NFL Open Thread: 2 upsets and 2 QBs edition
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Above: drink scotch whisky all night long and die behind the wheel
Congratulations to the Huskies on winning what to the best of my recollection has been the only game played between Washington and Michigan in the last 12 months. And extra special congratulations to Vanderbilt — I don’t at this time recall what program Kalen DeBoer came from but he’s not going to last long in Tuscaloosa losing games like that.
I’m not second-guessing the decision of the Bears to take Caleb Williams with the first pick — both the scouting consensus and the statistical models favored Williams despite Daniels being better in the draft year. But while Williams is having typical growing pains Daniels has been unbelievable. Whether Daniels can stay healthy remains a very open question, but he certainly looks like a franchise QB at a minimum if he does.
The most highly touted QB to enter the league since Andrew Luck, on the other hand, is regressing:
His 46.4 percent completion rate, 145 yards, and three sacks are the worst he’s had in the first four weeks of a season since his rookie year. Take last week’s loss to Houston, when Lawrence was faced with a blitz in the same part of the field as the Buffalo play last season. This time, the Texans are playing man coverage on the back end. Lawrence immediately finds an easy answer to beat the rush: a one-on-one opportunity for rookie receiver Brian Thomas Jr. Jacksonville’s offensive line picks up the extra rushers and the pocket is clean, but Lawrence sails the pass over Thomas’s head and out of bounds—the kind of inaccuracy that football fans ridicule less esteemed quarterbacks about.
Lawrence’s accuracy while throwing on the move has taken a big hit, too. That was one of the best (and one of my favorite) qualities of his game going back to his time at Clemson. His balance, agility, and footwork helped him create launch points for his throws that opened up windows most quarterbacks his size can’t hit. This bootleg in a 2023 win over the Texans is a great example of all his physical traits in action. Lawrence is able to change direction quickly, he has the burst to escape pressure, and his balance and dexterity allow him to generate enough velocity to fit the ball into a tight window. This is how a great athlete gets out of trouble and creates offense out of structure.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that the guy in that clip, a quarterback who went from dead in the water to moving the chains, is the same guy in this play last week, who double-clutched when he saw single coverage, missed the throwing window on an in-breaker, and bailed out of the pocket, seemingly without a plan for how to salvage the play.
Starting in 2022, Lawrence’s AY/A have been 7.28, 6.75, and 6.26. Geno Smith’s have been 7.67, 7.25, and 6.81. In 22-3 Lawrence was generally solid and sometimes better than that, but he has yet to put up even one elite season or really anything close to that. There are of course extenuating circumstances — starting your career with Urban Meyer is a huge handicap, and Doug Pederson is showing for the second time that a low-pressure coach can have the same short shelf life as an angry hardass. Trent Baalke has failed to put a lot of latent around Lawrence because he’s Trent Baalke. But still — Lawrence has been a serious disappointment. Today is a good opportunity to start to turn things around against a mediocre divisional opponent, but his runway to becoming a real star is getting pretty short. There’s a reason that tanking for the One Indispensable Prospect in the NFL pretty much died with Sahsi Brown’s career.