Making the cases for Johnny Manziel or Brian Hoyer as starter
August 19, 2014Indians extend Scott Atchison
August 19, 2014Mike Tanier at Sports on Earth gives us his impressions of the quarterback competition based on Monday night’s game this morning. He didn’t hold any punches.
Pettine and his staff must select between a prospect so physically, mentally, and emotionally unready for the NFL that he can’t get through a Sharknado-quality hate-watchable preseason game without flipping the bird on national television, and a 28-year old who has started four games in six years with four teams who cannot deliver accurate passes on shallow crossing routes.
It gets worse.
No ordinary corporate-styled team conference room will do for such a decision. Pettine needs to hold a séance. Or an Irish wake. The choice between Brian Hoyer and Johnny Manziel is the choice between facing inevitable death with incense or Jameson.
Oof. Tanier also takes aim at Manziel’s ability to make something happen with his feet.
Manziel, meanwhile, was helpless. What’s frightening is how slow he looks when running. Redskins linebackers easily tracked him down. Ryan Clark chased him to the sideline on a designed keeper. Clark was too old for the Steelers secondary, where Ike Taylor played with Jack Lambert and fought at Antietam.
A thorough read of the entire piece is required.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Tanier’s comments comes towards the end of the piece when discussing Kyle Shanahan’s responsibility for the mess.
None of the quarterbacks on the field Monday looked fundamentally or mechanically sound. Pettine must be glaring across the decision room at Kyle Shanahan. Son of Shan had two promising young quarterbacks to work with for two years in Washington. One, who arrived as the most athletic and mature can’t-miss quarterback prospect of the last decade, now throws sideline interceptions off his back foot and bruises his inner thigh while scrambling in the open field. The other overthrows everything over the middle while underthrowing the deep sideline.
Oof.
[Related: Making the case for Manziel or Hoyer as the starter]
41 Comments
I didn’t think Manziel looked slow.
Me either. Definitely looked fast against the Lions. I thought the Redskins looked like they were on steroids (okay maybe I’m just being a little bitter).
I did.
Not to be a Shanahan defender, but that critique was a huge joke.
“One, who arrived as the most athletic and mature can’t-miss quarterback prospect of the last decade”
– if you casually forget about that guy who was drafted ahead of him. Also, no one I can remember thought RG3 was without risk.
” If Shanahan and his father turned Robert Griffin into this baffled, banged-up, publically-humiliated stumblebum”
– Except for that part where he had the greatest rookie QB year of all time and was coming off a gruesome ACL tear last season.
The other overthrows everything over the middle while underthrowing the deep sideline.
– QB’s who are drafted 102nd overall tend to do things like this. That’s why they weren’t drafted in the first round.
A glimpse of the answer appeared when Manziel flashed the finger in the third quarter
– I’m not sure how this reflects on anyone but Manziel. Assuming the ludicrous proposition that it reflects on anyone else, it would necessarily reflect on the entire offensive coaching staff and Pettine.
That criticism is a complete joke that states unsupported opinions as fact.
I did actually. But he was never “fast” anyway. I’m not sure why this is news to people. He has really good vision though.
Take one bad org under a new HC and new OC introducing a new offensive system. Add an unproven veteran QB and a tabloid sensation rookie QB. Remove all receivers except the completely distracted, uninterested one. Stir over high heat of nationally televised game and a week plus of breathless analysis and hype of “Johnny v. RGIII.” Now mix in 1,567 analysts and writers covering game as their big work of the month.
Voila. Barbed, searingly funny piece that appropriately trashes this morning’s Browns mess. Whatevs. The issue is whether Pettine even knows how to start cleaning it up.
Get a load of Uncle Jimmy rocking that Glen Plaid.
an Irish wake
Hey, so Tanier has been to the Muni lot before games
One, who arrived as the most athletic and mature can’t-miss quarterback prospect of the last decade
uhhhhh…..Tanier knows that Andrew Luck went before RGIII and was the most can’t miss guy and is extremely athletic, right?
I think Manziel is still thinking too much he needs to just playing the game…but I do lay some of blame at Kyle’s feet. He has made this offense so rigid that if there is one missed word you have your receiver in the wrong spot. Manziel can throw from many platforms and angles… let him adjust, but his receivers have to be “heads up” and expecting a throw at any time. They need to get open and let Manziel find you. I think this whole offense is tied in knots trying to execute this plan that works on paper as long as everyone plays like robots… which is perfect. they don’t besides where is the fun in that?
I don’t know. I think part of the urgency of naming a starting QB is also so that the OC can have an opportunity to develop a game plan for just one guy. For all of Shanahan’s faults, the one thing he does pretty well is design a plan for the guy at the helm and not get too caught up in making the guy at the helm fit the system. For all of camp, he’s been tasked with essentially formulating two offenses so that each of these guys can individually excel. Shanahan clearly had a bad game last night, but naming a starting QB will allow him to nail the offense down for one guy.
I think it was pretty evident that Manziel was doing everything he could last night to not run at all. It looked to me as if he was consciously trying to play differently. He might have looked slow simply because he didn’t run much. (But I agree, when he did run, he didn’t look slow to me.)
one missed word you have your receiver in the wrong spot
that is pretty much all NFL offenses. perhaps Chip’s spread is a bit different, but even he has a crazy multitude of formations that he runs his plays out from.
As much as I dislike Gruden, he made some astute points about these guys splitting reps with the first team and how that can disrupt timing. If they name one guy the starter, it gives them 2 more weeks to get some comfort for the starters.
Welcome to the NFL Johnny.
Wait a minute….. you mean to say that a QB competition between two guys that should not be NFL starters isn’t going well?
GET RIGHT OUTTA TOWN.
“They need to get open and let Manziel find you.”
That is a tough game plan to win with in the NFL more than once or twice.
Your first paragraph is exactly why I don’t want Manziel starting week 1. Reminds me of the last time the Browns threw out a first round quarterback with the #2 jersey and a bad supporting cast. That didn’t turn out so good.
Okay, guys, let’s all step away from the 480 bridge. We can grieve today because the wounds are still fresh. But things will look better tomorrow (they’d have to, right?).
It can’t have all gone so bad so quickly, can it?
It’s like one of those 3D eye puzzles
PLUS they have to design a cover for the programs
we are all running out of tomorrows…WFNY
Connor Shaw is just as fast as Manziel, was poised in the pocket in college and he can actually run the read option.
Not drafting Bridgewater could set us back for a long time.
“It can’t have all gone bad so quickly, can it have?”
… who says it had gotten any better at any point?
Not drafting Bridgewater could set us back for a long time
Not drafing Sammy could set us back for a long time.
There, fixed that for you.
“They need to get open and let Manziel find you.”
— The NCAA Football Playbook, page 1.
Also, what’s up with Uncle Jimmy’s “hands on” approach to all of his Quarterbacks.
http://www.ohio.com/polopoly_fs/1.324670.1344051026!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_500/bsale04cut-06.jpg
https://waitingfornextyear.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Haslam-Manziel.png
Exactly.
Unfortunately, this is all we have to freak out about right now. This time last week we all felt we had two decent options at QB. Now we have none. Who knows what world of wonder will be presented to us in game 3?
I REALLY want to know what Haslam was saying here… thoughts?
i think that making the trade with Buffalo was easily a great decision. I think the decision that you can argue is whether or not the Browns should have taken a WR in the first 2 rounds.
Personally, I’d rather have the extra 1st rounder and Gilbert than Sammy right now.
Keep it simple. Joe Thomas 😉
Amen to all of this. I thought the Shanahan criticisms in this piece were a complete joke.
Man, if this mouthbreather is still writing for Sports on Earth…I can only imagine how bad those writers must have been who were laid off.
“When you stare at my jacket, what 3D picture do you see? A sailboat? It’s a sailboat, right?”
upticked for the punchline, but I have a real pet peeve about the mouthbreather part of it.
every single day that goes by we each have 1 less tomorrow.
the stripes on your shirt are diagonal. they should either be vertical or horizontal, preferably BOTH.
It’s a schooner!
“Ah seen ya eyeballing my daughter, and if ah see that again your ass is in Indianapolis, behind Andreh Luck. Now, we clear?”
We’ve drafted good receivers before. A great QB can win with less than stellar receivers.