12-14-2015, 02:09 PM
(12-14-2015, 05:20 AM)Wyche Wrote: You saw it differently? A pick six....a pick deep in our own territory that led to 6....a horrible duck to Marvin Jones along the sidelines on 3rd down when all he had to do was hit the wide open receiver underneath for the first. He's a good backup. That's it. Hopefully more reps lead to better decision making.
Here's what I saw-
On the pick6, he's throwing off his back foot with a guy's helmet in his chest, didn't get enough on the throw. Gay bird-dogged it because he's a vet CB and McCarron himself said they fooled him on the coverage. Go watch the play and tell me what you think of Whitworth's block. He has to at least get into the defender for 2-3 seconds and then move down to block.
Quite frankly those are not the kinds of calls you want to make when you are backed up near the goal line, putting a green QB in that situation.
So some blame goes to Hue on that playcall, some to Whit, and some to AJ. I'll spread that blame around.
The duck to Marvin was just a bad throw. It happens.
The INT to Sanu, the ball was over the middle and high, worst combination in the NFL. 100% on AJ's shoulders there.
I think the claim that he's "oblivious to pressure" is the most ignorant comment made by Royce (and it's not the first time he's claimed it). AJ did the old Peyton Manning "dive" move when Allen and McClendon were converging to sack him, and both of those guys got hurt instead of AJ. When he did get pressured he moved out of the pocket and threw the ball away, except for 5/7 step drops where his plant point was being converged on by defenders and all you can really do in those situations is slide up in the pocket. If the pocket is in your lap already, you can't do much.
Now don't think that I'm unwilling to criticize AJ, because he was sailing throws over the middle to WRs. Those throws will get picked off if his WRs don't sacrifice themselves over the middle, and if they do that, they increase the likelihood that one of them will get hurt. He had Marvin moving to the sidelines on a scramble play but didn't set his feet and point his shoulders to get the completion.
But some things that are being taken for granted-
AJ had very few reps w/ the 1st team in practice this week, so timing will be better next week with WRs.
QBs who come into those situations in a rivalry game and don't completely poop the bed are rare.
No delay of game penalties, he seemed to be comfortable changing/flipping plays and reading defenses.
He moved through his first 2 reads consistently, panicked when required to throw to 3rd or 4th read - this will improve as the game slows down for him.
There are basically 2 legitimate criticisms of AJ from Sunday's game-
I expect a much better performance next week. But really, a lot of NFL teams would love to have these 1st world problems where a backup QB enters the game with barely any NFL experience and completes 67% of his passes, 9+ YPA, and has a higher QBR than his HOF counterpart across the field.
