Charles Fischer Administrator No. 1 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Reading articles about how TB went 7-9 in 2019, but the pieces were there for a good team...if they had good quarterbacking play. (No...GREAT quarterbacking play) It made me ponder how good Oregon could be this fall if we had an experienced, savvy QB running the show? Darron Thomas...don't you have another year of edibility? (Joking!) But the pieces are there for a good team, and it can either be wasted with mediocre QB play or elevated with great QB play. It is a shame, but a reality that QB has a massive disproportionate impact on the entire team. Thoughts? Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck Moderator No. 2 Share Posted February 9, 2021 There is no question about it, how well the quarterback plays is the major determinant of how successful the offense will be. Kellen Moore at Boise State demonstrated this very well. Tampa Bay didn't make the playoffs two years ago, Brady shows up and they win the Super Bowl. Look back at 2007, what Dixon was doing for the Ducks before his injury stopped an offense that no defense had been able to. We've also seen the opposite; all the quarterbacks who filled in for DD, Braxton Burmeister. The quarterback battle going in to 2021 is going to be something we haven't seen for a long time at Oregon, and who emerges is going to have a lot of pressure on him to lead the team to, at the least, a 3-peat as Pac-12 champion. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDucksFan No. 3 Share Posted February 9, 2021 3 hours ago, Charles Fischer said: Reading articles about how TB went 7-9 in 2019, but the pieces were there for a good team...if they had good quarterbacking play. (No...GREAT quarterbacking play) It made me ponder how good Oregon could be this fall if we had an experienced, savvy QB running the show? Darron Thomas...don't you have another year of edibility? (Joking!) But the pieces are there for a good team, and it can either be wasted with mediocre QB play or elevated with great QB play. It is a shame, but a reality that QB has a massive disproportionate impact on the entire team. Thoughts? 3 hours ago, 30Duck said: There is no question about it, how well the quarterback plays is the major determinant of how successful the offense will be. Kellen Moore at Boise State demonstrated this very well. Tampa Bay didn't make the playoffs two years ago, Brady shows up and they win the Super Bowl. Look back at 2007, what Dixon was doing for the Ducks before his injury stopped an offense that no defense had been able to. We've also seen the opposite; all the quarterbacks who filled in for DD, Braxton Burmeister. The quarterback battle going in to 2021 is going to be something we haven't seen for a long time at Oregon, and who emerges is going to have a lot of pressure on him to lead the team to, at the least, a 3-peat as Pac-12 champion. All this of course beg's the question "Of all the QB's we have in the stable, do you think any of them are capable of that "GREAT quarterbacking play" that we want ?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck Moderator No. 4 Share Posted February 9, 2021 2 minutes ago, BigDucksFan said: All this of course beg's the question "Of all the QB's we have in the stable, do you think any of them are capable of that "GREAT quarterbacking play" that we want ?? Well, as Todd McShay proved, you speculate about quarterbacks at your peril, a lot of people thought that kid, Marcus Mariota, would be really could. Based on the highlights I've seen and the comments I've read, I think that Thompson could be more than capable of that great quarterbacking play that we want; more than any quarterback at Oregon since Mariota. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 5 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Experience matters! That's what kept popping up in my head with Brady winning another super bowl. At this point in his career Brady isn't the most athletic guy out on the field.... Not even the most athletic quarterback on the field. He is, however, the most experienced player on the field. That experience gives him such an edge, especially at quarterback. Brady tends not to make the same mistake repeatedly in the same game. He also tends not to get flustered when he's beat. He also knows when he is beat and just gets rid of the ball or protects the ball and goes down. Brady isn't the most exciting player, he just gets the job done. Thinking about this year's Oregon team the big thing missing was experience. With such a young team they just didn't have the depth of knowledge that experience brings. Athletically Oregon was fine... But the mental errors were what hurt Oregon this season. Especially when talking about Oregon's offense the biggest problem was at quarterback. Both Shough and Brown tried at times to do too much and they lost the ball. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Author Administrator No. 6 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Actually this is one time I think Brady got too much credit for the win, as he was throwing short passes all day. TB scored a good amount, but the TB defense holding KC to just nine points? THAT was the difference, and that primarily came down to one injury before the game on the offensive line. What if Sewell had been protecting Mahomes blind-side? Maybe the shoot-out we anticipated? Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck Moderator No. 7 Share Posted February 9, 2021 42 minutes ago, David Marsh said: At this point in his career Brady isn't the most athletic guy out on the field.... At no point in his career has Brady been the most athletic guy out on the field. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck Moderator No. 8 Share Posted February 9, 2021 12 minutes ago, Charles Fischer said: Actually this is one time I think Brady got too much credit for the win, Yes. He got the MVP for "managing" what the KC defense gave him. The MVP should have gone to one of many Buccaneers defensive players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 9 Share Posted February 9, 2021 31 minutes ago, 30Duck said: At no point in his career has Brady been the most athletic guy out on the field. True.. but at this point he is OLD ... for a professional football player. He doesn't even have youth on his side at this point. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Moderator No. 10 Share Posted February 10, 2021 (edited) QB1 for the Ducks needs to have a firm grasp on reading the key defensive players in the RPO offense. He should not feel the need to win games by himself, but could certainly lose games with bad reads and poor passing decisions. I think Shough made those mistakes in the games that the Ducks should have won. I try to always be optimistic, but until I see better play at QB and RB, I won’t be expecting the Ducks to “run the table” in the PAC 12. The exciting thing is I believe we have the players to be a dominating force, they just lack experience. Young QB’s and DB’s are prone to mistakes. It will take an amazing effort by everyone to overcome that fact. Edited February 10, 2021 by Drake 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haywarduck No. 11 Share Posted February 10, 2021 It wasn't just the short passes that won the game. The fact that Brady has limited athleticism also wasn't a determining factor. The factor is the 'it' factor, and so far we haven't seen 'it' at Oregon. Brady has 'it' in spades and leads teams and men to victory. The invisible 'it' factor is something few can see, but is the most important item on the field, and off. Off the field Helfrich did't have it, he just wasn't a leader, and when Marcus left that was becoming painfully obvious. Cristobal has 'it,' kids sign on, and want to perform for him. What we saw last year was Shough, seeming to have a bit of 'it,' but when push came to shove he faded. It is not over for him, but he needs to toughen up and get it right. I look forward to seeing who is the next great Oregon qb. I hope Moorhead can develop and identify The Guy, with the help of Cristobal. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck Moderator No. 12 Share Posted February 10, 2021 54 minutes ago, Haywarduck said: The invisible 'it' factor is something few can see, but is the most important item on the field, and off. Off the field Helfrich did't have it, he just wasn't a leader, and when Marcus left that was becoming painfully obvious. Cristobal has 'it,' kids sign on, and want to perform for him. "It" Some have it, some don't. Helfrich never looked comfortable, not on the sidelines, not in the chair during his postgame comments. Cristobal, while far from perfect, has, "it". Brady definitely has, "it", and it looks like Justin Herbert has "it". Joe Montana, famously had "it" in the huddle before the game winning drive in Super Bowl XVl against the Bengals, Joe Namath in Super Bowl lll. You can't coach "it" up. A player has it or he doesn't and it isn't limited to quarterbacks. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nogerO No. 13 Share Posted February 10, 2021 20 hours ago, David Marsh said: Experience matters! So why then did they decide to start Shough who in reality had no real game experience except for handing the ball off after JH finished. Why not put Brown in who has a lot of experience?? I say if that's what you did last year throwing TS to the wolves and it seemed to me it backfired hugely, then throw the new kid in there and let him get his shot Mario.. Why do all these other teams do that and discover that special freshman QB. Clemson found theirs and several others come to mind. I think we have it in TT. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 14 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Just now, nogerO said: So why then did they decide to start Shough who in reality had no real game experience except for handing the ball off after JH finished. Why not put Brown in who has a lot of experience?? I say if that's what you did last year throwing TS to the wolves and it seemed to me it backfired hugely, then throw the new kid in there and let him get his shot Mario.. Why do all these other teams do that and discover that special freshman QB. Clemson found theirs and several others come to mind. I think we have it in TT. Experience is invaluable but it isn't the end-all-be-all. We saw in 2016 Prukop (a senior transfer) was beaten out by Herbert half way through the season, though there could probably be an argument made that Herbert should have just started game one. I think Shough practices well and I think his potential ceiling is significantly higher than Brown's. Something happened in the second half of the Cal game that made Shough regress dramatically. I am not saying that Shough was all conference before that game but Shough was putting up good numbers and Oregon's offense had scored over 30 Points-per-game up until the Cal game. Shough had some freshman mistakes and some turnovers that are cringe worthy but he still finished the season with one of the better quarterback ratings in the conference. Getting a future quarterback that invaluable experience is super important because it is very difficult to have a team live off transfer quarterbacks. Oklahoma has done pretty well but in 2020 they had to finally turn over the offense to a Freshman. LSU had an incredible one-hit-wonder in Burrow but last season they had to turn to their roster and they settled on a freshman with potential in the end (I think... in truth I kinda lost track of who was the quarterback at LSU after awhile). I'm not trying to defend the decisions made by the coaches, in the end I personally really hate it when a team runs two quarterbacks. It can be gimmicky and it can work in small amounts, as we saw in the Pac-12 Championship game as USC was completely unprepared for Brown. Though on the whole I find it creates more chaos than actual production. I do agree that I think Thompson or even Butterfield may take over this off season and become the starter next year. It is possible Shough gets himself back on track. Though I feel in College experience matters but it comes with a caveat as overall athletic potential and ability and beat experience. Brown will have a chance to win the starting job this year though is he athletic enough to beat some of these big time youngsters? and by the way... I wrote an article about this last theme last summer... Graduate Quarterbacks: Saviors or Usurpers give it a read if you have the chance! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor No. 15 Share Posted February 10, 2021 For me the difference for Tamp Bay was the addition of Brady and the defense. Without Brady, their QBs turned the ball over too much. A pick six is double punishment...lose the points your working for and the points you just gave up. For the Super Bowl, TB got all of its defensive pieces back and this year was definitely improved over previous years. They completely shut down Terek Hill and all deep passes. Kept the running game to a minimum and hammered Mahomes all game. It was simply spectacular play from the entire defensive unit at all levels of play. Having said all that... KC lost its left tackle and a few other pieces. But that left tackle caused three lineman to move to different positions. It didn't work out well. Brady did what Brady does... plays consistently, with reasonable accuracy, excellent game management, and few turnovers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor No. 16 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Forgot to add: with what Oregon has for talent on defense... they should look just like TB. With a good QB, they should be better than TB on offense. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
