Originally posted by gold49digger:
Originally posted by 5_Golden_Rings:
I feel like Mahomes was a surefire franchise QB. What was the weakness in college besides the scheme, which he transcended anyway? Gambling, but that's it.
Lmfao no he was far from a surefire franchise qb. I was the biggest mahomes homer but there was a reason why he wasn't getting mocked top 10. Bad mechanics and footwork, literally said he only learned to read defenses his 2nd year, and was wreckless with the ball. He was honestly luck to be mentored by the complete opposite of him in Smith, which probably helped honed in the little things that goes into being an NFL qb, has amazing weapons around him and one of the greatest offensive minds of all time in andy reid. Mahomes has a chance to become the GOAT but he had a lot of luck involved in his career, which is the same with a lot of the great nfl qbs throughout history.
There's no way he didn't read coverages on his way to throwing 50 touchdowns. I'm thinking he means reading well to the point that he truly understood the entire field.
Yeah, he was reckless, but the ball got there because his arm is elite. His footwork was bad because he got rid of the ball when he saw an opening, and he could do that because his arm is elite.
ETA- you are all putting WAY too much emphasis on the much easier job at reading coverage he had in college. The same is true for almost every QB coming out of college. You can't gauge how well a rookie QB will develop in terms of NFL quality coverage reading, because NFL quality coverage, and schemes which rely on reading them well, more or less don't exist. Instead, try to quantify his intelligence and work ethic, because not even "Pro style schemes" in college are actual pro schemes. It's all simplified by comparison.
In short, if reading coverage was a knock against Mahomes, it should have been a knock against nearly every college QB, because almost none of them read defenses in a way that comes close to NFL defenses.
Moreover, you can teach someone how to read a coverage. You can't teach someone how to be John Elway or Brett Favre.
You know what's way more important than reading defenses? Field awareness. Mahomes had that in spades in college, and that's why I say the people who doubted him weren't trusting what their eyes were showing them. They were putting way too much emphasis on the scheme he was running and not nearly enough emphasis on
what he was doing on the field. And I don't mean stats, I mean finding guys open, making tight windowed throws, throwing from every angle, not needing to wait and wait before letting it rip, using his head and eyes to fool defenders (NFL veterans are praised for being cagey for doing this, and here this guy was doing it in college), and so on.
[ Edited by 5_Golden_Rings on Nov 18, 2020 at 11:31 AM ]
Air raid QBs are not taught to read defenses in the traditional sense because they throw to space, not reads.
Air raid QBs are not taught to read defenses in the traditional sense because they throw to space, not reads.