Chow Praises Young as He Continues to Improve

That article sounds more like Schefter's opinion than he has any inside info that the Titans are seriously talking to Collins...

 

But those guys could just as easily gone bust had they been benched as rookies. 1st round QBs are often busts, but I don't think it's because they get on the field too early. It's because they aren't good enough QBs...

Honestly, do you think that if a QB isn't mentally strong enough to take the pressure of playing as a rooke and it cripples him for the rest of his career, he's ever going to be mentally strong enough to play QB well in the NFL?

 

You guys should go watch the replacements...

 

These QBs come into the league having dealt with pressures of college football, but none of them have never faced an NFL-caliber defense. That's the whole trick, finding a QB who can make that leap forward. Many can't. Some can't physically. Some can't mentally. Which one is which is generally an educated guess.

But whether on not they play as a rookie shouldn't crush their chances of success in the future.

 

If we planned on signing Collins wouldn't we have done so by now? We don't exactly gain anything by waiting

 

That's 3 completely different levels of competition. Just because they can jump from HS to the NCAA successfully doesn't mean they are good enough to also make the jump to the NFL. The same holds true of every pro sport.

Absolutely not. It's not all mental, though certainly that's a big part of it. A number of QBs simply don't have a good enough arm to succeed in the NFL where they did in college (see Danny Wuerffel). Many were excellent college QBs in large part because of the system they played in and/or the talent surrounding him.

Look at the Jeff Tedford QBs who have been nothing but busts so far despite great success under his system in college. Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, Kyle Boller, David Carr, Trent Dilfer and Aaron Rodgers (the jury is still out on some, but so far none have been worthy). Spurrier got similar success from his QBs, yet none were even considered good NFL candidates. Ware and Klingler from the Houston Cougars run-and-shoot days. Look at all the Heisman winning QBs over the last 25 years who either were NFL busts or were never even considered good NFL prospects (i.e. Jason White, Chris Weinke, Weurffel, Gino Torretta, Ty Detmer, Andre Ware, Vinny Testaverde, Doug Flutie). And that's not even including the non-pocket passers from that list (Eric Crouch and Charlie Ward).

Clearly Alex Smith wasn't ready to play in the NFL. It wasn't just because he was a rookie, he just wasn't ready. The same was true for McNair, and also for many other rookies who played in an unconventional college offense. But just because Fisher didn't think they were ready yet doesn't mean that rule applies to all rookie QBs.