Another Wasted 1st Round Pick

Watching his play so far this season, I cannot understand how anyone can say that Matthew Stafford is going to be a great quarterback in the NFL. A few of his touchdowns were pretty, but that does not make him a great quarterback prospect. Remember, even the hated Joey Harrington threw some touchdowns. It is rare that Stafford shows he has the ability to put any kind of touch on his passes. He has a great arm, that is a fact, but he throws a bullet every pass. His down field passes are always thrown on a rope so defenses can snatch them before they get to the receivers. Yet that is not why I am down on him.

Far more often than not on crossing routes, he throws the ball behind his receivers. It is seldom that the receivers can catch the ball and continue to run rather than going into a slide as they reach behind them. Just as often, his passes are not even catchable. I do not doubt that he can learn to put some touch on his passes as he accumulates experience but accuracy in general is not something to be taught.

If you look at the better quarterbacks in the NFL, there are a few things they all have in common. They are accurate throwers, they have good poise and they are intelligent. Matthew Stafford does not have accuracy or poise and the intelligence is still up for questioning.

I have already talked about hi9m not being accurate, but I will add one more point of evidence on the fact. In college, he only passed for over 60% in one season. His junior season he completed 61.4% of his attempts. In college, that is not considered great. So far in the NFL he is at a 54.1% clip.

I know many will want to argue the poise claim. I can only go by what I have seen of him and so far his poise is practically non-existent. Yes, he does wait til the last second sometimes to throw the pass, but when he does wait, his passes are usually very erratic. Far more often than not, when he has a player coming at him hard, his pass will not even be catchable. That is not poise!

As for intelligence, that is still up for debate. It will solely depend on if he can ever learn to read the defenses better than he does now.

When Tom Brady still played for Michigan, I was the only person I knew who actually believed he would be a good NFL quarterback. I watched him throw very accurate passes as he was taking hits too often. He showed me two of those three qualities. Accuracy and poise. The knocks against him coming out of college was that he tended to hold the ball too low, he sometimes hung his deep passes and was not great at escaping pressure. They also said his arm was not considered to be real strong. Funny how all the things that were held against him are things that are praised about Stafford. The strong points about Brady, the accuracy, poise and intelligence are not considered to be Stafford's strong points.

So many believe Matthew Stafford will become a great quarterback in the NFL. I stand now and say it will not happen. As I said, I gauge a quarterback by three important markers. Accuracy, poise and intelligence. In that order. Stafford does not have the first two in my opinion and those are two things that cannot be taught. Oh, Stafford will have his good games. Just like Joey Harrington, Charlie Batch, Scott Mitchell and every other Lion quarterback has had. I do not believe however, that Stafford will ever have great games on a consistent basis.

Once again, the Detroit Lions have wasted another first round pick.