Zac Stacy and Kenny Britt Pressers

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ZigZagRam

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We've been in the top half of the league in terms of least sacks allowed the last few seasons. A common misconception.
 

Dodgersrf

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I didn't say he never threw deep, but in the season you're referencing Bradford finished 26th out of 32 QBs in YPA.

I find it hard to believe that Sam's preference of throwing short and intermediate routes (with many many checkdowns) which was drilled into him by Spags is a surprise to anyone that's watched him play the last few seasons.

I know we're supposed to be rah rah Sam, but I think we're all adult enough to admit that he has flaws, one of which being his tendency to throw check downs rather than giving his routes a chance to develop more downfield.

Having the time to let plays develop is the bigger issue.

You're not alone on the ypa. With solid pass protection, we'll all be happy with sams ypa. And more importantly, the score at the end of the games.
 

Dodgersrf

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We've been in the top half of the league in terms of least sacks allowed the last few seasons. A common misconception.

Three step drops are the reason for that. Not the "great" pass pro.
Better pass pro wil allow us more 5-7 step drops.
 

ZigZagRam

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His YPA needs to get better. No disputing that. I think the receivers lack of yards after the catch can also hurt Sam's YPA. I also don't think the deep throw is an issue with Sam. His problem is the lack of 10-20 yard throw. I think some of that could be due to weak offensive lines and coordinators feeling if they don't call a quick pass the guy is going to get sacked. Also Sam holds responsibility too. To me the YPA is the only thing I think Sam needs to improve.

I mostly agree.

He kind of has a blind spot in between the hashes in that 10-20 range.

He's definitely got the arm talent. It's a confidence issue at this point. They've certainly added the weapons and protection now so hopefully we see a little more of that gunslinger that we saw at Oklahoma. His ball security is fantastic, but sometimes he needs to trust his arm more than he does. It will come.
 

BigRamFan

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I didn't say he never threw deep, but in the season you're referencing Bradford finished 26th out of 32 QBs in YPA.

I find it hard to believe that Sam's preference of throwing short and intermediate routes (with many many checkdowns) which was drilled into him by Spags is a surprise to anyone that's watched him play the last few seasons.

I know we're supposed to be rah rah Sam, but I think we're all adult enough to admit that he has flaws, one of which being his tendency to throw check downs rather than giving his routes a chance to develop more downfield.
Any chance this may be a function of WRs not getting open, OL not being able to hold blocks long enough for these routes to develop? Then again, unless you have some inside info on the play calls this all seems to be nothing more than conjecture.
 

ZigZagRam

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Three step drops are the reason for that. Not the "great" pass pro.
Better pass pro wil allow us more 5-7 step drops.

Not to mention a more effective play action game. Our run game with two absolute maulers in Robinson and Saffold is going to up a lot of things offensively.
 

ChrisW

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I guess we shouldn't use passing yards either. I mean Peyton Manning only threw for 957 more yards than Sam Bradford during his last full season. That's less than 60 yards a game...

Heck, we should probably stop keeping track of stats all together.

Not what I said, but ok.

Yards per game is much better than yards per attempt. But even yards per game varies wildly in this league with the different styles of defense you face. You really think any QB in this division is going to have a high yards/attempt average?
 

ZigZagRam

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Any chance this may be a function of WRs not getting open, OL not being able to hold blocks long enough for these routes to develop? Then again, unless you have some inside info on the play calls this all seems to be nothing more than conjecture.

I've watched coaches film on every play from the past few seasons. While there has certainly been plenty of times where you can blame it on the WR and OL, there's plenty of chances each game where Sam has a clean pocket and dumps off within 10 when he has a man breaking free in the secondary. As I said, it's a confidence issue. It happens to young QBs all the time when they're surrounded by garbage for a few seasons and can't recover.

Fortunately for us we saw signs last season that Sam has started to get over that.
 

ZigZagRam

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Not what I said, but ok.

Yards per game is much better than yards per attempt. But even yards per game varies wildly in this league with the different styles of defense you face. You really think any QB in this division is going to have a high yards/attempt average?

Russell Wilson and Carson Palmer were in the top half of the league last year. Kaepernick was just below. All three were ahead of Sam's last full season.

Before someone jumps to conclusion NO I'M NOT SAYING THAT MAKES THEM BETTER!
 

Dodgersrf

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Not to mention a more effective play action game. Our run game with two absolute maulers in Robinson and Saffold is going to up a lot of things offensively.

Absolutely! Also a great point.
 

ZigZagRam

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Absolutely! Also a great point.

I can't wait to see it. As good as Timmerman and Nutten were, we've never had guard play in St. Louis like we're going to see this season.

O-linemen will never make the highlight reels, but this is going to be a rare case where I'm going to have to remind myself to watch the ball carrier because seeing Robinson and Saffold in the second level is going to be a quite a sight to see on it's own.
 

ChrisW

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Russell Wilson and Carson Palmer were in the top half of the league last year. Kaepernick was just below. All three were ahead of Sam's last full season.

Before someone jumps to conclusion NO I'M NOT SAYING THAT MAKES THEM BETTER!

You know better than to compare stats from two different years.
 

ZigZagRam

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You know better than to compare stats from two different years.

OK fine, in his best season as Rams QB, this last season, Sam was 35th in YPA, far, far below that of the other QBs in our division who finished in or just outside of the top half of QBs in the whole NFL.

Better?
 

ChrisW

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OK fine, in his best season as Rams QB, this last season, Sam was 35th in YPA, far, far below that of the other QBs in our division who finished in or just outside of the top half of QBs in the whole NFL.

Better?

Considering he started the year with that shitty West Coast passing offense, no.
 

Sum1

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They have Britt even lining up in the slot. Interesting.
I'm not going to be surprised at all if you see Austin lining up wide with one of the bigger guys in the slot from time to time.
 

nighttrain

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Arm strength has never been the issue with Sam. Mentally though, he's shown an unwillingness to throw deep.

Hopefully Britt is the type of player that Sam can learn to trust and start to gain the confidence back that we saw in him as a rookie.
unwillingness or bad OL that gave him no time?
train
 

RamzFanz

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Again, he'd have more opportunities if he didn't check down so much. As I alluded to before, a lot of that was created because control-freak Spags drilled it into his head that he had a few seconds to get rid of the rock on every single play.

I've always believed that once Sam got a target he could trust, we wouldn't see the same limitations. The combo of Spags BS practice whistle and unreliable receivers has stunted Sam's growth a bit.

Now that we have the best WRs we've had during his tenure here, not to mention a better OL, I hope Sam learns to hold onto the ball a bit longer and lets things develop.

You didn't even watch the video, did you? Sam checks down when his primary target isn't open. He also threw a lot of short passes last season when there was no run game. When he had time and Amendola, Gibson, and Givens getting open long, he let the play develope and let it fly. There is no reason to believe he won't continue. What you are saying is factually incorrect IMHO.
 

ZigZagRam

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You didn't even watch the video, did you? Sam checks down when his primary target isn't open. He also threw a lot of short passes last season when there was no run game. When he had time and Amendola, Gibson, and Givens getting open long, he let the play develope and let it fly. There is no reason to believe he won't continue. What you are saying is factually incorrect IMHO.

Again, I watched every single play of All-22 from the past two seasons. I can count multiple times per game where Sam checks down with a clean pocket before even giving the deeper routes time to develop. You can't see that on the regular broadcast but I guarantee you if you watch the same film, you'll see it a handful of times every single week. He'll have a clean pocket, and an open window, but he chooses the check down.

As someone who was widely regarded as a Bradford apologist at the previous forum that I was at, it seems I've come under fire for even suggesting that Bradford has become a bit gun-shy. Are we that insecure here that there may be some areas of Sam's game that he needs to improve?