Stidham is also anything but a finished product, and Palmer explained his primary focus, both last year and into this offseason.
“He had so far to go to get caught up mentally for the NFL basically because he played for Art Briles’ offense (at Baylor) and Gus Malzahn’s offense (at Auburn) — two offenses that have very little correlation to what happens in the NFL,” Palmer said. “It has nothing to do with (Stidham’s) intelligence level. Clearly, he’s intelligent. It was due to his exposure at the college level, and that’s not an indictment on those two offenses. Art Briles had a ton of success at Baylor, and Gus Malzahn is a national champion and has a great program. It’s just that there’s not a ton of carryover from those offenses to the NFL, so (Stidham) really had a long way to go to get caught up to where that offense is in New England. Brady has 20 years in that offense, right?
“For (Stidham), if he can really get mechanically sound, and really get the play-action footwork, and all the different newness of not just being in (shot)gun every snap like he was in college, if he can create muscle memory in those areas, it allows him to have more time and more, what I call, mental bars of energy to be able to commit to all the stuff New England asks him to do pre-snap — getting them in the right play, reading things really quickly. So it’s nothing crazy or anything that’s never been done before. It’s essentially building repetition on those things.”