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Burwell: Rams should avoid crazy QB ideas
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_83cf1fd7-f96c-5c62-b3a4-8b3d3ce1c0d6.html
So now all the amateur football geniuses and junior GM’s of the world have had time to devote their full attention to concocting wonderful fantasy-football solutions to the Rams current quarterback upheaval, this much is quite clear:
Everyone has a plan.
Mark Sanchez. Kirk Cousins. Ryan Mallett. Michael Vick. Chase Daniel. Kyle Orton. Names and outlandish trade ideas are being thrown around with plenty of freedom, but with a short supply of wisdom. And that lack of wisdom pertains particularly to that special breed of crazies who still think Tim Tebow’s best career move would be to put down the SEC Network microphone and race to Rams Park immediately to rescue the season. (Well, they could always use an extra H-back.)
Yet when all the nuttiness is done, when all the fantasy-football draft strategies are exhausted, when all the impractical dreams have run their course, we’re still left with the only logical course of action for this franchise to take.
Leave the football team in the hands of the competent veteran who already knows how to run this offense. Whatever wild ideas you might have to bring in a guy from somewhere else, there’s no one out there who is more ready to run the Rams’ offense than Shaun Hill.
The NFL is not a rec league hustle or a Saturday afternoon game of touch played on the street. You don’t walk in off the street, draw up a few plays in the dirt and tell the receiver to run a buttonhook at the Buick. You don’t bring in a guy who had no knowledge of offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s playbook, then expect him to run through this buzzsaw schedule in the toughest division in football without a glitch. A little recent history lesson should remind you of the disasters that happened when Carson Palmer and Josh Freeman were tossed in the mix in midseason.
In case you haven’t heard, this NFL quarterbacking thing is not an easy thing.
On Monday after practice at Rams Park, Jeff Fisher was particularly amused by all the speculation swirling around his football team and the countless trade rumors connected to the Rams. “I don’t really like to deal with hypotheticals, but had Shaun not (already) been here and we had an (injury) issue, we very well could have brought some guys in and see who’s got a better feel for us under center and then go and name a starter,” Fisher told a horde of reporters who surrounded him after a late-afternoon practice. “But we already have a starter. (Hill) was clearly our (No. 2). He steps in and goes and so anything that happens beyond that I can’t comment because we’ve really not done anything.”
If you need an interpreter to read between the lines, here goes:
There’s no one out there in the great big NFL universe right now who is available, could become available or who wants to make himself available who presents a better option than Shaun Hill. Teams aren’t going to just give away gifted backups (see: Kansas City and Chase Daniel) without asking for a king’s ransom. And the other teams that have guys they’re more than willing to dump are going to try to hijack valuable assets the Rams aren’t (or shouldn’t be) willing to part with (see: Tavon Austin).
Why are so many people fascinated with Ryan Mallett when it’s so obvious that the New England Patriots seem to be ready to dump him for rookie Jimmy Garoppolo? Mallett has thrown seven passes in his four-year NFL career. Is this someone you want to mortgage draft picks for?
Oh yes, and then there is Sanchez, whose greatest accomplishment in the last few seasons in the NFL is the “butt fumble.” He had some limited success with Schottenheimer with the Jets, but he has been a huge disappointment and proved to be a bust as a first-round draft pick. Again, why would the Rams waste any important assets (players or picks) trying to bring in someone who isn’t an improvement on what you already have?
“There are a lot of players out there that are under contract and so you can’t discuss those things,” said Fisher. “But we’ve not had any discussions with anybody. Again, we’re going to be patient with this.”
So here’s what the Rams will do. They’ll be patient. They already know that Hill is the guy who will run their offense and they have been satisfied with what they’ve seen out of Austin Davis as well. Remember shortly after the end of the 2012 season, Fisher practically gift-wrapped the No. 2 job to Davis for the 2013 season. However, Davis mysteriously did not rise to the opportunity and by the middle of training camp, Kellen Clemens had won the job. Now a year later, Davis is playing the way the organization envisioned he would, albeit a year late, and now he should have secured a job.
The next step is to be patient and see what pops up on the waiver wire as we get down to the final cutdown date when rosters must be trimmed to 53 men. NFL personnel people call this churning the bottom of the roster, which means if they see a name that they believe is an upgrade on rookie Garrett Gilbert, they’ll take a look.
But trust me on this: The next great Rams quarterback of the future is not going to be found on some frantic dumpster dive at the end of training camp.
The future isn’t now, it’s next spring when the draft rolls around. That’s where you’ll find your QB of the future; everything else is the stuff of silly fantasy or irrational folly.
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_83cf1fd7-f96c-5c62-b3a4-8b3d3ce1c0d6.html
So now all the amateur football geniuses and junior GM’s of the world have had time to devote their full attention to concocting wonderful fantasy-football solutions to the Rams current quarterback upheaval, this much is quite clear:
Everyone has a plan.
Mark Sanchez. Kirk Cousins. Ryan Mallett. Michael Vick. Chase Daniel. Kyle Orton. Names and outlandish trade ideas are being thrown around with plenty of freedom, but with a short supply of wisdom. And that lack of wisdom pertains particularly to that special breed of crazies who still think Tim Tebow’s best career move would be to put down the SEC Network microphone and race to Rams Park immediately to rescue the season. (Well, they could always use an extra H-back.)
Yet when all the nuttiness is done, when all the fantasy-football draft strategies are exhausted, when all the impractical dreams have run their course, we’re still left with the only logical course of action for this franchise to take.
Leave the football team in the hands of the competent veteran who already knows how to run this offense. Whatever wild ideas you might have to bring in a guy from somewhere else, there’s no one out there who is more ready to run the Rams’ offense than Shaun Hill.
The NFL is not a rec league hustle or a Saturday afternoon game of touch played on the street. You don’t walk in off the street, draw up a few plays in the dirt and tell the receiver to run a buttonhook at the Buick. You don’t bring in a guy who had no knowledge of offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s playbook, then expect him to run through this buzzsaw schedule in the toughest division in football without a glitch. A little recent history lesson should remind you of the disasters that happened when Carson Palmer and Josh Freeman were tossed in the mix in midseason.
In case you haven’t heard, this NFL quarterbacking thing is not an easy thing.
On Monday after practice at Rams Park, Jeff Fisher was particularly amused by all the speculation swirling around his football team and the countless trade rumors connected to the Rams. “I don’t really like to deal with hypotheticals, but had Shaun not (already) been here and we had an (injury) issue, we very well could have brought some guys in and see who’s got a better feel for us under center and then go and name a starter,” Fisher told a horde of reporters who surrounded him after a late-afternoon practice. “But we already have a starter. (Hill) was clearly our (No. 2). He steps in and goes and so anything that happens beyond that I can’t comment because we’ve really not done anything.”
If you need an interpreter to read between the lines, here goes:
There’s no one out there in the great big NFL universe right now who is available, could become available or who wants to make himself available who presents a better option than Shaun Hill. Teams aren’t going to just give away gifted backups (see: Kansas City and Chase Daniel) without asking for a king’s ransom. And the other teams that have guys they’re more than willing to dump are going to try to hijack valuable assets the Rams aren’t (or shouldn’t be) willing to part with (see: Tavon Austin).
Why are so many people fascinated with Ryan Mallett when it’s so obvious that the New England Patriots seem to be ready to dump him for rookie Jimmy Garoppolo? Mallett has thrown seven passes in his four-year NFL career. Is this someone you want to mortgage draft picks for?
Oh yes, and then there is Sanchez, whose greatest accomplishment in the last few seasons in the NFL is the “butt fumble.” He had some limited success with Schottenheimer with the Jets, but he has been a huge disappointment and proved to be a bust as a first-round draft pick. Again, why would the Rams waste any important assets (players or picks) trying to bring in someone who isn’t an improvement on what you already have?
“There are a lot of players out there that are under contract and so you can’t discuss those things,” said Fisher. “But we’ve not had any discussions with anybody. Again, we’re going to be patient with this.”
So here’s what the Rams will do. They’ll be patient. They already know that Hill is the guy who will run their offense and they have been satisfied with what they’ve seen out of Austin Davis as well. Remember shortly after the end of the 2012 season, Fisher practically gift-wrapped the No. 2 job to Davis for the 2013 season. However, Davis mysteriously did not rise to the opportunity and by the middle of training camp, Kellen Clemens had won the job. Now a year later, Davis is playing the way the organization envisioned he would, albeit a year late, and now he should have secured a job.
The next step is to be patient and see what pops up on the waiver wire as we get down to the final cutdown date when rosters must be trimmed to 53 men. NFL personnel people call this churning the bottom of the roster, which means if they see a name that they believe is an upgrade on rookie Garrett Gilbert, they’ll take a look.
But trust me on this: The next great Rams quarterback of the future is not going to be found on some frantic dumpster dive at the end of training camp.
The future isn’t now, it’s next spring when the draft rolls around. That’s where you’ll find your QB of the future; everything else is the stuff of silly fantasy or irrational folly.
