Venturi on Frank Cignetti and Bradford

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Bucky


Zach & The Coach
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
http://www.101espn.com/templates/audio_player.php?a=5928


This morning on Zak and the Coach Venturi made some favorable comments on the Rams new QB coach Frank Cignetti. He took credit for helping him get a job at Fresno State. He focused on his abilities, his personality and the range of his experience. Venturi thinks this is a strong hire.

He talked a great deal about Bradford and how after being coached by Dick Curl (gently) and by the smartest guy in the room (McDaniels) that maybe he needs an aggressive, straight talking QB coach.

Venturi thought Sam's strength's have been his rhythm and quick release. In college and in his first year in the pros, it was get the ball out or take off. Last year he was asked to do a lot of play action and to run 7 step drops.

Venturi said that Sam needs to be coached about anticipating the intermediate routes, learning to throw the receiver open.

He also needs to learn how to move in the pocket, like Brady and now like Eli.

He said when Sam hits that seventh step, he is flat footed and immobile.

He thought good coaching would take care of the first issue and that experience would take care of the second.
 

Anonymous

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zn said:
Bucky


Zach & The Coach
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
http://www.101espn.com/templates/audio_player.php?a=5928


This morning on Zak and the Coach Venturi made some favorable comments on the Rams new QB coach Frank Cignetti. He took credit for helping him get a job at Fresno State. He focused on his abilities, his personality and the range of his experience. Venturi thinks this is a strong hire.

He talked a great deal about Bradford and how after being coached by Dick Curl (gently) and by the smartest guy in the room (McDaniels) that maybe he needs an aggressive, straight talking QB coach.

Venturi thought Sam's strength's have been his rhythm and quick release. In college and in his first year in the pros, it was get the ball out or take off. Last year he was asked to do a lot of play action and to run 7 step drops.

Venturi said that Sam needs to be coached about anticipating the intermediate routes, learning to throw the receiver open.

He also needs to learn how to move in the pocket, like Brady and now like Eli.

He said when Sam hits that seventh step, he is flat footed and immobile.

He thought good coaching would take care of the first issue and that experience would take care of the second
.


I listened to it. Here's more. I like Bucky's transcript (it's good) but it's always good to get more than one.

Venturi of course knew Cignetti in New Orleans. He was a McCarthy hire. He also has a Shottenheimer connection from Kansas City. That's important because the qb coach has to be in sync with the coordinator. He's an ideal hire. Very strong hire. He's a tough guy, a detail-oriented guy. That's important.

"McDaniels was an idea a minute guy. Curl was a mentor." Cignetti is like McCarthy, west Pennsylvania guy, a grinder, highly detail oriented, he'll be an excellent qb coach.

This is a guy who gets it. Thought Jeremy Bates was going to be the Rams qb coach. He signed with the Bears. Pleasantly surprised with Cignetti hire instead.

The coodinator experience is important because Sam is off the charts with his questions and you're not going to fool him. Cignetti understands the big picture, he understand qb play. Also, he's an input guy. He's not just a guy who's just a technician, he's going to have input at meetings and at game time.

College success as a coordinator means he's a teacher.

He;s got a toughness, he;s a get after it guy. Sam needs a little of that.

What needs to be fixed with Bradford?

2012 offense will be more like 2010. 3, 5 step drop and get rid of it, or drop and move and get rid of it. Sam's biggest issues are in the play-action or 7 step game when the routes develop downfield in the 2nd level, that 15 to 20 yard area.

He has 2 issues. First, he wants it to come open--he doesn't throw to a spot or "throw it open." He didn't do that in college or with Shurmur. In the spread it's all quick stuff for 5 yards. IN the WCO, it's read the receiver triangle boom boom boom and out. That intermediate game, he has a little trouble anticipating the route. So one issue is anticipation in the 2nd level downfield. Coaching helps that.

Another issue--he's flat-footed on the 7th step drops. He sits in the spot and doesn't have pocket awareness. That comes with time and reps. He doesn't have that background. The spread does not give you that. He doesn't "feel" the rush yet. That's all about experience.
 

Faceplant

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Couldn't agree more with the 7 step flat footedness!! I said it over and over last year...MOVE UP IN THE POCKET!!! Looking forward to seeing how Cignetti coaches him up on pocket presence. IMO, if he can improve that, he can drastically lower his hit/sacked totals.
 

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Faceplant said:
Couldn't agree more with the 7 step flat footedness!! I said it over and over last year...MOVE UP IN THE POCKET!!! Looking forward to seeing how Cignetti coaches him up on pocket presence. IMO, if he can improve that, he can drastically lower his hit/sacked totals.
I think all of the points are fair. He did improve in moving up in the pocket when he could, you have to remember that there wasn't a very good pocket to move up into. Wragge and Brown were often pushed straight back, Brown especially, he killed the pocket.

One more thing from a different perspective, I agree with throwing the receiver open, but to do that you have to trust the receivers and be on the same page as the receiver, and how much work did Sam have with any particular receiver? Not much. These things come with reps and trust, not to mention talent, the ability of a receiver to beat the corner to the ball when they are both in the same relative position.

A lot of these things will get better with better talent surrounding Sam, and Sam is lucky to have worked with the guys that he has so far. All of his prior experience will help him going forward, and even Sam's pocket presence, or lack of, will seemingly get a lot better when he has more than 2 seconds to throw the ball.
 

Anonymous

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DR RAM said:
Faceplant said:
Couldn't agree more with the 7 step flat footedness!! I said it over and over last year...MOVE UP IN THE POCKET!!! Looking forward to seeing how Cignetti coaches him up on pocket presence. IMO, if he can improve that, he can drastically lower his hit/sacked totals.
I think all of the points are fair. He did improve in moving up in the pocket when he could, you have to remember that there wasn't a very good pocket to move up into. Wragge and Brown were often pushed straight back, Brown especially, he killed the pocket.

One more thing from a different perspective, I agree with throwing the receiver open, but to do that you have to trust the receivers and be on the same page as the receiver, and how much work did Sam have with any particular receiver? Not much. These things come with reps and trust, not to mention talent, the ability of a receiver to beat the corner to the ball when they are both in the same relative position.

A lot of these things will get better with better talent surrounding Sam, and Sam is lucky to have worked with the guys that he has so far. All of his prior experience will help him going forward, and even Sam's pocket presence, or lack of, will seemingly get a lot better when he has more than 2 seconds to throw the ball.

This is a Coryell offense now. He has to throw to the spot on those intermediate routes whether he trusts the receivers or not.
 

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zn said:
DR RAM said:
Faceplant said:
Couldn't agree more with the 7 step flat footedness!! I said it over and over last year...MOVE UP IN THE POCKET!!! Looking forward to seeing how Cignetti coaches him up on pocket presence. IMO, if he can improve that, he can drastically lower his hit/sacked totals.
I think all of the points are fair. He did improve in moving up in the pocket when he could, you have to remember that there wasn't a very good pocket to move up into. Wragge and Brown were often pushed straight back, Brown especially, he killed the pocket.

One more thing from a different perspective, I agree with throwing the receiver open, but to do that you have to trust the receivers and be on the same page as the receiver, and how much work did Sam have with any particular receiver? Not much. These things come with reps and trust, not to mention talent, the ability of a receiver to beat the corner to the ball when they are both in the same relative position.

A lot of these things will get better with better talent surrounding Sam, and Sam is lucky to have worked with the guys that he has so far. All of his prior experience will help him going forward, and even Sam's pocket presence, or lack of, will seemingly get a lot better when he has more than 2 seconds to throw the ball.

This is a Coryell offense now. He has to throw to the spot on those intermediate routes whether he trusts the receivers or not.
He will be able to do that, throwing open and throwing to a spot are two totally different things. Let me expand...Sam already throws one of the best "to a spot" throws in the league on his deep outs, he's great at it, probably his best throw.

As far as trust and the Coryell offense, trust is even more important, because the release of the ball is sometimes (not always) before the receiver makes his read and cut. If the receiver doesn't get to the spot, the ball will be incomplete or picked off, and many times these throws are blamed on the QB, when it was the WR who ran an incorrect or bad route.
 

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HELLO

HIGH
ANKLE
SPRAIN


He's still recovering from it.
 

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squeaky wheel said:
HELLO

HIGH
ANKLE
SPRAIN


He's still recovering from it.
Really? Sam has a high ankle sprain?
 

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What I have yet to hear is Spags explanation for not having a QB coach last year.

On the surface is appears to have been a major blunder.
 

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max said:
What I have yet to hear is Spags explanation for not having a QB coach last year.

On the surface is appears to have been a major blunder.

Josh McDaniels said that he didn't need one, Spags took his word for it.
 

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bluecoconuts said:
max said:
What I have yet to hear is Spags explanation for not having a QB coach last year.

On the surface is appears to have been a major blunder.

Josh McDaniels said that he didn't need one, Spags took his word for it.
I prefer not to play the blame game. I'm looking forward to a new era of Ram football.
 

steferfootball

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bluecoconuts said:
max said:
What I have yet to hear is Spags explanation for not having a QB coach last year.

On the surface is appears to have been a major blunder.

Josh McDaniels said that he didn't need one, Spags took his word for it.
I bet McDaniels told Spags he didn't video tape anyone either. :sly:
 

Anonymous

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squeaky wheel said:
HELLO

HIGH
ANKLE
SPRAIN


He's still recovering from it.

Venturi knows that.

But there was a period before the sprain when he revealed he had some issues.
 

Anonymous

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zn said:
squeaky wheel said:
HELLO

HIGH
ANKLE
SPRAIN


He's still recovering from it.

Venturi knows that.

But there was a period before the sprain when he revealed he had some issues.

Shitty O-line and crap WRs might preclude getting comfy with the 7 step drop too.
 

Anonymous

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squeaky wheel said:
zn said:
squeaky wheel said:
HELLO

HIGH
ANKLE
SPRAIN


He's still recovering from it.

Venturi knows that.

But there was a period before the sprain when he revealed he had some issues.

cruddy O-line and crap WRs might preclude getting comfy with the 7 step drop too.

Those things happened too but it wasn't just that.

I mean he's not perfect. He's still too much of a project to be perfect, So he will have some flaws. That was clearly visible. So why not be honest about where he stands as a project. This is way beyond the whole basher/apologist dynamic...it's just a matter of trying to be objective about the guy.

Most of the stuff that got exposed in his game last year happened because he didn't have to do those things as a rookie. Shurmur brought him along slowly, and sheltered the whole offense from the fact they had no WRs AND couldn't run very well AND had a rookie qb.

It was a lot of things, some of it was Bradford too, and it would be strange if he DIDN'T have aspects of his game to work on.
 

steferfootball

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It was a lot of things, some of it was Bradford too, and it would be strange if he DIDN'T have aspects of his game to work on.
It is a lot of things. But it is hard to evaluate him in the chaos that is our offense.

People say Brady has great pocket presence. Which he does. However take the superbowl for instance. Against the NASCAR formation, he would see maybe one or two guys in one play get some pressure here and there.

With pretty good certainty, Brady can sit for 4 or 5 seconds and avoid the one guy if he happens to get through.

Now look at it through Bradford's perspective. It is hard to hold the ball, because he knows he will get hit. It is really a matter if he can get rid of the ball before he is hit. (Pocket presence or not, Jason Brown is undoubtedly one yard in front of him on a 7 step drop :lol: )

The first month of the season was absolutely mind boggling. Coupled with the protection issues, we had drop issues. I recall that 13% of his passes were dropped according to FOX at one point.

Back to the example - those long dropbacks. He has no confidence that the receiver can catch, and has no confidence the OL can block. If you consider that 13% of his passes were dropped, he played a heck of a first month. It took quite a bit of mental toughness to endure this season.



I feel like we are screwing up his development with this stuff. We were all excited about it, but hiring Josh McDaniels was a terrible decision in hindsight. :(
 

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steferfootball said:
zn said:
It was a lot of things, some of it was Bradford too, and it would be strange if he DIDN'T have aspects of his game to work on.
It is a lot of things. But it is hard to evaluate him in the chaos that is our offense.

People say Brady has great pocket presence. Which he does. However take the superbowl for instance. Against the NASCAR formation, he would see maybe one or two guys in one play get some pressure here and there.

With pretty good certainty, Brady can sit for 4 or 5 seconds and avoid the one guy if he happens to get through.

Now look at it through Bradford's perspective. It is hard to hold the ball, because he knows he will get hit. It is really a matter if he can get rid of the ball before he is hit. (Pocket presence or not, Jason Brown is undoubtedly one yard in front of him on a 7 step drop :lol: )

The first month of the season was absolutely mind boggling. Coupled with the protection issues, we had drop issues. I recall that 13% of his passes were dropped according to FOX at one point.

Back to the example - those long dropbacks. He has no confidence that the receiver can catch, and has no confidence the OL can block. If you consider that 13% of his passes were dropped, he played a heck of a first month. It took quite a bit of mental toughness to endure this season.



I feel like we are screwing up his development with this stuff. We were all excited about it, but hiring Josh McDaniels was a terrible decision in hindsight. :(

He also wasn't good at long dropbacks.

Honestly, that's HIM. A lot of the other chaos comes from him not being good at that. For example, if as you said you know you're going to get hit, why all of a sudden do you forget about your mobility.

The real question is why McD kept calling those plays. He clearly wasn't good at them.

I don't exempt a young developing qb with flaws to work on from what is HIS stuff. And Venturi has watched more qbs up close than you an I have. He knows about all the other stuff everyone mentions yet he was discussing a qb coach so he honed in on things Bradford has to work on. I don't see anything to take issue with there. Or why it's controversial at all.
 

steferfootball

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zn said:
steferfootball said:
zn said:
It was a lot of things, some of it was Bradford too, and it would be strange if he DIDN'T have aspects of his game to work on.
It is a lot of things. But it is hard to evaluate him in the chaos that is our offense.

People say Brady has great pocket presence. Which he does. However take the superbowl for instance. Against the NASCAR formation, he would see maybe one or two guys in one play get some pressure here and there.

With pretty good certainty, Brady can sit for 4 or 5 seconds and avoid the one guy if he happens to get through.

Now look at it through Bradford's perspective. It is hard to hold the ball, because he knows he will get hit. It is really a matter if he can get rid of the ball before he is hit. (Pocket presence or not, Jason Brown is undoubtedly one yard in front of him on a 7 step drop :lol: )

The first month of the season was absolutely mind boggling. Coupled with the protection issues, we had drop issues. I recall that 13% of his passes were dropped according to FOX at one point.

Back to the example - those long dropbacks. He has no confidence that the receiver can catch, and has no confidence the OL can block. If you consider that 13% of his passes were dropped, he played a heck of a first month. It took quite a bit of mental toughness to endure this season.



I feel like we are screwing up his development with this stuff. We were all excited about it, but hiring Josh McDaniels was a terrible decision in hindsight. :(

He also wasn't good at long dropbacks.

Honestly, that's HIM. A lot of the other chaos comes from him not being good at that. For example, if as you said you know you're going to get hit, why all of a sudden do you forget about your mobility.

The real question is why McD kept calling those plays. He clearly wasn't good at them.

I don't exempt a young developing qb with flaws to work on from what is HIS stuff. And Venturi has watched more qbs up close than you an I have. He knows about all the other stuff everyone mentions yet he was discussing a qb coach so he honed in on things Bradford has to work on. I don't see anything to take issue with there. Or why it's controversial at all.
Its nearly impossible to develop a young QB when nearly everyone around him is doing nearly everything wrong. That is the point.
 

Anonymous

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steferfootball said:
zn said:
steferfootball said:
zn said:
It was a lot of things, some of it was Bradford too, and it would be strange if he DIDN'T have aspects of his game to work on.
It is a lot of things. But it is hard to evaluate him in the chaos that is our offense.

People say Brady has great pocket presence. Which he does. However take the superbowl for instance. Against the NASCAR formation, he would see maybe one or two guys in one play get some pressure here and there.

With pretty good certainty, Brady can sit for 4 or 5 seconds and avoid the one guy if he happens to get through.

Now look at it through Bradford's perspective. It is hard to hold the ball, because he knows he will get hit. It is really a matter if he can get rid of the ball before he is hit. (Pocket presence or not, Jason Brown is undoubtedly one yard in front of him on a 7 step drop :lol: )

The first month of the season was absolutely mind boggling. Coupled with the protection issues, we had drop issues. I recall that 13% of his passes were dropped according to FOX at one point.

Back to the example - those long dropbacks. He has no confidence that the receiver can catch, and has no confidence the OL can block. If you consider that 13% of his passes were dropped, he played a heck of a first month. It took quite a bit of mental toughness to endure this season.



I feel like we are screwing up his development with this stuff. We were all excited about it, but hiring Josh McDaniels was a terrible decision in hindsight. :(

He also wasn't good at long dropbacks.

Honestly, that's HIM. A lot of the other chaos comes from him not being good at that. For example, if as you said you know you're going to get hit, why all of a sudden do you forget about your mobility.

The real question is why McD kept calling those plays. He clearly wasn't good at them.

I don't exempt a young developing qb with flaws to work on from what is HIS stuff. And Venturi has watched more qbs up close than you an I have. He knows about all the other stuff everyone mentions yet he was discussing a qb coach so he honed in on things Bradford has to work on. I don't see anything to take issue with there. Or why it's controversial at all.
Its nearly impossible to develop a young QB when nearly everyone around him is doing nearly everything wrong. That is the point.

You're debating someone who said "Bradford should have developed last year." There's no one saying that.

What I AM saying is that it does no one any good to dismiss Bradford's flaws at this stage of his development and somehow attribute it all to everyone but him.

The guy has flaws in his game to work on. No one said he should have worked all that out last year.

One part of addressing those flaws is to honestly name them for what they are.

I mean if it were me one of the first things I would do is make sure he doesn't think he's just a victim of circumstances around him. He needs to lead by working on his game.

In fact if Bradford were to come here and post next my bet is he would agree with me.