high percentage of times that he was pressured that he took a sack. Low numbers of pressures and sacks can have many causes. Often it has to do with being behind a very good OL, for example. That's why it's the ratio that's important, and not so much the raw number.

You're going back to the same argument he had, which was "well, he didn't take many sacks" Who cares? The entire point of the statistic is the number of sacks relative to the number of pressures. The raw number of sacks is definitely a number with no context. As I mentioned, the context can also be thought about in terms of how little he passes when pressured compared to running. So if he runs a lot when pressured, obviously he's not throwing it up for grabs to avoid sacks and obviously he's not going to throw a lot of INTs since...well, since the ball is never in the air. That's why those are two problematic stats that are IMO intertwined and will potentially cause a lot of problems in the NFL.

I think there is more to it, but it ties in with another problematic issue, which is how often he immediately looks to run when pressured vs. pass. That probably contributes to the pressure to sack ratio. So there may be more context, but IMO it's not actually good context.

This is an issue. "Doesn't feel like" "Doesn't believe" It's basically people acknowledging the problem but then hand waving it away without a second thought.

Nobody has debunked anything. It's a factual number. Replying to it and basically saying "well, I don't buy it" doesn't count as "debunking".