The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks (41 page)

Hoge’s analysis of Manziel’s NFL prospects was also rooted in skepticism about whether he could develop into a capable pocket passer and that he didn’t understand pass protection.

The former was something Manziel had spent two seasons working to improve with his coaches at A&M and with Whitfield. Still, it was a valid concern about whether the kid could rewire his instincts to flee the pocket to go make a play. The latter—fair or not—wasn’t what he’d been asked to do at A&M and was something he had been taught only in the previous three months while at Whitfield’s draft camp in San Diego.

“I don’t think it’s fair criticism at all,” said Kliff Kingsbury, a onetime former NFL quarterback who was Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator in Manziel’s freshman season. “And I’m pretty sure they’re not going to put the protections on him as well. I know they want him to go out there and use his God-given ability, which is pretty exceptional, to make plays. And that’s what we wanted to do with him, to free his mind and allow him to check us into the right play and just play the game.”

The issue of Manziel’s preparation became an interesting subplot in football circles about ultimately how much responsibility, if any, should be on the college coaches to get their player ready for his transition to the NFL, much as it eventually was with Tim Tebow after the former Florida Heisman winner struggled in his pro career. New University of Texas defensive coordinator Vance Bedford tried to use the opportunity to take a swipe at the Aggies’ staff when he tweeted: “Manziel is a top 10 pick by the scouts. I wish him the best. He played backyard ball for 3 years. Now he will have to learn how to be a Qb”

Whitfield hopped onto
SportsCenter
to offer his own retort: “I understand [Bedford] has an opinion. I’m just surprised he has time to tweet about it, given the Longhorns’ task at hand with their defense.”

Kingsbury didn’t buy the notion that college coaches should balance their responsibility to their players when it came to getting them ready for a potential jump to the NFL.

“You’re trying to win games at that level and go from there,” he said. “We’re trying to win right now with what we’ve got by all means necessary, and as far as preparing a kid for the next level, their level of play is going to do that, and when they get to the next level, that coach there is going to mold them and shape them however he needs them to play in his system. We’re just in the here and now.”

Manziel’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, fired back at Hoge via social media, tweeting: “I see @merrilhoge achieved his goal of being relevant this week. Same guy who said Rodgers was “a wasted draft pick” & Luck shouldn’t go #1”

That reference was to a previous on-camera Hoge assertion that he was sold more on Brian Brohm, a second-round pick by Green Bay in 2008, than Aaron Rodgers. Hoge’s colleague, ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay, took a similar stance, saying Brohm had more “upside” than Rodgers. (The Packers waived Brohm after one season before he spent two seasons with the Buffalo Bills, where he didn’t throw a touchdown, before bouncing around to the United Football League and the CFL.)

One veteran NFL coach called the Hoge rant “so predictable. It always seems like Merril Hoge or Jaws [Ron Jaworski] doesn’t like the guy who isn’t the prototypical guy. There’s some wild-card draft guy, and they have to be the guy to come in and shoot him down. I try not to take much of that into account, and we say that to the players, too, not to worry about that stuff.”

The interest in the NFL Draft has spawned a legion of “draft experts” in the past five years. You can pretty much find someone somewhere who either loved or hated every prospect in the country. And for every time they’ve been proven wrong on an evaluation, they’ve probably turned out spot-on on several other occasions. Hoge, to his credit, also had predicted that former college greats Vince Young and Tim Tebow would be flops as NFL QBs—and both were cut within five seasons. In 2011, NFL Network’s draft analyst Mike Mayock touted Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert as his number one QB prospect
ahead of Cam Newton, saying Gabbert is “the one quarterback in the draft who, if you’ve got to bang the table for a franchise quarterback, he’s the guy.” McShay also called Gabbert the best QB in the draft class. The number ten overall pick in the 2011 draft by Jacksonville, Gabbert lasted three seasons with the Jaguars before being traded to San Francisco for a sixth-round draft choice. Newton, taken first overall in the draft, won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors and was selected to the Pro Bowl in two of his first three seasons.

Dilfer acknowledged that his own evaluation skills were sorely lacking when he first started doing TV for ESPN. He admitted to being fooled by QBs he believed would be stars. He’s also proud to say that he was “the only analyst in the business who had a first-round grade on Nick Foles in 2012.” (Mayock had Foles evaluated as a fifth-round pick.) The Arizona QB went to Philadelphia in the third round and became a Pro Bowler by his second season after setting a league record with a 27-2 TD-INT ratio.

“I got made fun of when I said [Foles] should be a first-round pick,” Dilfer said. “I read a lot on him about the adversity he went through and how he was coached at Arizona. Talked to people about him, although I never felt totally convinced on his intangibles, but I loved what I saw on film. From his instincts, to playing in conflict, to his being a natural passer, to his stature, and for being a limited athlete, he does a really good job of creating space and time for himself. He was brilliant on the move. He also had some basketball background. All those things added up for me to say he should be a first-rounder.”

Dilfer’s opinion ran counter to Hoge’s about Manziel, saying the Texas A&M star actually “has high-level NFL instincts.”

“Johnny’s überconfident on the football field,” Dilfer said. “He does some really dumb stuff. He also does some of the greatest stuff I’ve ever seen on a football field. He makes mistakes, but it doesn’t change the way he plays the next play.”

Hoge’s rants about Manziel came forty-eight hours after Teddy Bridgewater’s Pro Day. It was expected to be an impressive performance—quarterbacks’ Pro Days almost always are, since they’re so scripted. Bridgewater credited his private QB coach Chris
Weinke, the former Heisman Trophy winner, for getting him to use his legs more in his delivery. “I was just an arm-thrower before,” Bridgewater said.

Both NFL Network and ESPN had TV crews on site to broadcast the workout. Representatives from twenty-nine teams turned up at the Louisville indoor facility for a closer look. Scott Turner, the Vikings’ new quarterbacks coach in attendance, noticed something curious as soon as Bridgewater started warming up. The QB wasn’t wearing gloves, as he did during the football season. Turner and his dad, Vikings offensive coordinator Norv Turner, were both perplexed.

“I didn’t understand why he didn’t wear ’em,” the younger Turner said later. “He played in ’em, and he’s gonna play in ’em. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything. If you’re comfortable doing something, why would you change it?”

How much, if any, impact throwing without the gloves had on Bridgewater was hard to gauge. He misfired on several throws in the 65 passes he attempted. Eight passes were incomplete. Two of those were dropped by his receivers. The juice on many of his passes left several observers underwhelmed.

Mayock, who, going into the NFL Combine, had Bridgewater as his number one QB in the 2014 draft, said—after Louisville’s Pro Day—that he would not take him in the first round. “I’ve never seen a top-level quarterback in the last ten years have a bad Pro Day, until Teddy Bridgewater,” he said. “He had no accuracy, the ball came out funny, the arm strength wasn’t there, and it made me question everything I saw on tape, because this was live.”

Bridgewater later elaborated on his decision to go gloveless on Pro Day to Jon Gruden on his
QB Camp
show: “When I was training leading up to the Combine, I was back home in Florida—nice weather. I went back to my high school days—no gloves.

“I learned a valuable lesson that day. I had a few balls that got away from me, and, like I said, I was able to learn walking away from there that just do what got you there. If you’re comfortable with the gloves, continue to wear the gloves. So everywhere I go, I make sure I carry my gloves with me.”

Bridgewater’s modest frame—he weighed in at 208 pounds (6
less than he did at the Combine)—also elicited some carping from anonymous NFL personnel types questioning the twenty-one-year-old’s durability. That skepticism came in spite of the fact that Bridgewater only missed one start in his college career—and in that game he came off the bench to lead the Cardinals to a victory. Or that he played through a broken wrist and a severe ankle sprain in other games. Or that he withstood a vicious, head-rattling shot from a Florida linebacker that knocked his helmet off, and Bridgewater still popped up and proceeded to carry Louisville to an upset win over the number four Gators in the 2013 Sugar Bowl.

Blake Bortles’s Pro Day, orchestrated by Jordan Palmer, came two days later—a few hours after Hoge started dissecting Manziel. Nearly every NFL franchise had a rep at UCF for the show. Bortles displayed his refined mechanics, most notably the UCF star’s improved balance and base and a quicker release. Gone was his propensity to load on his back leg as he maneuvered from a variety of three-, five-, and seven-step drops. Later, in his 65-throw workout, Bortles overshot a couple of receivers, which he acknowledged occurred because in season he had underthrown a few deep balls.

“It went well,” Bortles said. “I thought I showed the things I wanted to. Showed movement, that I fixed the footwork that were flaws on film. Obviously, I had a couple throws I’d like to have back, but that’s going to happen when you throw 65 balls.”

MARCH 27, 2014
.

Manziel’s Pro Day had a different vibe from Bortles’s and Bridgewater’s—and from any other Pro Day a quarterback prospect has ever had. The night before, Whitfield was frazzled after finding out that someone had posted the script, or, at least, an early version of it, for Manziel’s workout online. Whitfield figured the culprit was someone who worked at the local Office Max, where he had made copies earlier in the day.

“Luckily, we didn’t have any real notes on there, and we had some real notes,” a relieved Whitfield said about twelve hours before Manziel arrived at A&M’s indoor practice facility.

ESPN and NFL Network both had three-man crews on sets near the field providing analysis of the Manziel show. Aaron Rodgers provided some analysis of the analysis, tweeting: “2 of the 3 guys commenting on this workout right now have opinions that shouldn’t be taken very seriously”

Rodgers didn’t specify which crew he meant: the NFL Network trio of Paul Burmeister, Mayock, and Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner; or the ESPN grouping of Ed Werder, Todd McShay, and former NFL exec Bill Polian.

Whitfield had flown in many of his San Diego crew: Kyle Bolton, a short but fast former NAIA wideout; NFL-backup-QB-turned-private coach Kevin O’Connell; Hank Speights, a former Division III lineman/Whitfield protégé who acted as Manziel’s snapper, since one of the points of emphasis was to show how adept the QB was with his footwork from under center—something Manziel didn’t have the opportunity to show in A&M’s system. Seventh-grader Chase Griffin, Manziel’s little pal, also rode over with his dad to help out as a ball boy.

Asked if he took off the day from school to attend the Pro Day, the thirteen-year-old replied, “Teachers all know why. It’s Texas.”

Eight NFL head coaches and general managers came to A&M to see Johnny Manziel work out, as did former President (H.W.) Bush and his wife, Barbara—and their dogs, along with Secret Service agents. The Bushes arrived in a golf cart driven by one of the Aggie recruiting staffers. Manziel arrived as his pal Drake’s music blared throughout the complex as a crowd of about five hundred watched from the perimeter. Decked out in camouflage shorts, a black Nike jersey with his white Number 2 (the Aggies are outfitted by Adidas), Manziel provided another wrinkle from the Pro Day norm by wearing shoulder pads and a matte black A&M helmet.

“You play the game in shoulder pads on Sundays,” he explained. “Why not come out and do it?… For me, it was a no-brainer.”

Whitfield later said the idea stemmed from a conversation he and Manziel had prior to the Combine. Manziel had asked Whitfield, “What do NFL personnel people respect?”

“People respect a challenge,” Whitfield said.

“So, what more can we do?” Manziel asked.

“Make it more like an interview. If you’re going to Wall Street, you wouldn’t wear a T-shirt and shorts. You’d put a suit on.”

The helmet and pads were Manziel’s business suit. His performance on the field was sharp, too, completing 62 of 65 scripted passes. Two of the incompletions came on balls that hit receivers’ hands, while Mike Evans actually caught the other incompletion, but he was out of bounds. On several occasions Whitfield chased after Manziel with his broom as the QB deftly evaded. Several scouts admitted they were wowed seeing Manziel’s ability to use his entire body like a whip to generate power while throwing the ball on the move.

“Most quarterbacks struggle throwing the ball down the field when rolling to their weak side, but Manziel didn’t show any issues throwing the ball on the run to his left,” said
NFL.com
’s Bucky Brooks, a former scout for the Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers. “In fact, he repeatedly delivered gorgeous teardrops on vertical throws following improvised scrambles or redirections from the pocket. This is clearly one of the strengths of his game, and his quarterback coach [Whitfield] made it a point to highlight it throughout the workout.”

One NFL assistant noted only one flaw—that sometimes Manziel threw a flat-line, low-trajectory ball on intermediate routes over the middle. In all, he threw 49 of the 64 passes he attempted from within the pocket, with the other 15 coming via rollouts and simulated escapes—with Whitfield’s script showing a level of emphasis on the kinds of throws many were skeptical Manziel was comfortable making. Manziel threw 21 passes off a three-step drop, 18 off a five-step drop or play-action, and 10 from a seven-step drop. He concluded the workout with a long completion to Evans and yelled “Boom!” drawing applause from the crowd in attendance.