GreatRamNTheSky wrote:

Why didn’t people question Andrew Luck when he came into the league right away and was doing what veterans do at QB and winning games? Why is Davis being questioned like this.

Grits

Because Andrew Luck was a highly regarded top player who was pretty much widely acknowledged to be the most pro-ready qb to come out in the draft for years. Plus he actually was a rookie, unlike Davis this year.

Davis was a spread qb, and often high college production from spread qbs does not translate to the pros. Scouting reports kept mentioning his arm. If he had more going for him, then he might have been drafted by somebody in a qb-starved league.

He did have some big fans after the 2012 pre-season, including WV Ram. He was virtually promised the #2 spot in 2013, and actually lost it by his play.

Luck never once looked as bad as Davis did as a 2nd year guy in 2013. Not once. Not in the pre-season, not in games. It was a completely understandable cut.

He was cut and no one picked him up in a qb starved league because he looked that bad. (Well Miami did, for a couple of minutes.) St. Louis only re-signed him in 2013 because he knew the system. They also signed Brady Quinn, but he got injured. He even started out slow last spring. The Rams drafted someone in 2014, clearly with the intent of replacing him.

And then he came through at a high level in 2 games…so far (though he has yet to play a top defense that has film on him, and that’s a big test). He may rise, he may fall. He may be the next Montana, the next Bulger, the next Fitzpatrick, the next Jamie Martin, or the next Matt Flynn, or the next Tyler Thigpen. So that’s my view. I reserve judgement on him until I feel more certain about who he is. That’s fair. and I didn’t believe in Bulger at first either (with Warner, I was convinced by game #2 against Atlanta).

And you are misunderstanding some things people are saying about Davis by the way.

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.

Except I don’t agree with that. If pocket presence is an instinct, why wouldn’t he bail on plays and run around–which you frequently see with young qbs in their first starts.

So I don’t buy this whole “it’s all instinct” thing. Which is one reason why I think that as often as not, these discussions look at the wrong things. I don’t believe it;s just the qb.

To me the most important thing I list is confidence in the offense. When you see a qb has that, he tends to not press and take things as they come.

Though there’s also the fact that under the same conditions Hill did show poise and pocket presence. Which to me just means he could also do it under better conditions.

I promise you that watching, you will ask a lot of the same questions. You cannot predict the game 2 guy out of the game 1 guy. I mean, drastically can’t do it. You will not see any of the instincts you would predict. Not even a desperate, ineffective version of them. He has no sense where the rush is. None.

Once he had one week of preparation he looked better than Hill.

Where we disagree is there. I don’t think he looked better than Hill, and if anything, Hill looked as good under far more disadvantageous conditions.

I also think Hill would have looked just as good as Davis once the advantages kicked in.

Like–a line better in sync, the WRs not making as many mistakes like play-killing penalties, and a running game. Plus of course the Vikes defense is better than the next 2 defenses the Rams played.

I do believe Hill would have looked just as good with those advantages in games 2 and 3. What I have doubts about is whether Davis would have looked as good in game 1 with those disadvantages, even with prep time with the 1s.

If nothing else that’s just experience. The more experienced Hill was good in bad circumstances.

But when you boil down his play, no, Davis did not look better to me than he did. In fact I was impressed by Hill in game 1. I said so right after the game, and that was when I still thought the INT was on HIM (later we found out he was hurt so trying to throw out of bounds on just one leg and so without the power he needed. So now I attribute the INT to the injury.)

I also think Bradford held his own under bad conditions too. His sack rate and efficiency were both good even in bad circumstances. I can only imagine how well Bradford would be playing now if he had the 2014 offense to work with.

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.

wv wrote:

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?

No I don’t dismiss that. I just thought that when it came to Bradford, the issue was exaggerated. In fact, badly exaggerated.

Of course you have to have some physical and mental pre-reqs to play qb.

But then explain the difference between his miserable, sack-taking lack of PP in game 1 versus the improved version in game 2.

Davis himself said it came from listening to coaches, who stressed all week that he needed to stay in rhythm, drop plant and throw.

Now to do THAT he needed to trust the receivers, which to a large extent, he can and does.

Plus the looking downfield while moving thing. You know for a couple of years there that was one big complaint about Davis…that he DIDN’T do that. Then this summer he started doing it. That HAS TO come from coaches finally drilling it in.

I just believe something Warner says, in interview after interview. He said it when Bulger was the qb, and he said it when Bradford was the qb. He said that he knew from experience that oftentimes, things that are put on the qb are really the context around him. He said that the average viewer just cannot see these things. Now granted you have to be able to play the position, but then, think of the advantages Davis had that were simply not there in game one:

* coaches had not seen him live under real fire before, and they saw flaws they corrected

* the receivers in game one kept ruining drives with mistakes and penalties…that decreased after game 1

* plus the receivers are better than they have been in years

* the OL in game 1 was CLEARLY out of sync, and got better

* they found the running game

* he got the reps with the #1s in practice

* the coaches gameplanned around HIM, instead of around someone else

* given all those advantages, he fed off his own confidence…and this can never be under-estimated.

* AND with that, he had confidence in the offensive players. If you want to see what went wrong with Bradford over the years in his worst games, it was precisely this IMO…he pressed when he did not have confidence the offense could execute. What impressed me about Hill is, he stayed at the same level even though he did NOT have that advantage in game 1.

You add all those things together, and Davis–who was the exact same guy with only one week’s difference–went from looking REALLY bad in game one to looking pretty good to darn good in games 2 and 3.

Of course he had to be able to play. If you or I had all those advantages and improvements, we still wouldn’t look like Davis in games 2 and 3.

But if you ask how and why a guy can go from looking that bad one week and much better the next, a LOT of it is the play around him, and the coaching.

Warner himself says that kind of thing, over and over. He should know–he did NOT look good in NY and then things got righted in ARZ.

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.

If anything I would rate Hill higher because he was showing good pocket sense under much worse conditions.

.

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.

I wouldn’t say Davis has a popgun arm. He’s not Feeley, Clemens, Walsh, or Jamie Martin. But he doesn’t have a top arm. I have the same question you do (as you said in a different thread:) he can loft good deep balls, and he’s accurate in the short ranges, but does he have a viable medium range?

I am reserving FULL judgement on Davis until we see him pass the test against a real defense. So far so good though.

Actually the truth is, I think the the difference between Hill and Davis is 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. There some differences in their skills and style of play, but not so much that one is clearly above the other. I think Davis would have had the same disadvantages in the Vikes game (still out of sync OL, no running game, receivers making mistake after mistake), and I think Hill would have been just as impressive as Davis was against Tampa and Dallas–in large part because a lot of it had to do with the problems I listed getting cleaned up after game 1 (plus the Vikes have a better defense than Tampa or Dallas).

Herzog wrote:

That trade with the bears was so stupid and meaningless…..It cost then Wagner….who Fisher really wanted

Well sometimes the b’ar eats YOU.

Should Shaun Hill really get the start over Austin Davis? John Clayton tells us.

–

laram wrote:

zn wth are you talking about??

You can buy that shit, I don’t.

At the snap, Dez shifts out to the X, Jenks goes with him.

Jenks has man, he was NOT suppose to pass him over. He bit at the marker just like he did on the pick 6.

That’s what he does, he gambles on down and distance.

Maybe he should have had help over the top maybe not, but he was not to release him.

Dunbar had the curl zone and got caught on a run blitz and was late getting out.

That’s all it was for you because you don’t know any better.

So I have 2 versions, yours and Fisher’s.

Fisher called out a player (McCleod) and so put himself in a position where he better not be lying. He would essentially be, in public, throwing McCleod under the bus to avoid criticizing Jenkins. The players of course would KNOW that;s what he was doing. I know this much–a locker room notices stuff like that.

You saw it differently. Without actually know what was in McCleod’s head, and whether he genuinely failed to communicate or not. Something Fisher would be in a position TO know.

So far that’s all I have. You saw it differently.

And at the end of the day, that’s all we’ll ever have.

rfl wrote:

And a draft pick too late for the premier QB prospects.

That’s okay. I don’t believe in the “premier qb prospects.” Unless it’s once a decade guy like Luck. If you look at the top 15 qbs performing right now based solely on qb rating, it includes 5 players picked in the top 5 of the 1st round: Manning, Ryan, Luck, Newton, Rivers. No Stafford, no RG3, No Alex Smith, no Sanchez, no Eli.

I think if you add a good or very good qb to a more established team, then he has a chance to be as good as if not better than the top-picked guys.

Or for that matter, how about all currently top 15 qbs drafted or acquired (in any way shape or form) from 2011 on?

Luck, high 1st round
Newton, high 1st round
Manning, free agent
Fitzpatrick, free agent
Dalton, 2nd round
Kaepernick, 2nd round
Wilson, 3rd round
Foles, 3rd round
Cousins, 4th round
Hoyer, UDFA

Herzog wrote:

What I like about Davis this year….very high pocket awareness. Also, he can read defenses and he knows this offense like the back of his hand. He knows what he’s doing out there.

You know it;s interesting about pocket awareness. He had absolutely none when he came in cold in the Vikes game. In fact I thought most if all the sacks he took were on him. Then he’s better (though the Vikes have more of a defense than Dallas or Tampa). You know what HE attributes it to? Staying in rhythm. Dropping, planting, throwing. He said that all week after the Vikes game, the coaches stressed that — stay in rhythm. Yet we see it as this quality of the qb’s psyche. Meanwhile, on top of it, to drop and throw you have to trust your receivers. If you don’t you have to compensate somehow for it, for example by bailing on the pocket or holding the ball waiting for a play. It really is amazing how much we put on the qb that isn’t really the qb.

rfl wrote:

if all those guys are productive together–which they seemed to feel was possible and perhaps likely–what that means is that Sam would be having a killer year. Sam offers the difference between a nice running game last year and a nice running game combined with a nice play action passing game yielding something special.

When I look at our offense, I see no one player or dimension that stands out. The running game is good, but we don’t have Adrian Peterson. Our TEs have some real virtues, but none will make the top 100 players. Our OL is much stronger and has some depth, but there is currently no reason to expect it to be elite. (I would love to be wrong about this.) The WRs have some pieces, but no studs. Even Tavon is dependent for top productivity on the rest of the O pulling defenses out of shape to open up space.

Nope–the only hope we have of a Top 10 offense is that Sam catalyzes a bunch of nice but not elite parts and creates a killer synergy. If he can do that, we’ll have a special offense and team, and he will have broken out … leaving the criticisms in his wake.

Turns out, IMO, that is all happening. The synergy thing on offense. They use a combination of the different WRs, the TEs, the running game, play action, ball control passing, and taking shots–and that combination blends together into a pretty good offense with the ability to get better.

What no one foresaw is that they are doing it first (and briefly) with the #2 qb and then with the #3 qb.

Good as usual. I enjoy these. I think we should put you on regular salary.

Fisher says a healthy Hill still the starter

By Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/12021/fisher-says-a-healthy-hill-still-the-starter

EARTH CITY, Mo. — The question is not going to go away anytime soon and with the St. Louis Rams on bye week, it will almost certainly persist for at least the next two weeks.

But Rams coach Jeff Fisher was asked once again Monday whether Austin Davis had done enough to supplant Shaun Hill as the starting quarterback. His response was familiar.

“We’ll see how things go this week,” Fisher said. “We’ll see how Shaun is, but as I’ve maintained Shaun is our starter and Austin is our backup.”

Hill, of course, is still recovering from a thigh injury. But it’s interesting to note that Hill’s thigh was healthy enough for the Rams to keep him active as the No. 2 quarterback against the Dallas Cowboys last week. What’s more, the Rams named third quarterback Case Keenum a pregame inactive, meaning had something happened to Davis, Hill would’ve been the only option.

Fisher offered an explanation for that Monday also. Well, sort of.

“We kept him up as the two because I felt like he could finish a game out of the shotgun,” Fisher said. “But he’s not ready to go under center yet.”

With Hill as the backup, Davis again made a strong statement that he should continue to start so long as he keeps performing at a high level. He was 30-of-42 for 327 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions.

That performance impressed Fisher.

“I thought he had a pretty good day,” Fisher said. “Threw the ball around, moved around, avoided sacks in the pocket. I thought he played, like I said last night, good enough to win, but you got to see where you’re cutting that ball loose and he didn’t. He cut that ball loose, he got some pressure and cut it loose. Interception for a touchdown is not a good thing. It happens, but overall I thought he played a little bit better than he did last week.”

Fisher also indicated Monday that Hill is nearing a return to full health. But whether he wants to speak publicly about it or not, there is a decision that will have to be made at some point before the Rams next game against Philadelphia on Oct. 5.

Despite his insistence to the contrary, the hunch here is that Fisher will indeed take this bye week to see how Hill has progressed and consider who his starter will be moving forward. Until someone other than Davis starts for the Rams, there’s no use in getting upset over milk that hasn’t yet spilled.

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