OFFICIAL Blaine Gabbert Thread

In 2005 this guy would probably go 1st overall... that's all I'm sayin'.

Originally posted by 49erFaithful6:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
I wonder if all these Gabbert jock riders have even watched him play. He's wildly inaccurate and makes Brett Favre like crazy decisions at key points during the game. Thows the wild interception that kills your team and loses the game. This is the most overrated guy I've seen on the WZ. What do people like? That he is 6'5"? It certainly can't be the decision making or accuracy.

Credibility when it comes to objectively assessing the potential of Blaine Gabbert:

1.) Resident webzone critic, football fan and Jake Locker fanatic, SanDiego49er?
2.) Highly respected professional college football/NFL draft analyst, Mike Mayock?

Hmmm, that's a tough one...

As the whole season played out I would say Locker has some work to do. And I wouldn't pick him real high at this point. But he has upside and athletic ability.

With Gabbert I don't see consistent accuracy or decision making. I think he's way overrated due to a weak QB class.

I don't see it as a weak QB class. You don't see 4 QBs being considered in the first round in 'weak' QB classes. You don't see as many as 10 QBs considered in the first few rounds in 'weak' QB classes.

The issue is clouded by how many teams are in such need for a QB, plus the very weak batch of FA QBs in the mix this year.

We must remember, the mocks are not as much about the potential of the player as they are about where they might be drafted THIS YEAR. With as many needy teams as there are, there will be guys that are picked 15-20 spots higher than they would have been in other years. For example, in the infamous 2005 draft. There were very few teams apart from the 49ers that needed a QB. Rodgers was highly regarded but fell all the way to GB. If there had been as many teams needing a QB that year as there are now, both Rodgers and Smith would have gone in the top 5...and another 2-3 would go between there and 20.

Originally posted by KowboyKiller:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by Nuns:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by teeohh:
Anyone know what his attitude, work ethic is like? Is he loud like rivers or a lamb like alex

He's got an NFL arm, he's a touch more accurate than given credit for on this board and had very little talent at the WR postition. His "go to" guy was TJ Moe, a converted QB (6 feet tall with no vertical speed). I have no idea how he'll translate to the pro game.

I do know MU went to crap two years ago after he hurt his ankle in the Nebraska game. He was prety much their entire offense.

I seriously don't understand the "hate" that people on this board have for Gabbert. it's unnatural and unwarranted. I can understand dislike, and even having a preference for other QBs (e.g., Locker, Stanzi, Ponder, Dalton, etc.). But people who berate him, call him "erratic," "wildly inconsitent" and "extremely innacurate." Just blows my mind.

Yah, he's a work in progress and isn't going to help a team this year (likely no QB in this draft will either), but if you actually watch him play (like Mayock has), it's hard not to notice how good of a QB he can be given the right coaching and system. He screams "west coast quarterback" in just about every way (big arm, great size, athletic, accurate, mobile, intelligent). He's everything Locker and Ponder are and possibly even more, in a bigger/younger package.

So again, I understand that not everyone believes in him and that we all have our preferences (I get that, and we can have intelligent discussions about the differences)....but the blind hatred for this kid is bordering on psychotic.

I think what people are questioning is if he is worth the #7 pick. It's pretty common knowledge that Locker or even Newton is not worth it so any suggestion of that is immediately ridiculed. Gabbert on the other hand, could be argued to be worth it, but if he is, then it would be at the expense of a Von Miller, an Amukamaranara or even a Peterson. That's where people question whether he is worth it, is he consistent enough or accurate enough to pass on one of those guys? It's the kind of thing that will cause panties to undergo a significant twisting in a place like this.

And those are all absolutely legitimate questions. And I'm not even advocating that we take him; I have my doubts as well, especially when you compare him to some of the defensive players that might be available when we pick. It's the blind hatred that's getting old.

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by KowboyKiller:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by Nuns:

Originally posted by GhostofFredDean74:

Originally posted by teeohh:
Anyone know what his attitude, work ethic is like? Is he loud like rivers or a lamb like alex

He's got an NFL arm, he's a touch more accurate than given credit for on this board and had very little talent at the WR postition. His "go to" guy was TJ Moe, a converted QB (6 feet tall with no vertical speed). I have no idea how he'll translate to the pro game.

I do know MU went to crap two years ago after he hurt his ankle in the Nebraska game. He was prety much their entire offense.

I seriously don't understand the "hate" that people on this board have for Gabbert. it's unnatural and unwarranted. I can understand dislike, and even having a preference for other QBs (e.g., Locker, Stanzi, Ponder, Dalton, etc.). But people who berate him, call him "erratic," "wildly inconsitent" and "extremely innacurate." Just blows my mind.

Yah, he's a work in progress and isn't going to help a team this year (likely no QB in this draft will either), but if you actually watch him play (like Mayock has), it's hard not to notice how good of a QB he can be given the right coaching and system. He screams "west coast quarterback" in just about every way (big arm, great size, athletic, accurate, mobile, intelligent). He's everything Locker and Ponder are and possibly even more, in a bigger/younger package.

So again, I understand that not everyone believes in him and that we all have our preferences (I get that, and we can have intelligent discussions about the differences)....but the blind hatred for this kid is bordering on psychotic.

I think what people are questioning is if he is worth the #7 pick. It's pretty common knowledge that Locker or even Newton is not worth it so any suggestion of that is immediately ridiculed. Gabbert on the other hand, could be argued to be worth it, but if he is, then it would be at the expense of a Von Miller, an Amukamaranara or even a Peterson. That's where people question whether he is worth it, is he consistent enough or accurate enough to pass on one of those guys? It's the kind of thing that will cause panties to undergo a significant twisting in a place like this.

And those are all absolutely legitimate questions. And I'm not even advocating that we take him; I have my doubts as well, especially when you compare him to some of the defensive players that might be available when we pick. It's the blind hatred that's getting old.

lol People just aren't very good at debating on the internets without getting pissy and vulger.

Smart person: "I'm not sure Gabbert warrants the 7th overall pick, I would've like to see more consistency and maybe another year with a better completion percentage."

Normal person with internets: "GABBERT SUCKS GABBERT IS STUPID IF THEY PICK HIM THEYRE STUPID AND THEY SUCK"

DRAFT HIM!!!!

I think Gabbert would fit better with a spread offense. That's what he did in college and that's what he excelled at. Try to put a square peg in a round hole like with what we did with Alex and it will cost us again. It's easier to come from a pro style college offense and go to the spread then come from a spread college offense having never taken a snap from center and doing just that in the NFL.

Originally posted by Gore_21:
I think Gabbert would fit better with a spread offense. That's what he did in college and that's what he excelled at. Try to put a square peg in a round hole like with what we did with Alex and it will cost us again. It's easier to come from a pro style college offense and go to the spread then come from a spread college offense having never taken a snap from center and doing just that in the NFL.

IMO it's the other way around, he was a pro style qb put into a spread in college

video of mayock on gabbert

I'm just really confused about the hype on Blaine Gabbert.

It just seems like all the negatives for QB's coming out of college are just being ignored for this guy.

1. He played out of a pure spread, often in 4 and 5 wide formations
2. He put up okay numbers playing in a very passer friendly offense (even Chase Daniel was 63% as a sophmore and 68% as a junior)
3. He did not really come up big in big games
4. He did not have many challenging "in the pocket" throws with bodies flying around him and people in his face

Furthermore, taken from a post from today's 49ers Hot Read blog (link ):

Nothing like 15 minutes to closing time at the bar to start making those homely chicks look like stunners. For those of us not wearing beer goggles, we can see that Blaine Gabbert is NOT the QB the 49ers need.

Of the defenses Gabbert faced last year, only ONE, Nebraska, had a pass defense in the top 40 in the nation. In that game, Gabbert completed 18 of 42 attempts, or 42.9%, for 199 yards. Half of his yardage came in the 4th quarter when Nebraska was up by three scores and playing soft zone.

In the Insight Bowl against Iowa’s pass defense, 55th ranked (yards) and 104th (TD’s allowed), Gabbert threw 1 TD and 2 INT’s. BTW, this is out of 120 teams in the defensive rankings.

From 2009 to 2010, Gabert’s TD/INT ratio went from 24/9 to 16/9, and his rating dropped from 140 to 127, despite another year of experience and a weaker schedule.

Now let’s get some coffee, sober up, and we’ll look for that franchise QB in 2012.

Now I'm in the "draft a QB" camp because I believe that there are almost as many busts at other positions and NONE have as great an impact than the QB. So that's not the issue. I'm just wondering why not more people see Blaine Gabbert as a a potential boom or bust guy?

Originally posted by Papa_bear_21:
I'm just really confused about the hype on Blaine Gabbert.

It just seems like all the negatives for QB's coming out of college are just being ignored for this guy.

1. He played out of a pure spread, often in 4 and 5 wide formations
2. He put up okay numbers playing in a very passer friendly offense (even Chase Daniel was 63% as a sophmore and 68% as a junior)
3. He did not really come up big in big games
4. He did not have many challenging "in the pocket" throws with bodies flying around him and people in his face

Furthermore, taken from a post from today's 49ers Hot Read blog (link ):

Nothing like 15 minutes to closing time at the bar to start making those homely chicks look like stunners. For those of us not wearing beer goggles, we can see that Blaine Gabbert is NOT the QB the 49ers need.

Of the defenses Gabbert faced last year, only ONE, Nebraska, had a pass defense in the top 40 in the nation. In that game, Gabbert completed 18 of 42 attempts, or 42.9%, for 199 yards. Half of his yardage came in the 4th quarter when Nebraska was up by three scores and playing soft zone.

In the Insight Bowl against Iowa’s pass defense, 55th ranked (yards) and 104th (TD’s allowed), Gabbert threw 1 TD and 2 INT’s. BTW, this is out of 120 teams in the defensive rankings.

From 2009 to 2010, Gabert’s TD/INT ratio went from 24/9 to 16/9, and his rating dropped from 140 to 127, despite another year of experience and a weaker schedule.

Now let’s get some coffee, sober up, and we’ll look for that franchise QB in 2012.

Now I'm in the "draft a QB" camp because I believe that there are almost as many busts at other positions and NONE have as great an impact than the QB. So that's not the issue. I'm just wondering why not more people see Blaine Gabbert as a a potential boom or bust guy?

Originally posted by Papa_bear_21:
I'm just really confused about the hype on Blaine Gabbert.

It just seems like all the negatives for QB's coming out of college are just being ignored for this guy.

1. He played out of a pure spread, often in 4 and 5 wide formations
2. He put up okay numbers playing in a very passer friendly offense (even Chase Daniel was 63% as a sophmore and 68% as a junior)
3. He did not really come up big in big games
4. He did not have many challenging "in the pocket" throws with bodies flying around him and people in his face

Furthermore, taken from a post from today's 49ers Hot Read blog (link ):

Nothing like 15 minutes to closing time at the bar to start making those homely chicks look like stunners. For those of us not wearing beer goggles, we can see that Blaine Gabbert is NOT the QB the 49ers need.

Of the defenses Gabbert faced last year, only ONE, Nebraska, had a pass defense in the top 40 in the nation. In that game, Gabbert completed 18 of 42 attempts, or 42.9%, for 199 yards. Half of his yardage came in the 4th quarter when Nebraska was up by three scores and playing soft zone.

In the Insight Bowl against Iowa’s pass defense, 55th ranked (yards) and 104th (TD’s allowed), Gabbert threw 1 TD and 2 INT’s. BTW, this is out of 120 teams in the defensive rankings.

From 2009 to 2010, Gabert’s TD/INT ratio went from 24/9 to 16/9, and his rating dropped from 140 to 127, despite another year of experience and a weaker schedule.

Now let’s get some coffee, sober up, and we’ll look for that franchise QB in 2012.

Now I'm in the "draft a QB" camp because I believe that there are almost as many busts at other positions and NONE have as great an impact than the QB. So that's not the issue. I'm just wondering why not more people see Blaine Gabbert as a a potential boom or bust guy?

Gabbert did not have stunning amount of team success or overwhelming statistics. But scouts look at the tape and see the following:

- tall, can see the whole field very well
- strong arm, can rifle passes to any location
- accurate, and his accuracy has improved throughout his career
- athletic, moves around very well

Probably worth noting that he was one of the most highly regarded high school prospects of his class. By all accounts is a bright kid too.

My question is if he's has all of those attributes that scouts say, why didn't he destroy Big 12 defenses? It's reasonable to expect a top QB in a draft class to dominate defenses that have maybe one or two players with NFL futures. It's possible there wasn't much talent on that offense. But it's a legit concern with Gabbert. I'm torn on him personally, and would probably have him as my 3rd ranked QB.

A MUST READ ARTICLE. Posted half of it but read the entire thing.

Made for this: Blaine Gabbert has spent years preparing for the NFL

Quote:
Gabbert was 13 years old when he met Coach Hammer, a man with one name — it’s just Hammer — at a fitness and sports training center in suburban St. Louis, a 20-minute drive from the Gabbert home.

Tall and strong for an eighth-grader, Blaine was aware of what Hammer had done for his uncle, Scott Gabbert, helping turn him from a skinny high schooler into a standout quarterback at Southern Illinois. When Blaine’s parents, Chuck and Bev, asked their eldest son — by then something of a middle school star in football and baseball — if he wanted to give HammerBodies a try, the boy knew they already knew his answer.

He enjoyed riding his bike through their neighborhood with his adoring friends, but sports had been his passion. He’d given up select soccer in fifth grade to try football and almost immediately been made the starting quarterback of a sixth-grade team. “We were winning by 50 points week in and week out,” Gabbert says. “We threw the deep ball a lot because a lot of the teams couldn’t cover it. It was a blast. Those are some of the best memories I have.”

Gabbert’s running back was his best friend, Steve May. A year older than Gabbert, May — now a fourth-year cadet and starting third baseman at West Point, and the younger brother of Royals catcher Lucas May — recalls Gabbert “dropping 40-,50-yard bombs when nobody else could throw the ball. We all knew he was destined for great things. He could’ve played any sport and done whatever he wanted.”

What Gabbert wanted was to compete and win forever. At HammerBodies, he “went about his business like a collegiate athlete, a professional athlete, and here he was 13, 14 years old,” Hammer says. “He was very advanced, very intense and very focused — you could tell he was headed for some big-time athleticism...”

Quote:

Gabbert, 21, was a five-star recruit coming out of Parkway West High School in 2008, rated by Rivals.com as the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation. So it was a little curious when — having decommitted from Nebraska just before Bill Callahan was fired — he elected to go run the spread offense at Missouri, where he started as a sophomore and junior before declaring a year early for the draft.

That offense raises a red flag, as it does — for good reason — with all spread quarterbacks, thus the concerns raised by some draft analysts that Gabbert has too much to learn to be considered a safe first-round pick.

What the analysts might not know is that Gabbert, from the age of 15, has been tutored in pro-style passing by a personal quarterback coach named Skip Stitzell.

A 61-year-old who never played past high school, Stitzell has been a regular on the major quarterback camp circuit, working with prospects such as Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford and, on an extensive basis, Josh Freeman.

When Gabbert was in high school, Stitzell often drove the 100-plus miles from his home north of Columbia, Mo., for training sessions with Gabbert at Hammer’s facility. During Gabbert’s college years, he spent hundreds of hours — during nonpractice periods for the Tigers — on Stitzell’s home turf a half-hour from campus in tiny Fayette.

“He was always working on three-step, five-step and some seven-step drops from under center,” Stitzell says. “We were keeping him in position for the NFL. Some of these (spread) guys, they go five years of college without doing any of it. Blaine is very good with mechanics, very good with footwork. He’s got an NFL-style arm, can make all the throws, has the size and athleticism. And then there’s the best part: his mentality, his drive, his focus. Nobody wants this more than Blaine.”

Former NFL offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Terry Shea has schooled first-round hopefuls the past few years for the Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gabbert, Freeman, Stafford and Sam Bradford.

According to Shea, Gabbert “looks so fluid in his dropback mechanics right now from under center, you almost say he couldn’t have been in the shotgun. We’ve polished him up some, but he had a very good level of fundamentals already in place...”

Quote:
Mizzou teammate Aldon Smith, a defensive end also projected as a first-rounder this year, describes him as “a leader who was not afraid of anybody or anything.” Hammer calls him “the ship’s captain — he’s going to take control.”

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-02-28/made-for-this-blaine-gabbert-has-spent-years-preparing-for-the-nfl

Originally posted by Mad49er:
A MUST READ ARTICLE. Posted half of it but read the entire thing.

Made for this: Blaine Gabbert has spent years preparing for the NFL

Quote:
Gabbert was 13 years old when he met Coach Hammer, a man with one name — it’s just Hammer — at a fitness and sports training center in suburban St. Louis, a 20-minute drive from the Gabbert home.

Tall and strong for an eighth-grader, Blaine was aware of what Hammer had done for his uncle, Scott Gabbert, helping turn him from a skinny high schooler into a standout quarterback at Southern Illinois. When Blaine’s parents, Chuck and Bev, asked their eldest son — by then something of a middle school star in football and baseball — if he wanted to give HammerBodies a try, the boy knew they already knew his answer.

He enjoyed riding his bike through their neighborhood with his adoring friends, but sports had been his passion. He’d given up select soccer in fifth grade to try football and almost immediately been made the starting quarterback of a sixth-grade team. “We were winning by 50 points week in and week out,” Gabbert says. “We threw the deep ball a lot because a lot of the teams couldn’t cover it. It was a blast. Those are some of the best memories I have.”

Gabbert’s running back was his best friend, Steve May. A year older than Gabbert, May — now a fourth-year cadet and starting third baseman at West Point, and the younger brother of Royals catcher Lucas May — recalls Gabbert “dropping 40-,50-yard bombs when nobody else could throw the ball. We all knew he was destined for great things. He could’ve played any sport and done whatever he wanted.”

What Gabbert wanted was to compete and win forever. At HammerBodies, he “went about his business like a collegiate athlete, a professional athlete, and here he was 13, 14 years old,” Hammer says. “He was very advanced, very intense and very focused — you could tell he was headed for some big-time athleticism...”

Quote:

Gabbert, 21, was a five-star recruit coming out of Parkway West High School in 2008, rated by Rivals.com as the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation. So it was a little curious when — having decommitted from Nebraska just before Bill Callahan was fired — he elected to go run the spread offense at Missouri, where he started as a sophomore and junior before declaring a year early for the draft.

That offense raises a red flag, as it does — for good reason — with all spread quarterbacks, thus the concerns raised by some draft analysts that Gabbert has too much to learn to be considered a safe first-round pick.

What the analysts might not know is that Gabbert, from the age of 15, has been tutored in pro-style passing by a personal quarterback coach named Skip Stitzell.

A 61-year-old who never played past high school, Stitzell has been a regular on the major quarterback camp circuit, working with prospects such as Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford and, on an extensive basis, Josh Freeman.

When Gabbert was in high school, Stitzell often drove the 100-plus miles from his home north of Columbia, Mo., for training sessions with Gabbert at Hammer’s facility. During Gabbert’s college years, he spent hundreds of hours — during nonpractice periods for the Tigers — on Stitzell’s home turf a half-hour from campus in tiny Fayette.

“He was always working on three-step, five-step and some seven-step drops from under center,” Stitzell says. “We were keeping him in position for the NFL. Some of these (spread) guys, they go five years of college without doing any of it. Blaine is very good with mechanics, very good with footwork. He’s got an NFL-style arm, can make all the throws, has the size and athleticism. And then there’s the best part: his mentality, his drive, his focus. Nobody wants this more than Blaine.”

Former NFL offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Terry Shea has schooled first-round hopefuls the past few years for the Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gabbert, Freeman, Stafford and Sam Bradford.

According to Shea, Gabbert “looks so fluid in his dropback mechanics right now from under center, you almost say he couldn’t have been in the shotgun. We’ve polished him up some, but he had a very good level of fundamentals already in place...”

Quote:
Mizzou teammate Aldon Smith, a defensive end also projected as a first-rounder this year, describes him as “a leader who was not afraid of anybody or anything.” Hammer calls him “the ship’s captain — he’s going to take control.”

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-02-28/made-for-this-blaine-gabbert-has-spent-years-preparing-for-the-nfl

This makes me like him LESS.

All this life long advanced training and he only posted a 16:9 TD to INT ratio? Yikes.

Originally posted by SWAGG-ER:

Originally posted by Mad49er:
A MUST READ ARTICLE. Posted half of it but read the entire thing.

Made for this: Blaine Gabbert has spent years preparing for the NFL

Quote:
Gabbert was 13 years old when he met Coach Hammer, a man with one name — it’s just Hammer — at a fitness and sports training center in suburban St. Louis, a 20-minute drive from the Gabbert home.

Tall and strong for an eighth-grader, Blaine was aware of what Hammer had done for his uncle, Scott Gabbert, helping turn him from a skinny high schooler into a standout quarterback at Southern Illinois. When Blaine’s parents, Chuck and Bev, asked their eldest son — by then something of a middle school star in football and baseball — if he wanted to give HammerBodies a try, the boy knew they already knew his answer.

He enjoyed riding his bike through their neighborhood with his adoring friends, but sports had been his passion. He’d given up select soccer in fifth grade to try football and almost immediately been made the starting quarterback of a sixth-grade team. “We were winning by 50 points week in and week out,” Gabbert says. “We threw the deep ball a lot because a lot of the teams couldn’t cover it. It was a blast. Those are some of the best memories I have.”

Gabbert’s running back was his best friend, Steve May. A year older than Gabbert, May — now a fourth-year cadet and starting third baseman at West Point, and the younger brother of Royals catcher Lucas May — recalls Gabbert “dropping 40-,50-yard bombs when nobody else could throw the ball. We all knew he was destined for great things. He could’ve played any sport and done whatever he wanted.”

What Gabbert wanted was to compete and win forever. At HammerBodies, he “went about his business like a collegiate athlete, a professional athlete, and here he was 13, 14 years old,” Hammer says. “He was very advanced, very intense and very focused — you could tell he was headed for some big-time athleticism...”

Quote:

Gabbert, 21, was a five-star recruit coming out of Parkway West High School in 2008, rated by Rivals.com as the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation. So it was a little curious when — having decommitted from Nebraska just before Bill Callahan was fired — he elected to go run the spread offense at Missouri, where he started as a sophomore and junior before declaring a year early for the draft.

That offense raises a red flag, as it does — for good reason — with all spread quarterbacks, thus the concerns raised by some draft analysts that Gabbert has too much to learn to be considered a safe first-round pick.

What the analysts might not know is that Gabbert, from the age of 15, has been tutored in pro-style passing by a personal quarterback coach named Skip Stitzell.

A 61-year-old who never played past high school, Stitzell has been a regular on the major quarterback camp circuit, working with prospects such as Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford and, on an extensive basis, Josh Freeman.

When Gabbert was in high school, Stitzell often drove the 100-plus miles from his home north of Columbia, Mo., for training sessions with Gabbert at Hammer’s facility. During Gabbert’s college years, he spent hundreds of hours — during nonpractice periods for the Tigers — on Stitzell’s home turf a half-hour from campus in tiny Fayette.

“He was always working on three-step, five-step and some seven-step drops from under center,” Stitzell says. “We were keeping him in position for the NFL. Some of these (spread) guys, they go five years of college without doing any of it. Blaine is very good with mechanics, very good with footwork. He’s got an NFL-style arm, can make all the throws, has the size and athleticism. And then there’s the best part: his mentality, his drive, his focus. Nobody wants this more than Blaine.”

Former NFL offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Terry Shea has schooled first-round hopefuls the past few years for the Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gabbert, Freeman, Stafford and Sam Bradford.

According to Shea, Gabbert “looks so fluid in his dropback mechanics right now from under center, you almost say he couldn’t have been in the shotgun. We’ve polished him up some, but he had a very good level of fundamentals already in place...”

Quote:
Mizzou teammate Aldon Smith, a defensive end also projected as a first-rounder this year, describes him as “a leader who was not afraid of anybody or anything.” Hammer calls him “the ship’s captain — he’s going to take control.”

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-02-28/made-for-this-blaine-gabbert-has-spent-years-preparing-for-the-nfl

This makes me like him LESS.

All this life long advanced training and he only posted a 16:9 TD to INT ratio? Yikes.

Exactly. Lots to like about Gabbert, but if he's as such a brilliant pro prospect, how come he didn't destroy Big XII defenses?

Originally posted by 49erFaithful6:

Originally posted by SWAGG-ER:

Originally posted by Mad49er:
A MUST READ ARTICLE. Posted half of it but read the entire thing.

Made for this: Blaine Gabbert has spent years preparing for the NFL

Quote:
Gabbert was 13 years old when he met Coach Hammer, a man with one name — it’s just Hammer — at a fitness and sports training center in suburban St. Louis, a 20-minute drive from the Gabbert home.

Tall and strong for an eighth-grader, Blaine was aware of what Hammer had done for his uncle, Scott Gabbert, helping turn him from a skinny high schooler into a standout quarterback at Southern Illinois. When Blaine’s parents, Chuck and Bev, asked their eldest son — by then something of a middle school star in football and baseball — if he wanted to give HammerBodies a try, the boy knew they already knew his answer.

He enjoyed riding his bike through their neighborhood with his adoring friends, but sports had been his passion. He’d given up select soccer in fifth grade to try football and almost immediately been made the starting quarterback of a sixth-grade team. “We were winning by 50 points week in and week out,” Gabbert says. “We threw the deep ball a lot because a lot of the teams couldn’t cover it. It was a blast. Those are some of the best memories I have.”

Gabbert’s running back was his best friend, Steve May. A year older than Gabbert, May — now a fourth-year cadet and starting third baseman at West Point, and the younger brother of Royals catcher Lucas May — recalls Gabbert “dropping 40-,50-yard bombs when nobody else could throw the ball. We all knew he was destined for great things. He could’ve played any sport and done whatever he wanted.”

What Gabbert wanted was to compete and win forever. At HammerBodies, he “went about his business like a collegiate athlete, a professional athlete, and here he was 13, 14 years old,” Hammer says. “He was very advanced, very intense and very focused — you could tell he was headed for some big-time athleticism...”

Quote:

Gabbert, 21, was a five-star recruit coming out of Parkway West High School in 2008, rated by Rivals.com as the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation. So it was a little curious when — having decommitted from Nebraska just before Bill Callahan was fired — he elected to go run the spread offense at Missouri, where he started as a sophomore and junior before declaring a year early for the draft.

That offense raises a red flag, as it does — for good reason — with all spread quarterbacks, thus the concerns raised by some draft analysts that Gabbert has too much to learn to be considered a safe first-round pick.

What the analysts might not know is that Gabbert, from the age of 15, has been tutored in pro-style passing by a personal quarterback coach named Skip Stitzell.

A 61-year-old who never played past high school, Stitzell has been a regular on the major quarterback camp circuit, working with prospects such as Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford and, on an extensive basis, Josh Freeman.

When Gabbert was in high school, Stitzell often drove the 100-plus miles from his home north of Columbia, Mo., for training sessions with Gabbert at Hammer’s facility. During Gabbert’s college years, he spent hundreds of hours — during nonpractice periods for the Tigers — on Stitzell’s home turf a half-hour from campus in tiny Fayette.

“He was always working on three-step, five-step and some seven-step drops from under center,” Stitzell says. “We were keeping him in position for the NFL. Some of these (spread) guys, they go five years of college without doing any of it. Blaine is very good with mechanics, very good with footwork. He’s got an NFL-style arm, can make all the throws, has the size and athleticism. And then there’s the best part: his mentality, his drive, his focus. Nobody wants this more than Blaine.”

Former NFL offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Terry Shea has schooled first-round hopefuls the past few years for the Creative Artists Agency, which represents Gabbert, Freeman, Stafford and Sam Bradford.

According to Shea, Gabbert “looks so fluid in his dropback mechanics right now from under center, you almost say he couldn’t have been in the shotgun. We’ve polished him up some, but he had a very good level of fundamentals already in place...”

Quote:
Mizzou teammate Aldon Smith, a defensive end also projected as a first-rounder this year, describes him as “a leader who was not afraid of anybody or anything.” Hammer calls him “the ship’s captain — he’s going to take control.”

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-02-28/made-for-this-blaine-gabbert-has-spent-years-preparing-for-the-nfl

This makes me like him LESS.

All this life long advanced training and he only posted a 16:9 TD to INT ratio? Yikes.

Exactly. Lots to like about Gabbert, but if he's as such a brilliant pro prospect, how come he didn't destroy Big XII defenses?

Look at the production from 2009 when he actually had playmakers, to the difference in talent this past year. Some people like Swag will just dismiss it, because when he doesn't like someone, he turns it into a personal thing and won't look at it objectively.

If you look at the talent around Gabbert from 2009 to 2010 from an objective standpoint, you'll get a better understanding of why the big production numbers dropped.