What happens to Tedford QBs in the NFL?

by bringbackbuddytrees on Sep 5, 2008 12:24 PM PDT

I worship at the altar of Tedford as much as any Cal football fan, so I am trying to reconcile that fact with the NFL track record of Tedford quarterbacks. With Kyle Boller's injury pretty much officially ending his run with the Baltimore Ravens, it looks as if Aaron Rodgers is the only starter left in the NFL (and Sunday is his first NFL start). [I do think Rodgers is poised to surprise many because he has had time to develop and because of the skill players and line around him in a great offense scheme well-suited for his game.] The six first round draft picks (Boller, Rodger, Trent Dilfer, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington) (did he have anything to do with David Carr at Fresno?) along with career backups Billy Volek and A.J. Feeley don't exactly fill an all-pro roster.

I know that during the NFL draft, there is even a stigma now attached to being a Tedford QB (which some blame for Rodger's slip from potential #1 overall to #24). Is it that he has coached them as well as humanly possible and there is no further room to grow? Is it that he took average QBs and made them extraordinary in his offense? Does he market well for NFL teams (i.e. he had Boller throw balls through the goalposts from the 50 yard line from his knees)? Does he oversimplify for them, so they aren't ready for the more complex pro game? What is it?

Given his track record with first round QB picks, I'm always shocked the top, top QB prospects (ie Clausen, Crist) don't come to Cal and I wonder if it has something to do with this.

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I wrote about this a while back

Actually, I just copied it straight out of Pro Football Prospectus, but I posted about this very topic.

I'm still wondering why the Nets didn't draft Leon Powe.

by yellow fever on Sep 5, 2008 12:26 PM PDT 0 recs

He makes QBs look better than they really are. It’s not really a system – Tedford runs a very pro-style offense.

To a certain extent, Trent Dilfer was underrated, Boller still has potential. Akili Smith wasn’t in college long enough. David Carr has an odd side-arm motion and his confidence was rattled from Houston’s Swiss cheese o-line. Joey Harrington is the only player on this list who should have been good, but wasn’t.

I guess let’s see what happens to Rodgers.

by Rishi on Sep 5, 2008 12:30 PM PDT 0 recs

Kyle Boller is the most unfairly maligned QB in the league

Billick undermined him by signing McNair and appointing him the starter without even a competition (aren’t you glad to have Tedford), and he never had a good O-line in front of him. He should have beaten the undefeated Pats last year. But his stupid O-line kept on getting him injured. If Boller’s given a real offensive line he can do something with it. David Carr had the worst offensive line, ever, but I still think he has a good shot to make it in the right situation.

Coaches seem to assume the Tedford effect is all that’s needed to make a QB great in the league. How well do you think Tom Brady fares without that offensive line of his? It’s the main reason why Rodgers should perform above most people’s expectations this season.

by BearsNecessity on Sep 5, 2008 12:45 PM PDT 0 recs

Boller was put in a crappy situation from the start. If that guy landed on a decent team with a decent offense he might have actually had a chance to be a solid NFL QB.

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by HydroTech on Sep 5, 2008 1:48 PM PDT up 0 recs

Plain and simple, NFL teams are responsible for the demise of Tedford QBs. First and foremost, NFL teams wouldn’t be drafting Tedford QBs unless they thought the Tedford QBs had what it takes to succeed at in the NFL. So it’s not as if Tedford is producing crap QBs – no, he’s producing top quality college QBs and solid NFL prospects. But like so many good college QBs, they get drafted by desperate NFL teams who throw the rookie QBs into the fire too early and ruin them. They key is to let the rookies sit. So to answer your question, it’s not that Tedford doesn’t prepare them for the NFL, it’s that the (1) the NFL teams ruin Tedford QBs, (2) Tedford QBs almost always get drafted to crap teams (Boller, Harrington, Smith), and (3) bad luck – not every QB is going to succeed and it’s a lot more probable that they’ll fail than succeed.

If you’re wondering why top QBs don’t come to Cal, it’s because they’re top QBs. They are so obviously talented that they could go to New Mexico State and still get drafted in the NFL. Plain and simple. It’s the not-top QBs that usually come to Cal because they know they’ll the assistance from one of the top NFL QB-groomers to get to the NFL. This is not to say that Riley, Mansion, Longshore, Reed, etc., were bad, it’s just that they weren’t highly highly rated QBs (such as in the top 50 national prospects in the nation).

www.californiagoldenblogs.com

by HydroTech on Sep 5, 2008 1:47 PM PDT 0 recs

“If you’re wondering why top QBs don’t come to Cal, it’s because they’re top QBs. They are so obviously talented that they could go to New Mexico State and still get drafted in the NFL.”

True, but more likely than not they’ll wind up at USC, Notre Dame, Texas, or some other recruiting power where they’ll have TV exposure, a chance for the Heisman etc… There are plenty of potential NFL QBs at lower-ranked schools (Rusty Smith at FAU, Josh Freeman at Kanses State, Nate Davis at Ball State for example), but these were generally not highly sought-after guys out of high school. Rather, it seems to me that they tend to be guys that have NFL-prototype physical characteristics but either didn’t make that much of a splash in HS, come from some little-recruited backwater, or just need to be coached up. Another possibility is that they go to a lesser school to ensure substantial playing time. But the guys that are obviously talented and on the radar as such will take a power program any day of the week.

According to Rivals, the 12 top (e.g. 4 or 5 star) pro-style passers are verbally committed to USC, Texas, Georgia, UCLA, Rutgers, Alabama, Cal, Michigan State, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. Not many of these guys going to non-elite schools, though admittedly once you get down past 3 stars the lesser schools start popping up here and there.

by bearsglory on Sep 5, 2008 8:12 PM PDT up 0 recs

I don't disagree with hydro, but

riley and reed were both pretty highly rated coming into the program.

and there’s also just so much playing time to go around, and (IMO) to many hs’ers think they should play right now….and arn’t necces. thinking long term about how to groom themselves to be succesful on sunday’s.

by Rocksanddirt on Sep 5, 2008 4:47 PM PDT 0 recs