David Carr: Mahomes showing what a difference a year can make for quarterbacks
The rookie class of quarterbacks, they’re all out there now. Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Josh Allen. With the first-round guys it’s everyone except Lamar Jackson, and they’re all taking their lumps.
But in Kansas City, Patrick Mahomes is showing the league what a year in development can do for a young quarterback.
He’s an MVP candidate – 31 touchdown passes, 9.1 yards per attempt, 315.0 passing yards per game for a team that’s 9-1 and leading the league in scoring.
The way Mahomes was brought into this thing and got to sit for a year behind Alex Smith, it’s just the perfect situation for a young, really athletic quarterback who borders on trying to do too much with the football. Smith is a guy who is pretty conservative with the ball, and then he’s working with a play-caller in Andy Reid who seems to transcend time and continues to get better and adapt.
It really helped Mahomes to sit there and watch Smith manage situations and work through that offense and see that the completions are there.
That’s huge for a young quarterback.
I’m old enough to remember guys would sit for four or five years. I’ve talked to Terry Bradshaw about this. He says he sat for a decade. He didn’t sit for a decade, but he sat there for a while and watched and learned. That’s the way they used to do it.
It’s just tough these days because you get that outside pressure – everybody wants the first-round draft pick to start. It’s difficult to say, ‘No, we’re going to be patient.’ Hue Jackson fought as hard as any coach I’ve seen fight for a guy to not play at all and Baker Mayfield has started, what, eight games now? It’s crazy.
If you have the luxury of letting a guy sit there and wait and watch a veteran quarterback do it, that’s the ideal situation. We didn’t have that luxury when I was in Houston. They had that luxury in Cincinnati with Carson Palmer. Jon Kitna was there and Palmer was able to sit and watch him for a while, and Kitna played good football.
Kitna is every similar to Smith. He didn’t take a ton of chances. He was efficient. And the Bengals didn’t have to rush Palmer. I can imagine him sitting and saying, “OK, I have more ability than this guy, but he still moves the ball down the field, so what can I take from his game that’s going to make me that much better?” I think that’s what Palmer did in Cincinnati and I think that’s what Mahomes is doing in Kansas City.
For a year, Mahomes watched how a veteran prepares, see how he manages the offense, how he handles himself as a professional.
Then the young, more athletic, big-armed guy steps in and takes those same attributes and takes it to the next level.
At this point, the 2018 rookie QBs just need to get out of this year healthy and not just physically but mentally.
In Cleveland, offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens has been able to come in and stabilize that situation. The Browns are trying to get Mayfield through this year while not asking him to do a ton. They have Duke Johnson. They have some playmakers. They’re using play-action. They’re using heavy run sets. Nick Chubb is starting to come on for them.
That’s what the Jets need to do. That’s what the Cardinals need to do. Because the more these teams drop their kid QB back to pass, the more he’s hit, the more he’s harassed, the more he will start to make bad decisions or start to rush his reads.
The more you do that, the harder it becomes to not pick up bad habits.
The sooner you can settle it all down, the better.
It might be opposite of what people think, but you have to protect the guy. You have to protect his mindset to where he still trusts the pocket, still trusts his guys and still trusts the system without getting his head knocked off.
That’s the battle they’re all facing.
David Carr answers your questions
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