Plenty of QBs have been quiet-intense leaders. Bart Starr, Len Dawson, Bob Griese, etc.
And plenty have been fiery. Joe Kapp, Favre, etc.

Austin is fiery. Apparently some of the ram players
like that.

w
v
=============================
Wagoner article: “….Beyond the numbers, Davis has a locker room full of teammates who are buoyed by his presence in the huddle and his fiery demeanor on the field.

“We definitely feed off that,” tight end Lance Kendricks said. “You need that in the huddle sometimes, especially with a young group like us. I think that kind of helps everyone’s confidence and ability to just play their game.”

The humble and soft-spoken Davis is not letting his more permanent promotion change how he is approaching things. He said Wednesday he hasn’t thought much about how he’s come from spring roster long shot to entrenched starter in a matter of about three months.

“I think that’s why you do take the cliché approach of work hard every day and take every rep like it’s your last, because you never what’s going to happen in this game with injuries and different opportunities and things like that,” Davis said. “So, yeah, it’s a bit of a wild ride. But at the end of the day, this team’s looking for me to lead them, and I’m up for that challenge and excited about it.”
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12213/davis-earned-starting-job-but-has-chance-for-more

zn wrote:

But my challenge to everyone is still this: watch the 2nd half of the Vikes game again and see again how bad Davis was IN TERMS OF POCKET PRESENCE. Then, figure out why he improved dramatically in a week. Whatever it is, it won’t be him alone–it can’t be. Then apply those lessons to other qbs. If AD needed a lot to change to become a better pocket presence type, what does that tell us about the entire pocket presence issue.

Well no matter how bad he looked in the Vikes game
that wouldnt prove what you think it would.
Cause all it would prove is that a young kid
got thrown into a game unprepared. To me, thats
all it would prove.

At any rate, the term you used “pocket presence” is not
the term i used. I didnt use the PP word on purpose.

This whole notion of “pocket and nonpocket skills” (PNS)
is tricky and i dont know that i wont change my
mind about it ten times before dinner.
But at the moment i am just trying to think about
what kinds of Pocket and Nonpocket Skills exist.
And how a fan can go about observing, analyzing, thinking-about
‘them’.

It seems to me that AD has shown at least ONE skill that Bradford
and Hill just dont have — the ability to:
1 Quickly sense a threatening Pass Rusher,
2 and then ESCAPE by rolling out or moving
3 and zipping an accurate pass to a receiver.

I mean go back and look at a couple of
AD’s “escape and throw” plays in that
Cowboy game. I was nonplussed. I was
startled at how good those plays were.
They were Montana-like. I’ve been watching
Bradford a long time now, and while he is
very good at rolling out and throwing,
he is not very good at ad-libbing and
ESCAPING and then rolling out and throwing.

I dunno what to call that ‘skill’ of AD’s
but its an important skill. I just call it
a “pocket skill” i guess. Call it what u want.

w
v

===================
zn: “…And no I do not think AD has superior pocket sense to Bradford or Hill. I think they are all about equal, and if anything Hill is somewhat better. I think what happened was, AD got put in a better position. Lots of things came together at the same time…”
===========================

Well, i tend to disagree with all that. I’m not sure, but based on what little ive seen,
i think AD has a more advanced “SET-OF-Pocket-and-NONpocke-Skills” than Bradford.

All the points you listed just relate to the ‘minimum requirements’ for showing
a quarterbacks ‘set of pocket and nonpocket skills’. Yes, you need
coaching and an OLIne and Weapons, and confidence and practice, etc.
But once you have that — the set-of-pocket-and-nonpocket-skills is going
to be on display. That set of skills is not “on or off” its more like a scale of one to ten.

I think AD has more highly developed pocket and nonpocket skills/attributes
than Bradford. But, again, this is a tentative view. Its a small
sample of work from AD. But so far, I like what i see.

At any rate, i like what they have at QB.
Bradford, AD, and an experienced vet in Hill.
Add another kid next year, and QB looks good.

w
v

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by wv.

zn wrote:

wv wrote:
How do we describe Austin D’s ‘arm’ ?

Has he got a popgun arm?

How does it compare with other QBs
in the NFL?

How has his deep ball looked?

w
v

You know most of the things he lists? The pocket stuff for example. It was simply not true of the Vikes game. He took sacks, he seemed to have bad pocket sense, and so on.

He himself said the difference between week 1 and week 2 was simply being coached to stay in rhythm and get plays off. People want to make these into completely and entirely “you got it or you don’t” attributes of the qb, but a lot of it comes from a dynamic set up by the coach. So the Davis we are praising, for a lot of reasons, was not there in game 1. He himself says that coaching is a key difference between game 1 and the next 2 games.

I might add that from the bit I saw in the Vikes game, all 5 points apply directly to Hill as well. They are being coached to play like this.

Well, you always seem to dismiss any ‘pocket presense’
or ‘pocket attributes’ stuff.

Do you not think some QBs have better
“pocket attributes” (for laack of a better term)
than others?

I know one thing — the kid
felt pressure
and
extended the play
and
zipped an accurate strike to a receiver
three times in that Dallas game.
I dont think Bradford could
have done that.
Though, Bradford of course may
have done ‘other’ things
better than AD.

w
v