How good will JaMarcus Russell be at the Pro Level?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

A guy with Russell's passing ability comes along once every 10 years or so. Guys with Quinn's ability come along every year.

How do you figure?

[EARTHQUAKE2689]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

How do you figure?

you know guys like leinart,cutler, alex smith, carson palmer,

[skinsfan69]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

How do you figure?

I'm not going off of the combine stuff. Russell didn't even throw at the combine. I'm just going off of when I saw him play in games. He was making John Elway/Jeff George kind of throws. Just zipping it in small windows. Simply put no one in this draft has that kind of passing ability. Now that does not mean he is going to be a great pro qb. I'm just saying based on his college games he looked like a can't miss.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

I'm not going off of the combine stuff. Russell didn't even throw at the combine. I'm just going off of when I saw him play in games. He was making John Elway/Jeff George kind of throws. Just zipping it in small windows. Simply put no one in this draft has that kind of passing ability. Now that does not mean he is going to be a great pro qb. I'm just saying based on his college games he looked like a can't miss.

I'm wary of anyone who makes a name for himself with pinpoint accuracy at the college level, especially if he has a rep for making poor decisions. That doesn't fly in the NFL.

The John Elway comparison sounds pretty accurate...but historic greatness is not predictable before the draft. Elway did a lot of stuff at the college level that Russell doesn't do very well.

I want to hesitate from labeling Russell a bust candidate, but he's just not a good NFL prospect. No QB in recent memory could have used his senior year of college more than Russell. The most ideal situation for him would be 3+ years of riding the bench so that he could get pretty far into his development before having to be put under the microscope. This could allow him enough time to develop into an NFL worthy starter before he gets labeled a bust.

If he goes first overall, he's not going to have that luxury. No matter which team he ends up on, he's going to develop a rep for poor decision making and being INT prone, and probably get the bust label sometime before 2009.

No matter what, he's never going to live up to expectations. He just isn't a good decision maker, period. Most underclass QB's aren't. If he can get into a favorable situation where he doesn't have to play right away, he might earn the perception of a starting quality QB (even though he's really the exact same player--just farther along in his development). If he gets thrown to the Wolves immediately, he's going to have a very rough first three years, and in today's league, generally its three strikes and you're out.

Unfortuante but true.

[skinsfan69]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I'm wary of anyone who makes a name for himself with pinpoint accuracy at the college level, especially if he has a rep for making poor decisions. That doesn't fly in the NFL.

The John Elway comparison sounds pretty accurate...but historic greatness is not predictable before the draft. Elway did a lot of stuff at the college level that Russell doesn't do very well.

I want to hesitate from labeling Russell a bust candidate, but he's just not a good NFL prospect. No QB in recent memory could have used his senior year of college more than Russell. The most ideal situation for him would be 3+ years of riding the bench so that he could get pretty far into his development before having to be put under the microscope. This could allow him enough time to develop into an NFL worthy starter before he gets labeled a bust.

If he goes first overall, he's not going to have that luxury. No matter which team he ends up on, he's going to develop a rep for poor decision making and being INT prone, and probably get the bust label sometime before 2009.

No matter what, he's never going to live up to expectations. He just isn't a good decision maker, period. Most underclass QB's aren't. If he can get into a favorable situation where he doesn't have to play right away, he might earn the perception of a starting quality QB (even though he's really the exact same player--just farther along in his development). If he gets thrown to the Wolves immediately, he's going to have a very rough first three years, and in today's league, generally its three strikes and you're out.

Unfortuante but true.

Also how in the world can you say he is not a good decision maker????? Perhaps earlier in his career this was the case, when he was young and inexperienced, but certainly not now. Since you are so into stats just look at his. 28tds and 8ints and 67% completion rate. Sorry but those are great stats. 8 ints in 342 attempts is really taking care of the football. Especially in the SEC where the talent level is the highest in the country. And if you looked at his last game he totally outplayed Brady Quinn and for that matter so did Troy Smith in the 06 game. Brady Quinn looked terrible against LSU. He was all over the place with the ball. Now would a smart scout grade Quinn on this performaces in bowl games? Hell no. The guy really proved himself, especially his last two years. Quinn is a great college qb. But Russell also got better every single year. All of his %'s went up in his three years. He had no regression in his three years at LSU. So I'm not sure where your getting your info from about Russell but it's completly 100% wrong.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Also how in the world can you say he is not a good decision maker????? Perhaps earlier in his career this was the case, when he was young and inexperienced, but certainly not now. Since you are so into stats just look at his. 28tds and 8ints and 67% completion rate. Sorry but those are great stats. 8 ints in 342 attempts is really taking care of the football. Especially in the SEC where the talent level is the highest in the country. And if you looked at his last game he totally outplayed Brady Quinn and for that matter so did Troy Smith in the 06 game. Brady Quinn looked terrible against LSU. He was all over the place with the ball. Now would a smart scout grade Quinn on this performaces in bowl games? Hell no. The guy really proved himself, especially his last two years. Quinn is a great college qb. But Russell also got better every single year. All of his %'s went up in his three years. He had no regression in his three years at LSU. So I'm not sure where your getting your info from about Russell but it's completly 100% wrong.

28 TDs, 8 INTs, and 67% are wonderful numbers. But it was only one year. He would have been a much better prospect if he came back another year and did it again. Quinn made a significant improvement every year through his Junior year, and then came back to improve his game for another season, and this difference will be reflected between Russell and Quinn at the pro level. I promise you.

There are a lot of college numbers that will be decieving. That's why I say its far more important that an NFL prospect take more from his college experience (games started), than he gives (everything else).

Do you disagree with the notion that Russell would have been a significantly better prospect if he stayed at LSU for his senior year season? I mean, it sounds like you are on board with this concept, but you continue to argue in spite of it.

Completion percentage is important. And Russell was certainly better at it than Quinn in college. There are a lot of experience related reasons to expect Quinn to be better than Russell at the next level. Completely aside from starting 17 more games (one and a half freakin seasons), Russell made a lot of boneheaded decisions at the college level. I mean, at times, it almost seemed like he lacked the ability to adjust to certain defensive coverages, and was easily confused. Many LSU fans were frusterated by this.

You can make a solid argument that Russell was a better college QB than Quinn because the college game allows for physical skill to overcome inconsistent mental play. Based on what we already know about what makes a guy successful at the pro level, Quinn>Russell (by a sizable margin) just seems like the gimme of the year. Stastical projections only improve my confidence in this.

[skinsfan69]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

28 TDs, 8 INTs, and 67% are wonderful numbers. But it was only one year. He would have been a much better prospect if he came back another year and did it again. Quinn made a significant improvement every year through his Junior year, and then came back to improve his game for another season, and this difference will be reflected between Russell and Quinn at the pro level. I promise you.

There are a lot of college numbers that will be decieving. That's why I say its far more important that an NFL prospect take more from his college experience (games started), than he gives (everything else).

Do you disagree with the notion that Russell would have been a significantly better prospect if he stayed at LSU for his senior year season? I mean, it sounds like you are on board with this concept, but you continue to argue in spite of it.

Completion percentage is important. And Russell was certainly better at it than Quinn in college. There are a lot of experience related reasons to expect Quinn to be better than Russell at the next level. Completely aside from starting 17 more games (one and a half freakin seasons), Russell made a lot of boneheaded decisions at the college level. I mean, at times, it almost seemed like he lacked the ability to adjust to certain defensive coverages, and was easily confused. Many LSU fans were frusterated by this.

You can make a solid argument that Russell was a better college QB than Quinn because the college game allows for physical skill to overcome inconsistent mental play. Based on what we already know about what makes a guy successful at the pro level, Quinn>Russell (by a sizable margin) just seems like the gimme of the year. Stastical projections only improve my confidence in this.

Of couse he would benefit from playing his senior year. But Russell has nothing left to prove. His stock can only go down. If you were him would you stay? Hell no. He is mostly likely going to be the number one pick in the draft. That means a 50 million $ signing bonus. Why would you go back and risk getting hurt? Remember what happened to Leinart? If he had left his 3rd year he would be a 49er right now, and he would have went first in the 05 draft. Would that last year made difference? Sure. But he got outplayed by Vince Young on the big stage and cost himself millions of dollars. So keep that in mind. It's not just about getting more game time with most guys. Leinart being the exception.

Yes Russell made some bonehead plays. But so did Brady Quinn. So did Peyton Manning in the SB. All QB's make bad decisions in every game that they play in. But Russell made less mistakes every year he started. He grew and matured like every good QB does. You act like QB's are suppose to be like robots and not make mistakes. It happens to the best QB's in football every game.

I remember watching Brady Quinn throw into double coverage against LSU so many times it wasn't even funny. He played terrible. Does than mean he is a bad decision maker? No. He just had a bad game. Remember Tripp, QBs are not robots and stats don't always tell the whole story.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Of couse he would benefit from playing his senior year. But Russell has nothing left to prove. His stock can only go down. If you were him would you stay? Hell no. He is mostly likely going to be the number one pick in the draft. That means a 50 million $ signing bonus. Why would you go back and risk getting hurt? Remember what happened to Leinart? If he had left his 3rd year he would be a 49er right now, and he would have went first in the 05 draft. Would that last year made difference? Sure. But he got outplayed by Vince Young on the big stage and cost himself millions of dollars. So keep that in mind. It's not just about getting more game time with most guys. Leinart being the exception.

Yes Russell made some bonehead plays. But so did Brady Quinn. So did Peyton Manning in the SB. All QB's make bad decisions in every game that they play in. But Russell made less mistakes every year he started. He grew and matured like every good QB does. You act like QB's are suppose to be like robots and not make mistakes. It happens to the best QB's in football every game.

I remember watching Brady Quinn throw into double coverage against LSU so many times it wasn't even funny. He played terrible. Does than mean he is a bad decision maker? No. He just had a bad game. Remember Tripp, QBs are not robots and stats don't always tell the whole story.

At think point, I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree.

I clearly don't believe that all first round projected QBs are created equal. I think we both agree on a lot of crucial points but are allowing some minor points we don't agree on to blow this argument out of proportion. We are both Skins fans, and Quinn having a better career than Russell won't affect us in any way since neither will land in our division.