DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2015 NFL Season The NFL Draft 2015 Ray Farmer on how he evaluates college DL and QBs

I am talking about auspicious starts to NFL careers. Aikman and Manning played in a league that was completely different than today.

Recent examples, from when the rules changed to favor the offense, suggest that Bortles will fail because QBs that play as poorly as he did don't recover.

My guess is that not one team would trade a first round pick for Blake Bortles.

You are becoming an annoyance w/your stance.

Manning didn't play in a passing era? Neither did Aikman? Get real!

Bortles has issues. He should have sat for 2 years. But, your opinion on him is uneducated at best, and downright hateful at worst.

Give it a rest. It's become tiresome.

what am I missing? Derek Carr was not only better than these other rookies, he was flat out good. That was the guy. 21 TDs and 12 picks, and on a crappy team? The debate is over. That was the QB to have taken in the draft.

It's way too early to say who the right guy was. I think it would be a tough case to say Bortles should have been the guy... we've seen what he has done working hard for a lot of games, but otherwise I think we need to wait and see.

I would say that is fair, steve.

You know I respect your opinion.

So.......we debated last year about Teddy and Carr. I will say that Carr played better than I thought he would. I think I may have been too harsh on him. I do think he benefited from playing behind a much better OL than Teddy did this year, but I still think Teddy had a better year.

What say you?

By your own admission, you didn't really watch Bortles.

So how can you say his opinion is uneducated?

In terms of annoying, you just finally stopped posting about Shanny.

I probably watched more of Bortles than he did. I do have the Ticket.

The guy is writing off a player who has played one year on a very bad team.

I don't care if you like it or not..........it's too early to make that determination.

Bortles can become a good QB but he should have been pine riding for 2 years bare minimum. He was a 2nd rounder with a ton of upside. Not his fault Jags rather sale tickets than develop someone. They better focus on the run game and ask the kid to do as little as possible while he absorbs the game. The team around him wasnt ready for a rookie developmental QB. He looked great in preseason but thats preseason.

I still think Carr is gonna be the best one out of that class but it was a damn good class.

I still like both Bortles and Carr a lot. Both have the potential. Derek Carr is as mature as Johnny Manziel isn't in every sense of the word. Bortles is too. He just needs more polishing and when he has it, he'll be one hell of a QB. My question is whether Jax will ever be able to help him. If I were a fan, I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in them.

Think of it this way. Jimmy got to sit just like I said he should before the draft. Preseason or not he has done NOTHING to disprove my evaluation of him. I am not going to change my opinion on him just because he is being coached up the right way.

Yes, it was preseason but he started the 3rd preseason game and played against the other team's first string defense in a dress rehearsal for the regular season and he played fantastic. He would have very easily have been our starter last season. He would have done a LOT better than Hoyer as well.

We both liked Teddy before the draft and he was the only other QB I wanted to draft out of the whole lot of them. I thought he would be the mostly likely of the bunch to play well in his very first season.

I saw nothing to disprove or change my opinion on any of the QBs of that draft. IMH"Opinion" JImmy will become a star QB and Teddy and Carr will turn out to be decent QB's. Teddy will do well I think but a lot will depend on how Minnesota does at building up a good team to help him out. I am not really confident that they will. Is the any doubt though that the Patriots will make sure Jimmy has the tools he needs?

Uh, yes. Have you seen the Patriots receivers (besides Moss) the last decade?

Honestly, I was a little disappointed in Carr. I thought he would do better. But I think both Carr and Bridgewater got put into pretty tough positions this year.

Carr had probably the worst group of skill position players in the NFL this year. Their running game was so terrible that other teams didn't even try to plan against it. Their two main running backs going into the season, MJD and RunDMC, combined for an average YPC of less than 3.2. Teams completely stopped scheming against the run vs. them, as you can see in Latavius Murray's first game where he went for over 100 yards on just 4 carries. Latavius Murray. Their number one WR had never been more than a #3 WR anywhere else before this season, and they had a bunch of UDFA level players around him. You could see they completely had abandoned the run as Carr threw 599 passes, about the same amount as Peyton, Eli, and Stafford. He was the only QB in the top ten in pass attempts that didn't throw over 4,000 yards, and he ended up with less than 3,300 yards. That was really disappointing. Still, he did a nice job of avoiding turnovers with only 12 INTs on all those attempts and avoiding sacks with only being sacked 24 times and massive holes on the line at LG and RT. Oakland needs to add a lot of talent at WR, RB, and OL to help him progress next year IMO.

Bridgewater's difficulties had different origins IMO. This is a much better group of skill position players in Jennings, Patterson, Wright, Rudolph, Asiata, and McKinnon. What was difficult on Bridgewater, in my estimation, is that their entire offensive plan going into the season was centered around a player who ended up not being there. Still, their top two backs averaged 4.0 ypc, the same as the Browns. I think he ended up having a good rookie season but not historically good like many seem to think. Despite losing second-leading and fifth-leading receivers Jerome Simpson (726) and John Carlson (344) from 2013, the production of Greg Jennings (804 -> 742), Cordarrelle Patterson (469 -> 384), and Kyle Rudolph (313 -> 231) all fell from 2014 to 2014. Only Jarius Wright's production (434 -> 588) increased, which included a 52-yard screen pass and an 87-yard screen pass (24% of Wright's yardage on the year.) That's despite the dumpster-fire at QB Minnesota had in 2013 that had them bringing in Josh Freeman. I only watched three Minnesota games this year, but I don't think Minnesota is among the worst OL in the league as you said. They are by far no gospel, but PFF rated Minnesota's line 21st/32, being a better run blocking line than pass blocking. I do think that having a decent run game helped Bridgewater. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to cut bait on Kalil this year to cut down on the sacks Bridgewater had. What an awful first round that (2012) turned out to be. Still there were plenty of positives to be taken from Bridgewater's season. A good completion percentage and good poise gives a really solid foundation for development IMO.

Overall, I think they both played well enough as rookies, though I think Carr needs to have better results next year. I maintained throughout the draft season that I would be happy with Carr, Bridgewater, or Manziel. Two out of three ain't bad, unless you only get the third one, lol. I hope Manziel gets his crap together, because I still think he has the capabilities and instincts to play well.

Terrific post!

I did notice that he holds the ball low and that he has a little bit of a windup, although it doesn't take him long to fire it out. He should get coached out of holding the ball low at the NFL level which would allow him to get the ball out a split second sooner. That's often all the difference that's needed. Good coaches should be able to get that cleared up.