Parallels between Burrow and Andrew Luck in Year 1

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(05-06-2020, 05:43 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: How?

Colts 2008: 12-4, playoffs
Colts 2009: 14-2, SB Appearance
Colts 2010: 10-6, Division Champion
Colts 2011: 2-14, chose to start Curtis Painter (6th rounder), Dan Orlovsky (5th rounder), and 39-year-old Kerry Collins. Everyone knew they could have easily found better. None of the 3 ever started a game in the NFL again.

Bengals 2016: 6-9-1
Bengals 2017: 7-9
Bengals 2018: 6-10
Bengals 2019: 2-14, starting QB played 13 of the 16 games, only got benched after an 0-8 start

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One is a good team that had just one bad year to get the 1st overall pick. The other is a bad team that continued to get worse until they got the 1st overall pick in the midst of a 4 game losing streak.

Luck's OL was never as terrible as some made it to be. The guy hung onto the ball for AGES.

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/andrew-luck-needs-to-get-rid-of-football-faster-but-is-it-out-of-his-hands-101316
(From 2016, before he missed the entire 2017 season.)
I am aware that is a 2016 article and not a 2011/2012 article, which is the OL we were talking about, but it goes to show a pattern/habit that Luck simply held onto the ball for way too long and paid the price for it. In the process he made his OL look much worse than it was because all the other OLs in the league had to block for much less time.
To give a point of reference, Peyton Manning in 2014 averaged 2.24... meaning his OL had to block for over 20% less time than the Colts OL did for Luck in 2016.
That's actually what made the Bengals OL performance over the last few years so much worse. Andy Dalton has always been known as a QB who could quickly get rid of the ball. I know a couple years here he was in the 3rd quickest in the league range. Can't for the life of me find the article talking about it, though.

The teams:  Simple as this:  Look at the Colts roster in 2011 and 2012 and tell me where there is Pro Bowl talent.  The team Luck inherited was not a perennial playoff team any more.  Similar to the drop off the Bengals experienced after 2005.  

As far as release and holding on to the ball, I know Dalton has a very quick release.  It was one of the fastest, but he also didn't hold the ball very long because of his offensive line.  Luck had the ability to scramble and shake would-be tacklers.  Dalton and Manning, not so much, although Peyton could navigate the pocket pretty well with a slide or step up.  Luck was head and shoulders better at this, though, due to his athleticism and strength.  

The overall point was how Luck elevated the team with a lot of game-ending drives, much like Elway did in his early career.  I have the same hopes for Burrow.  I just don't see the kid being rattled and there are so many stories like the one where Montana pointed out John Candy before that drive in the Super Bowl, and how he was just so confident and relaxed that his team always responded.  This is what I am hoping for from Burrow.  Not that it is fair to heap those kind of expectations on a rookie, but I have never seen a guy play with such demeanor at the top of the college level.