I was going through his game logs and my notes and I think he had a better first 7 games overall vs last 8 with the exception of the Browns game. Even the Titans game I thought was a mixed bag despite the box score. You know what a common theme is? He’s late getting the ball out and he is consistently either not seeing underneath guys or not adjusting for how quickly NFL linebackers and safeties can get back into the play. The Atlanta interception, the dropped Titans picks, the Leonard/Indy pick, and the awful throw to Harry yesterday. All of them were athletic plays made by guys in coverage where if he both put more air under the ball AND got it out sooner he would have avoided the mistakes. The problem is he’s now made the same kind of mistake in multiple games strung together. I think he’s hit a wall and going against Jacksonville will likely show us nothing as they don’t have a functional defense. Here’s what I mean by a wall. His mechanics are getting worse, not better. This is common for a lot of athletes during a season in which they are trying to learn and process new ideas. Defenses are testing him with rotating coverages and blitzes and he is waiting for guys to look open before he throws it vs throwing with anticipation. This isn’t an extreme. Of course he is still throwing some passes well, on target, with anticipation, and good mechanics, but many more are not.
As for limiting the playbook… interesting idea to explore but I’m not sure what exactly they are not doing. Brady had a much better arm but most years with Brady they weren’t going deep. They still run the usual Patriot staples.
When you take a guy with Mac’s physical toolset in year 1 it’s really hard to win just by the mental side of things. Figuring out post snap changes and being able to process that, know what the new answer is to the test, and get it out on time doesn’t happen consistently if at all year 1. And Mac’s biggest mental weakness was post snap processing which was something which Jess and I talked about pre-draft.
He is overall playing like an average QB. 15th in Y/A and 19th for ANY/A. For a rookie those are successful numbers. Seeing that his mechanics are slipping and defenses are throwing a lot more at him and he isn’t adjusting to that tells me he has probably hit a wall and we need to be patient and wait for years 2 and 3 to see if that improves. I think it will. He will always have physical limitations but if he gets the ball out earlier and can play faster he will be fine. We just won’t see that until the future.
As for limiting the playbook… interesting idea to explore but I’m not sure what exactly they are not doing. Brady had a much better arm but most years with Brady they weren’t going deep. They still run the usual Patriot staples.
When you take a guy with Mac’s physical toolset in year 1 it’s really hard to win just by the mental side of things. Figuring out post snap changes and being able to process that, know what the new answer is to the test, and get it out on time doesn’t happen consistently if at all year 1. And Mac’s biggest mental weakness was post snap processing which was something which Jess and I talked about pre-draft.
He is overall playing like an average QB. 15th in Y/A and 19th for ANY/A. For a rookie those are successful numbers. Seeing that his mechanics are slipping and defenses are throwing a lot more at him and he isn’t adjusting to that tells me he has probably hit a wall and we need to be patient and wait for years 2 and 3 to see if that improves. I think it will. He will always have physical limitations but if he gets the ball out earlier and can play faster he will be fine. We just won’t see that until the future.
