Is it Really the Time?

Even today wasn’t too ugly, not when you consider the situation this time last year. Vince Young is still well on track to revive his career. Just when it looked like the NFL had seen the end of VY he proves everyone wrong. But where did this revival come from? It has come from the one entity there isn’t enough of these days. It’s an old fashioned value that is now very unpopular. It came from Old Mother Time. Long ago in a distant time, kids were given time to become men. They developed, took their lumps and watched older guys. Most importantly these young men learned their craft. It’s easy to forget exactly how different the NFL is compared to college. College quarterbacks play 12 games a year facing maybe 5 or 6 elite linemen or linebackers maximum, especially in these times of cupcake games. They then switch to the pro’s, walk out in their first game and face 8 elite linemen and linebackers. They have maybe a quarter of the time they have at college level, and they have less open receivers. Vince Young’s decline in his second and third years show the difference in the games, as soon as teams have film you have to adjust, Vince never did. So he sat, for a long year he sat. And he watched, he watched the gnarled veteran Kerry Collins lead the Titans to 13-3 regular season. He then lead the Titans to an 0-6 start this year, an opportunity introduced itself. November became the month of Young, a different Young, a mature Young. We know why Young was rushed into the NFL, we know why all these young QB’s are rushed to start. The amount of money that is invested in these young men that teams become tied to them, they need returns on their investments. But for those investments we get seasons like this 2009 vintage. Three first year quarterbacks and two high-profile sophomores, none of them playing well. What do they all have in common? They don’t fully understand the National Football League craft. They are all throwing interceptions, making bad decisions and looking inexperienced, at this level talent doesn’t get you too far on it’s own. The two aforementioned sophomore QB’s, Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco, are experiencing exactly what happened to Vince Young first hand. Both blew peoples doors off last year, they looked poised, relaxed and mature beyond their years. This year everybody has tape on these guys and they are struggling. Maybe Mike Smith and John Harbaugh should maybe be brave and take the plunge, sit both these two future stars and let them learn what they need to from veteran guys. You only have to watch Matthew Stafford, Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman for a short time to realise how far they have to come. All three make plays, they also make plenty of mistakes, more than they should be making. The Lions had the best chance to get the best out of their number one pick. there is no doubting the amount of talent that Matt Stafford has, he just has no experience and very little knowledge. Detroit had Daunte Culpepper, a perfect stop gap to let Stafford just study NFL defences, let him understand what he has to beat.

So what about this years draft class. Colt McCoy, Sam Bradford, Jimmy Clausen and Tim Tebow. It’s safe to rule Tebow out of this discussion, he will never play quarterback at the pro level. That leaves McCoy, Bradford and Clausen. None of these three young men are anywhere near NFL ready. They all have big arms, are football clever and two of them seem somewhat sensible. They are the best of the 2010 draft and none of them have anything close to a pro skill set…yet. It’s just one or two years at a maximum, two years in which you can build a young team, let them grow together and learn the league. Building however takes time and money. NFL owners only have one of those two qualities.

The Stafford Theory

Would Georgia be a better team had Matthew Stafford chosen to complete his degree and take one more year of being the big fish in the Georgia locker room. Many, especially in Athens, felt that Stafford should have stayed, enjoyed one more year partying, earned a complete degree and given himself a shot at the SEC championship. The decision he did make is hardly unknown. There are however two questions that his choice has risen for me having seen him as an NFL starter and Georgia playing a Matthew Stafford-less offence; how much did the University of Georgia mean to Matthew Stafford? And how much did Matthew Stafford really mean to UGA?
After David Greene and then D.J Shockley there was already a Georgia QB dynasty blossoming and Matthew Stafford appeared to be the next one to lead the Dawgs to at least the SEC if not a national championship. Unfortunately for UGA and Matthew he arrived at the same time as Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators, but did this affect the way Stafford played for the Bulldogs? No simply. He lead his team to a win in Jacksonville but dropped conference games to South Carolina and Tennessee and your not going to win an SEC championship with 2 conference losses no matter how many times you beat Florida. Then perhaps in his best chance to win both the SEC and BCS in one attempt, starting the year ranked #1 in the country and with the nations best running back to balance his power arm the was supposedly no stopping the Bulldogs, wrong. Stafford, with a little help from his D and O-line, bombed in the two biggest games he would likely play for the university. However a capital one bowl win isn’t bad reward for the most multi-talented team in the country is it. Some Georgia fans, and I will include myself in this, felt Matt owed the university a bit, he owed his team mates and the fans one last shot, even without Moreno it became clear he had a ready made replacement for Mohammed Massaquai, perhaps even better, in A.J Green. Did the university, his friends and fans really mean as much as he said? Having seen Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford return to school for their senior years plus the emergance of Jimmy Clausen and Jevan Snead and a plethora of other great quarterbacks in Matthew Stafford could have challenged himself to lead the Bulldogs against a strong field of QB’s on strong teams, he left in a weak draft class for his position, he was chosen as the best of three and does anyone think Josh Freeman is going to do anything on Sundays? It seems to me that Matthew Stafford used the University of Georgia as a stepping stone to personal wealth, it also seems that UGA used Stafford as a stepping stone to collective success.

Has the Georgia offence actually missed Stafford this year yet? Maybe once, in the beating Oklahoma sun when #14 was suffocating under the kind of scrutiny that the former #7 never faced. Matthew Stafford tied the record for touchdown passes in a game (5)in his second to last start with team, Joe Cox matched the same feat in his 4th start. Joe Cox who has sat behind Stafford for 3 years and finally got his chance is leading a young team and actually winning the Dawgs games, he has them at 2-1(2-0 SEC). What those stats don’t actually tell you that he has had to beat South Carolina single handed, throwing for 576 yards combined and 7 TD’s helping the Bulldogs to 93 points across the two games. I’m not saying Cox is a better quarterback than Matthew Stafford, I think he has shown enough potential in his two NFL starts to have belief he can be widely successful, I am just suggesting that maybe for now he is the better one for Georgia. There is every possibility that this season if Joe Cox plays the way he has against SEC teams this year against everyone he may actually improve on Staffords 10-3 record last year, that is a huge claim that Georgia could go the rest of the year losing only 1 game, but if they learn to play defence smartish they could do it and Joe Cox could do something Matthew Stafford never gave himself a chance to do, win the SEC, big claims for a big goal.