by A sports entity doesn’t market itself like the NFL. The shots of rabid fans idolizing legends in the making, the countless hours of pregame buildup, the wild popularity of fantasy football, the alternative broadcasts, the pressure to grow internationally. For most of the past two decades, no league has given its marketing department as much red meat as the NFL. But as for the product on the field, this season has been pedestrian offensively and especially putrid when it comes to quarterback play.
Tom Brady, who has been part of more than a few marquee matchups in his 23-year NFL career, weighed in on the state of football on ESPN uberpundit Stephen A Smith’s radio show earlier this week.
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“I don’t see the excellence that I’ve seen in the past,” Brady said. “I think the training is not as good as it was. I don’t think the development of the young players is as good as it was. I don’t think the schemes are as good as they were.”
Tough words from Brady but he’s not entirely wrong, especially about the lack of player development. Many of the young quarterbacks in the spotlight are replacing the wave of future Hall of Famers who have retired or aged out in recent years. In addition to Brady, we’ve bid adieu to Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers. And yes, we can throw Matt Ryan in there too. Some succession plans have worked out better than others – like Justin Herbert when his receivers decide to catch the ball and his coach isn’t pushing game management – but most haven’t. Thanks to the rookie pay scale, teams are increasingly rolling with undrafted quarterbacks while freeing up their salary cap dollars elsewhere, copying a formula deployed to perfection by teams like Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles with Jalen Hurts and the San Francisco. 49ers by Brock Purdy.
An unprecedented 10 first-year quarterbacks have started games this season, breaking the previous record of nine in 2019. Of those 10, Houston Texans’ CJ Stroud is the only one worth watching on a weekly basis, having shown that he is a smart player. It’s easy to get excited about undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito, the New York Giants’ understudy who lives at home, giving the Chiefs an improbable win — even if it was largely due to a Washington turnover — but not no one seems to be losing sleep. looking forward to his next game. The truth is, most of the rookies will be lucky to be on NFL rosters in a few years.
Part of the reason some fans feel the entertainment is in decline is that we, as the older generation is getting worse, are long past the days of Brady v Rodgers or (Peyton) Manning v Brees in the same week as side by side of. Ryan v Rivers – slates often delivered on the NFL’s breathless hype and made us spend all our Sundays in football.
Of course, those matchups were interesting because they had years to develop and percolate. And it is expected that new ones will replace those contests, like the game between Mahomes v Hurts that we saw on Monday Football this week. After all, Mahomes is already on his way to the Hall of Fame. And the NFL is full of great young quarterbacks who could join him, like Hurts, Herbert, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. But, right now, it feels like we’re a few years away from any NFL young guns permutation becoming a Brady v Manning rivalry.
For the younger quarterbacks who aren’t on the level of Mahomes, Hurt or Burrow, it doesn’t help their development that there are so many terrible signal-callers roaming the fringes of the NFL. Just ask the Chicago Bears’ Justin Fields; Matt Eberflus is clearly not taking advantage of his development. And it’s no fault of his own on the window that Fields succeeds under a true offensive wizard. A trajectory like Alex Smith’s was rarely considered a bust in San Francisco, before Jim Harbaugh took his career and Andy Reid helped him soar. (Then again, Reid himself is rare.)
Now we’re left with several misfit head coaches fighting for their jobs while chasing young quarterbacks. The ever-shortening head coach position, coupled with the premature shrinkage of young quarterbacks, has been detrimental to the position and, in turn, to NFL offenses. How are quarterbacks, and subsequently offensive systems, supposed to be sustainable in the current climate?
The consequences are in full effect. Yes, there are some great offenses like the Miami Dolphins that charge Tyreek Hill. But scoring has declined for the fourth season in a row. Teams combined to score an average of 45.9 points in 2021. This season, teams are combining for 43.3 points and the NFL is on pace for its lowest scoring season since 2009.
The scoring drop, however, isn’t just due to a struggling offense. The NFL is a cyclical league and offenses dominate for periods, before defenses catch up and the process starts all over again. And, right now, the league is in a period of defensive innovation. As college offensive schemes became adopted and flourished in the NFL, defensive coordinators turned to college to find solutions of their own.
This year’s most influential defensive coaches — Baltimore’s Mike Macdonald, New York’s Robert Saleh, Kansas City’s Steve Spagnuolo and Dallas’ Dan Quinn — have turned to college tactics to help mask coverage and disrupt. quarterbacks.
In particular, the defensive coordinators are influenced by the college style, ‘changing the downs’: applying pressure early in the distance and trying to force a drive play. And those pressures have become more sophisticated, a charcuterie board of zone-pressure, read-blitz, one-muggers and so-called creepers. When the running backs have gone later, the defenses have retreated, flooding the field with players in coverage and pressuring the quarterbacks to master the ball down the field. At every level of the defense, there are more moving parts than ever, more for quarterbacks to decode at the snap, and it can be very difficult for young players trying to find their footing in a league where the players are older faster, stronger and smarter than the ones they faced in college.
Of course, injuries to the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Burrow and Kirk Cousins are obviously a factor, not just for the scoring, but for the overall watch. But the league’s quarterback-friendly rules should also encourage offensive numbers to offset defensive innovation. Then again, most offensive lines have yet to catch up to the dominant pass rush era that now defines the NFL. Football purists can be easily satiated watching the hybrid defensive star Micah Parsons do his thing, but when he is against Washington’s porous offensive line and Sam Howell under center, it is just not the same.
The best v the best is what moves the needle, it’s what keeps the NFL talking all week long. But the NFL in its current state feels like a big let down.
