Anonymous AFC Personnel Director is not impressed with Burrow

[Savagehenry54]

(01-04-2022, 07:36 PM)BRM13 Wrote: I was a little bit worried about Burrow's age coming out of LSU.  The reason that teams pay so much attention to age is that is correlated with a player's ceiling.   This is on average, of course, but it matters.  An example from baseball:  players offensive production peaks around 27.  So a good year out of a 22 year old (think Juan Soto or Mike Trout) is different than out of a 27 year old (he likely won't get better), Soto probably will and Trout did.  Same thing has been observed in most sports (different ages, but same idea).  Superstars mostly emerge younger, peak higher, and are good longer.  This also explains the obsession with age in the NBA draft.

How this applies to Bengals, Burrow, and this anonymous quote:  Burrow was not Heisman Joe until he was 23, instead of at, say, 21.  So, the concern is that his peak won't be as high as if he had emerged a couple of years younger.  Two things.  First, the age/peak correlation is on average.  Burrow might well be an exception.  Choosing to claim he's not after the last two weeks (as the anonymous quote implicitly does) is poor timing at best.  Really sounds like sour grapes.  Second, what if it is true that Burrow won't get a lot better?  This is where I eventually came down prior to drafting Burrow.  Even if he has less 'room to grow' his peak is damn high already.  As a previous poster put it, stack up 12 of these seasons and he's going to Canton. So, IMHO the anonymous quote is based on a truism in sports (truly great players generally aren't late bloomers; there are age cycles that most players careers track) but Burrow doesn't have to get much better to be truly elite, so it doesn't matter that much.  Based on YPA he is elite right now.

Btw, this works in our favor with Jamarr Chase.  Dude is 21!  He was already dominant in college at 19.  He has the potential for a very long, exceptional HOF-worthy career if he doesn't get hurt.

Burrow, never got to play in Ryan Day's offense, and LSU's OC was obviously a problem when Joe Brady can come in and get the best college season ever played out of the same dude who just the year before looked like a day 3 draft pick.

What I'm saying is that in Burrow's case in particular, one shouldn't be surprised it wasn't until his senior season that his real potential was on display cuz that was the first time he started for a good OC running a pro style offense.

Had he been named the starter ahead of Haskins, similar success I'm sure would have occurred.....when he was 22.  He may have hit the league more of a Josh Allen dual threat type due to the influence of Urban still being OSU HC at the time, rather than the technician he became at LSU under Brady and a hands off HC in Orgeron but the talent was there.  Haskins didn't win the job by much and it aint like he stunk at the time, he had a helluva year under Ryan Day while Burrow labored under a shitty OC in 18.

For QB's, their teammates and coach and the system are such a huge part of what one can reasonably expect them to accomplish that these things have to be considered much more than with baseball and basketball players and every other position on a football field for that matter.  Chase for instance, or any receiver...what do they do?  They run fast and catch the ball.  A lot easier to just know what pattern YOU have to run as opposed to a QB, who ideally is another OC on the field.  Bit more of a learning curve there.

That's why Kurt Warner's HOF biography skips the part about him stinking up the joint with the Giants.  He played like a HOFer for the Rams and Cards.  With the Giants he was garbage although clearly, in hindsight, he was NOT the problem.