The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are rolling with a rookie quarterback. The Buccaneers' franchise record with rookie quarterbacks as starters: 16-45. The only rookie quarterback with a winning record in Buccaneers history is Shaun King, who went 4-1 in 1999. Then again, the last time a rookie quarterback made his first start the abysmal 0-7 Buccaneers beat the playoff-bound Green Bay Packers, so there's always hope.
Mike Glennon will have to deliver on that hope if Greg Schiano and Mark Dominik want to keep their jobs beyond the 2013 season. The two are walking on dangerously thin ice now that they've switched quarterbacks. If you can't win with this roster, you really can't win -- and that winning had better start soon.
I'm not overly hopeful after watching every dropback Mike Glennon took in preseason. He looks generally accurate and like he could develop into a good quarterback -- but he's just too slow right now.
Greg Cosell has been a supporter of Mike Glennon since before the draft, but he thinks Glennon is going to run into problems, too."I don't know whether Mike Glennon is ready right now," Cosell said on the Fantasy Guru podcast. "I think the speed of the game is going to be a big problem for him early. I think he's going to make some major mistakes. I think he's going to get sacked a lot."
Third-round quarterbacks in history
If we look at previous third-round quarterbacks and how they did as rookies, we don't find a lot of encouraging results, either. The results were filtered for quarterbacks with at least 200 pass attempts.
Games | Passing | |||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rk | Player | Year ▾ | Draft | Tm | Lg | G | GS | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Sk | W | L | |||||
1 | Russell Wilson | 2012 | 3-75 | SEA | NFL | 16 | 16 | 252 | 393 | 64.12% | 3118 | 26 | 10 | 100.0 | 33 | 7.93 | 7.01 | 194.9 | 11 | 5 |
2 | Nick Foles | 2012 | 3-88 | PHI | NFL | 7 | 6 | 161 | 265 | 60.75% | 1699 | 6 | 5 | 79.1 | 20 | 6.41 | 5.13 | 242.7 | 1 | 5 |
3 | Colt McCoy | 2010 | 3-85 | CLE | NFL | 8 | 8 | 135 | 222 | 60.81% | 1576 | 6 | 9 | 74.5 | 23 | 7.10 | 4.73 | 197.0 | 2 | 6 |
4 | Trent Edwards | 2007 | 3-92 | BUF | NFL | 10 | 9 | 151 | 269 | 56.13% | 1630 | 7 | 8 | 70.4 | 12 | 6.06 | 4.64 | 163.0 | 5 | 4 |
5 | Andrew Walter | 2006 | 3-69 | OAK | NFL | 12 | 8 | 147 | 276 | 53.26% | 1677 | 3 | 13 | 55.8 | 46 | 6.08 | 2.78 | 139.8 | 2 | 6 |
6 | Neil O'Donnell | 1991 | 3-70 | PIT | NFL | 12 | 8 | 156 | 286 | 54.55% | 1963 | 11 | 7 | 78.8 | 30 | 6.86 | 5.23 | 163.6 | 2 | 6 |
7 | Chris Chandler | 1988 | 3-76 | IND | NFL | 15 | 13 | 129 | 233 | 55.36% | 1619 | 8 | 12 | 67.2 | 18 | 6.95 | 4.43 | 107.9 | 9 | 4 |
8 | Jay Schroeder | 1985 | 3-83 | WAS | NFL | 9 | 5 | 112 | 209 | 53.59% | 1458 | 5 | 5 | 73.8 | 15 | 6.98 | 5.44 | 162.0 | 4 | 1 |
Russell Wilson is a rather unique case: a player about whom everyone raved, but who dropped to the third round because of one specific trait: height. Glennon dropped for several reasons, and was not universally loved. He has multiple failings and, really, isn't that different from a lot of third-round picks. Note for those of you who fell in love with Nick Foles: his statistics really aren't all that impressive.
So if the high point in that list is beyond Wilson is Nick Foles, Chris Chandler or Trent Edwards, excuse me for not being too optimistic. Obviously each quarterback is unique and has his own strengths and weaknesses, so this is no definitive proof. It's just another piece of an increasingly depressing puzzle.
Game film, then?
Most important for me, however, is how Glennon looks on film. Everything else is just a way to try to predict how he'll look on film, but nothing can really replace solid film study in this area. So, I went through every dropback Mike Glennon had in preseason and tabulated the results. I hoped to get a feel for the kind of quarterback he was in preseason.
I didn't come away overly impressed. He was generally accurate, and probably more so than Josh Freeman ever was. That's going to be the one area where he'll be better than Freeman, and that's not insignificant. But he wasn't perfect in that area, and he looked worse in every area I could meaningfully evaluate without access to All-22 or coaches.
Glennon's arm is not nearly as strong as advertised. It's good, but it doesn't come close to Freeman or Joe Flacco. It's more of an early-years Matt Ryan: good enough to make every NFL throw, but not good enough to compensate for late throws or a lack of anticipation and certainly not good enough to be able to make any throw without stepping into them.
Glennon had a lot of pocket room in preseason, and he looked good when he did. His mechanics are cleaner than Freeman's, though not perfect, but he'll likely be more consistent. Unfortunately, he needs more of a pocket to operate in than Freeman. He can move around in the pocket, but he must have room in front of his feet to make any kind of throw. That's not uncommon, but it will limit him, and it will lead to a few sacks when they wouldn't really be necessary.
Worst of all, Mike Glennon was slow in everything he did. He was slow to drop back and he was slow to get the ball out, even on quick throws. The NFL game moves much faster than the college game, and Glennon is going to have to speed up his game if he's going to stand a chance of making an impact this year.
Overall, Mike Glennon still looked fairly decent in preseason for a rookie, but not remotely ready to be a starting NFL quarterback. The speed of the game is going to be too big of an issue, unless he has made some big strides since week four of the preseason.
# | Accurate | Result | Direction | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Yes | 61 yards to Crabtree | Deep right | Glennon evades pressure, Crabtree wide open |
2 | Yes | 7 yards to Owusu | Short left | Screen |
3 | x | Incomplete | Ball knocked out of hands | |
4 | No | Incomplete to Owusu | Short right | |
5 | Yes | -5 yards to Mike James | Short right | Screen |
6 | No | Incomplete, DPI | Deep right | Underwood held, but ball overthrown anyway |
7 | Yes | Incomplete, DPI | Deep right | Good throw, incomplete because of pass interference |
8 | Yes | Incomplete to Owusu | Short left | |
9 | No | Incomplete to Ogletree | Deep right | Steps up, overthrows |
10 | No | Incomplete to Owusu | Deep left | Looks like miscommunication, but not a good throw either |
11 | Yes | Incomplete to Owusu | Deep left | Accurate ball despite pressure |
12 | Sacked | Hesitates, then takes sack | ||
13 | Yes | 41 yards to Owusu | Deep left | Ravens in prevent -- everything except TD ends half for them. |
14 | Yes | 6 yards to Underwood | Short left | Screen |
15 | Yes | Incomplete to Underwood | Short left | Dropped, throw is a little low |
16 | Yes | 21 yards to Ogletree | Deep right | Steps up, perfect pass |
17 | Incomplete to Ogletree | Short left | Looks like miscommunication | |
18 | Intercepted | Short left | Schiano called this miscommunication after the game | |
19 | Yes | 2 yards to Ogletree | Short right | Screen |
20 | Yes | 14 yards to Ogletree | Short left | Short of sticks on third down, Ogletree makes a man miss to convert |
21 | Yes | 14 yards to Hagan | Short left | Contested catch |
22 | Yes | Incomplete to Hagan | Deep left | Dropped |
23 | Yes | 9 yards to Smith | Short left | Screen |
24 | No | Incomplete to Hagan | Deep left | Just ahead of Hagan who maybe could have caught it with a better effort |
25 | Incomplete | Short right | Thrown away | |
26 | Yes | -1 yard to Hagan | Short left | Smoke route |
27 | Sacked | Had time but didn't pull trigger | ||
28 | Yes | 10 yards to Ogletree | Short left | Poor placement prevents YAC |
29 | Yes | 3 yards to James | Short right | Dumpoff under pressure |
30 | Yes | 13 yards to Ogletree | Short left | |
31 | Yes | Incomplete to Underwood | Short left | Defensed |
32 | Yes | 13 yards TD to Ogletree | Short middle | Stares Ogletree down, Patriots defenders still blow coverage |
33 | Yes | 4 yards to James | Short left | Checkdown under pressure |
34 | Yes | Incomplete to Ogletree | Short left | Timing just off on back shoulder fade |
35 | Yes | 6 yards to Crabtree | Short middle | Looks left, goes back to find Crabtree |
36 | Yes | 2 yards to Underwood | Short right | Short of sticks on third down |
37 | Yes | 41 yards to Underwood | Deep right | Great seam throw |
38 | Yes | Incomplete to Ogletree | Short middle | Leads Ogletree right to defender |
39 | No | Incomplete to Douglas | Deep left | Just a few inches out of Douglas' reach on a deep ball |
40 | Yes | 11 yards to Douglas | Short right | |
41 | Yes | Incomplete to Hagan | Short right | Great third-down throw, Hagan can't hold on |
42 | No | Intercepted | Short right | Really bad decision and location on short out route, easy pick for defender |
43 | Yes | 40 yards to Hagan | Deep left | Great deep throw behind corner in front of safety |
44 | No | Incomplete to Wright | Short right | Inaccurate throw under pressure |
45 | Yes | 6 yards to Noble | Short right | Nice throw under pressure, hit after throw |
46 | Yes | Incomplete to Douglas | Deep left | Accurate throw, but a little late. Douglas can't keep feet in bounds |
47 | Yes | 11 yards to Noble | Short right | Decent throw under pressure |
48 | Yes | 4 yards to Douglas | Short middle | Short of goal-line on third down. |
49 | Yes | 2 yards to Hagan | Short right | Short of goal-line on third down. |
50 | Yes | Incomplete to Mitchell | Short right | Dropped |
51 | Yes | 1 yards TD to Douglas | Short right | Nice back-shoulder for touchdown |
52 | No | Incomplete to Noble | Short right | Bad throw under pressure |
53 | No | Incomplete to Ogletree | Deep middle | Late on the throw, hit as he throws, bad decision |
54 | Yes | 19 yards to Noble | Short right | Under pressure |
55 | Yes | Incomplete to Denton | Short right | Rollout |
56 | Yes | Incomplete to Wright | Short right | Dropped, rolled out under pressure |
57 | Yes | 13 yards to Wright | Short right | |
58 | No | Incomplete to Denton | ||
59 | Tipped at line | |||
60 | Sacked | Free rusher | ||
61 | Yes | 12 yards touchdown to Douglas | Short middle | |
62 | No | Incomplete to Underwood | Short left | Out of bounds |
63 | Yes | Incomplete to James | Short left | Dropped on dumpoff |
64 | No | Incomplete to Ogletree | Short right | Hit as he threw |
65 | Yes | Incomplete to Ogletree | Deep right | Ogletree tries to one-hand the throw |
66 | Tipped at line | |||
67 | Incomplete | Thrown away | ||
68 | Yes | 2 yards to Stocker | Short right | |
69 | Incomplete to Underwood | Short right | Looks like miscommunication | |
70 | Yes | 3 yards to Underwood | Short right | |
71 | No | Incomplete to Underwood | Short right | Can't step into throw because of pressure |
72 | Sacked | Ball knocked out as he throws | ||
73 | Yes | 3 yards to Byham | Short right | |
74 | Yes | 5 yards to Underwood | Short right | |
75 | No | Intercepted | Short left | Bad throw |
76 | Sacked | |||
77 | Yes | 5 yards to Page | Short middle | Dumpoff |
78 | Yes | 25 yards to Norwood | Deep right | Can't find open man on left, rolls out under pressure |
79 | Yes | 20 yards to Page | Deep middle | Great seam throw |
80 | Yes | Incomplete to Wright | Short middle | Leads Wright to a defender |