11-01-2019, 05:44 PM
(11-01-2019, 10:42 AM)fredtoast Wrote: So here are the possibilities for what is about to happen.
Finley plays lights out throwing to back up WRS on an offense with one of the worst run games in league history behind pass protection that has been allowing the third most sacks in the league. Result? Everyone is thrilled.
Finley looks much worse than Dalton. Result? Pretty much everyone agrees we have to devote resources to finding a new QB in the offseason,
But here is the third option. I think it is the most probable. Finley struggles in this offense but shows a few flashes. Result? Civil war among the fans. Some will support him. A lot of the "anyone but Dalton" crowd have invested a good bit in pumping up Finley. They will have to stand behind their words and support him. They will rave about his ability and claim he has what it takes to be a great NFL QB if we could just fix the O-line, playcalling, etc. Others will argue that Finley has many weaknesses that caused him to fall to the fourth round and that we should give up on him and move on to another QB. Others will just say that you have to give any QB more than 8 games his rookie season to see what he has. They will say we should roll with Finley next year while using our resources to fix other problems around him and then get a QB the next offseason if he fails.
Personally I liked what I saw from Finley in preseason, but I have learned that I can't tell much about players from preseason games. Coaches may be able to make judgements based on the nuances and details they can recognize, but preseason games are useless to me when evaluating players. (And based on the history of these boards that seems to be the same for everyone else here.) But I know it will be hard for me to judge Ryan based on the situation he is being thrown into. It would be an amazing break if we were to have found our future QB with a fourth round pick. So that is what I hope has happened, but what I mostly expect is another year of circular arguments based more on pre-concieved notions that what we will actually see on the field.
At this point I really do not have a huge amount of faith in ZT , so if Finley tanks and Dalton is not the option ongoing, then I am very nervous on him leading the search for our new QB saviour.
Jay Gruden hit it out of the park when we took AJ Green and Andy Dalton in 2011, and he was working under tighter / constrained circumstances than ZT is.
People always say AJ Green was a slam dunk but how many Rd 1 WR's have not made it ....someone had to pick him and it was us.
Dalton was a Gruden pick ...loads of other QB's were selected high that year and even Mike Brown wanted Kaepernick.
Do you trust ZT to do a Jay Gruden in the 2020 draft at this point??
