The Myth of Learning From the Bench

With training camps beginning this week, NFL teams are ready to get their first real glimpse of their rookies in a professional football setting. For most this means drills and repetitions, learning their positions and slowly working their way into more significant playing time as the season wears on. Many of the highly drafted rookies will get only ten to twenty snaps their first game, but by the end of the season most will have taken starting roles. This gradual development is the natural course of things, allowing players to develop and contribute to the team at the same time.

There is one position that doesn’t follow this course, and that happens to be the most critical position on the team. Common wisdom seems to hold that most rookie quarterbacks aren’t ready to perform in the NFL, that they need time on the bench to develop and learn the game before taking over the starting role. A quarterback can’t be slowly integrated into the gameplan like other positions, and until he’s ready to take all the responsibility there is nothing he can do to contribute.

This is an antiquated belief, living in a period when quarterbacks truly did need a few years to transition from college to the NFL. But the game has evolved at both levels, coaches in college asking their quarterbacks to do more and coaches in the NFL finding ways to succeed with less. People still cite players like Aaron Rodgers and Colin Kaepernick who developed after spending time on the bench, but there are just as many (if not more) who have succeeded after being thrust initially into a starting role, just as there are those who have failed after sitting on the bench.

In this past draft there were five quarterbacks selected in the first two rounds: Blake Bortles by Jacksonville, Johnny Manziel by Cleveland, Teddy Bridgewater by Minnesota, Derek Carr by Oakland, and Jimmy Garoppolo by New England. Garoppolo was taken as a long term project to develop behind the aging Tom Brady, but the rest were drafted to be starting quarterbacks by teams in need at the position. Many people still spout the myth that these players need to sit if they want to find success in the NFL, a position both misguided and naïve. Recent history has shown that each of these four quarterbacks will start at some point this season, and if they want to find success they should be given the starting role from the moment training camp opens.

The 2011 draft makes an interesting case study. Six quarterbacks were drafted in the first two rounds, the most of any draft since 1999. Among these six quarterbacks we saw the full spectrum of handling, players who started from day one and players who didn’t play at all their rookie season. And we have also seen a full spectrum of results, busts mixed in with superstars.

Both first overall pick Cam Newton and second rounder Andy Dalton were given the starting job the moment they walked into the building. Dalton started all four preseason games before starting Week One, and Newton only had to play with the second teamers for a single preseason week before taking over. The results were immediately apparent. Newton threw for over 400 yards in each of his first two games, and Dalton’s Bengals improved enough to reach the playoffs. Of the quarterbacks taken in 2011, Dalton and Newton are two of the three most successful, and no one will claim that their careers were damaged by starting from day one.

Two other quarterbacks played significant time their rookie season even after their coaches decided it would be best for their development to learn from the bench. With the tenth pick the Jaguars selected Blaine Gabbert, who was their starting quarterback by Week Three after two wretched starts from Luke McCown. He proceeded through a dreadful rookie season, appearing incapable of handling the speed or pressure of an NFL game.

A similar track was followed by Christian Ponder, the twelfth overall selection by the Vikings. He too was supposed to spend the season on the bench, but the incompetence and indifference of Donovan McNabb forced him into the starting role in Week Seven. He wasn’t ready to play in the NFL, but he was no more unready than if he had started Week One. He had a couple up and down seasons before losing his starting position.

The other quarterback selected in the first round was Jake Locker, taken by the Titans number eight overall. Like Ponder and Gabbert, Locker started the season as a backup quarterback. Unlike the other two, he managed to go his entire rookie season without starting a game (though he did take snaps in five of them.) This worked out only because they had Matt Hasselbeck, a significantly better quarterback than McCown or McNabb (at this point in his career.) By his second season Locker was the starter, but injuries cost him significant time each of the past two years. In the time he has played he has shown very little to suggest that he can be a long term solution at quarterback, but because of his limited opportunities the Titans have decided to stick with him for this coming season.

The final—and perhaps most interesting—case is Colin Kaepernick, selected early in the second round by the 49ers. He saw essentially no action his rookie season and very little during the beginning of his second season, before receiving the opportunity to be a starter and blossoming into one of the better young quarterbacks in the league. People point to Kaepernick as an example of how quarterbacks can benefit from sitting on the bench. While I have to agree that he would not have had the same immediate success if he had started right away, there are a number of issues around this example that lead me to question how well it translates into other circumstances.

The first one I have to mention is also the biggest: Jim Harbaugh. It is possible for a player to learn while sitting on the bench, but only if they have an excellent coach to guide them. Harbaugh is one of the best coaches in the league, and a lengthy playing career has given him a better understanding of the quarterback position than any other head coach in the NFL. His track record is proven, from turning San Diego State’s Josh Johnson into a legitimate NFL backup, to guiding Andrew Luck’s development at Stanford (something he doesn’t receive enough credit for), to revitalizing Alex Smith’s career. Smith is the other big factor. Like Locker, Kaepernick sat behind a quarterback capable of not humiliating himself to such an extent that the fans started screaming for him to be replaced. Because the 49ers won thirteen games and made it to the NFC Championship, they were able to let their young quarterback sit on the bench undisturbed. Most other quarterbacks are not so lucky, and most are thrown into the fire whether they’re prepared or not.

In the 2011 draft we saw the full spectrum of quarterback possibilities. From that draft we have two busts, two stars, and two question marks. One of the stars started right away, the other had to wait until halfway through his second season. Both of the busts were thrown into the starting job in the middle of their rookie season. One of the question marks was the starter from the moment he stepped into his team’s facilities, and the other sat for a full season behind a veteran.

So what lessons can we take from these six quarterbacks to apply to the four rookies this year? I’ll consider each on a case by case basis as I examine why they should be given the starting job right away.

I’ll start with Derek Carr, the one quarterback who might actually have a case for sitting on the bench. In this case it’s not an issue of development but an issue of the talent on the Raiders roster. Placing him under center would be almost criminal, behind a dismal offensive line on an offense devoid of talented skill players. Very few quarterbacks can find success in this setting, and it’s possible he could find himself destroyed in the same way as his older brother (one of the few quarterbacks who actually was developmentally damaged by his early career struggles.) Oakland is going nowhere with or without him as their starting quarterback, and it might be best for him to start fresh after they’ve had a chance to add more talent.

But even if he doesn’t start from the beginning, he is going to find his way onto the field at some point this season. Matt Schaub is probably the best established quarterback on these four teams, but we saw last year what happens when he is forced to try to make plays for himself rather than relying on elite talent surrounding him. He is bound to string together a few bad games, at which point the calls for the rookie will become overwhelming. Under such circumstances it is inevitable that Carr will end up as a starter, much as Gabbert and Ponder did their rookie seasons.

The reality of the modern NFL doesn’t give a highly drafted rookie the opportunity to spend a full season sitting behind a veteran. A rookie quarterback is going to find his way onto the field, and he needs to be as prepared as possible for when that happens. He needs reps in practice, experience in the preseason with the first team offense. During training camp it is possible to split reps between quarterbacks, but by the time the season starts almost every practice rep goes to the starter. The backup is left running the scout team, and rather than learning his own offense he scrambles through shell versions of other teams’. The best way to learn to play the game is to play the game, and the benefits of a few weeks on the bench are minimal.

I expect that Derek Carr will start for the Raiders by Week Eight, and I expect him to struggle until he is given time to acclimate to the offense, just as he would if he started Week One. By sitting him on the bench, they aren’t giving time for his development. They’re just pushing it back.

A similar case is Blake Bortles, the first quarterback selected in the draft. Like Carr he is on a team nearly devoid of talent, though Jacksonville did more to help him through the draft, adding a pair of wide receivers with their second and third round picks. But he is also the most raw of the four quarterbacks, and he needs the most development before he becomes a capable NFL starter.

Under ideal circumstances he would receive it, but ideal circumstances don’t exist. It would be nice to see him develop like Kaepernick was able to, but Chad Henne is no Alex Smith and Gus Bradley is no Jim Harbaugh. I know I’m repeating myself, but like it or not he is going to start this season. The choice Jacksonville faces is whether to put out a poorly prepared quarterback in Week One with the potential to develop over the season, or a completely unprepared quarterback in Week Six.

There is one added benefit of starting a quarterback right away, one none of these teams want to acknowledge at this point. The sooner a quarterback makes it onto the field, the sooner he can be evaluated to determine whether he is a long term solution. Just three years ago Jacksonville put Gabbert out there early on, and it became immediately apparent that he could not play in the NFL. They were able to move on quickly, grabbing Bortles in this year’s draft. An even better example comes from 2012, when Cleveland made Brandon Weeden their starter from the beginning of training camp. Two years later he’s gone, and they were able to start over with Manziel. This isn’t the ideal outcome, but it is still better than what Tennessee is dealing with, stuck with Locker for another season because they haven’t seen enough to dismiss him.

The next quarterback is one who should absolutely start right away, but right now he is stuck in a senseless competition. Johnny Manziel has already become Cleveland’s most popular player, and he has the talent to bring some excitement to their offense right away. Even with a hometown player in Brian Hoyer as the veteran option, the fans will rally around Manziel as the season wears on.

Many will try to argue that this sort of pressure is not something a team should concern itself with, but that is as ignorant as the belief that a high draft pick can spend a season on the bench. Coaches hear everything that’s said, players hear everything that’s said, and most importantly, owners hear everything that’s said. That pressure is real, and eventually it becomes necessary to make a change just to bring some positivity to the locker room and the fans.

There is one argument that can be made for Manziel to sit, and that is the player ahead of him. The other three teams have well known options ahead of their rookies, options that have proven incapable of being high quality starters in the league. Hoyer is a bit different, a quarterback with only three career starts who has showed promise when he’s been on the field. If their coaches believe that he has any sort of long term potential, they are justified in staging a competition.

But there is no point in a competition just to “make a rookie earn his position”. He earned his position by what he did in college, by being selected as high as he was. Forcing him to go through competition will only steal reps from him and limit his development in camp. We saw a perfect example of this just last year, when first round selection EJ Manuel was forced to compete with journeyman Kevin Kolb. Manuel came out in the preseason and found success completing short, simple passes, enough to earn him the starting job (aided by Kolb’s injury troubles). But when the regular season began it became apparent that this was all Manuel could do, that he hadn’t had time to develop a full understanding of the offense. Many people took this to mean that he wasn’t ready, but I think this just showed that he wasn’t prepared properly. How can he expect to develop himself in the offense if he spends half his time standing and watching another quarterback for the sake of “competition”?

A similar competition is in store for the final quarterback, the one who deserves beyond any doubt to start from the moment training camp begins. Teddy Bridgewater is the most NFL ready of all the quarterbacks to come out in the draft, and he is in the best position to succeed. He has the best group of wide receivers, the best running back, and possibly the best offensive line (Cleveland could put up some argument for this one.) He has a proven track record of picking up an offense quickly, starting the third game of his true freshman season at Louisville and never looking back.

Right now his coaches are preaching competition, and it looks like they will start training camp by splitting reps between him and Matt Cassel. Cassel is a lot like Schaub, a quarterback who found some success riding talented teammates but has struggled whenever asked to make plays himself. Sooner or later, Bridgewater will be the starting quarterback. Vikings fans just have to hope that their coaches realize their mistake and name him the starter while there is still time to get him ready for the season.