by The Dude » Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:01 pm
Tebow could have survived if he was smart. Vick, who has a great arm, isn't very accurate in comparison to other QBs. But his legs and his ability to read defenses have kept him around (his O-line being trash of late has killed his career, though and it ain't his fault).
The difference between a starting QB that last and the ones that don't isn't arm strength, throwing motion, height, etc. When you get drafted at the NFL level, all of those are good enough to survive. The difference between them is ability to read defenses and throw accurately based on your reads.
You're right, I agree that the QB is probably the position that requires the most smarts. The amount of information a QB has to process in an instant among chaos is amazing. People think it's just 1 receiver runs X route, another runs Y route, and you just figure out who is open and throw to them. But WR routes are NOT like madden. For many offenses like in GB, a WR will lineup with 3 general routes he can run based on the play-call. Depending on how he reads the defense he will read a route he will do and the QB has to agree without any contact. They both have to read it the same. Then, while running the route, the WR will have 6 options in how to complete his route (because a play is called for a post route for the WR it can turn into a curl) depending on how defenders defend. The QB has to read the defense to read what his WR is doing. That's 18 potential routes before the snap takes place the QB has to know, or in this case Rodgers. That is unreal. And the defenses are so sophisticated, hiding what they're doing, etc.
It makes you appreciate Brady, Brees, Manning, Rodgers all the more because they've don it for so long and so consistently. They're successful because they're so smart at how they read defenses. Hell, Peyton had zero arm-strength the first half of last season and still found ways to beat teams.
I've always thought it would be cool to have a reality show where you take regular joes, stick them into Rodgers place for GB with the 1st team, and have him try to do what he does and how it looks. Of course, no tackling but rather flags - we don't want to kill the poor schmucks. I wonder if any single throw will even get near the WR.