Thanks to what Walsh did in Cincinnati, NFL teams started to think of their offenses the way baseball executives think of their stadiums. Baseball teams collect talent that makes the most sense for the quirks of their home parks. The Red Sox stockpile right-handed hitters because the Green Monster in left is so close. More cavernous stadiums become homes to speedier players. Stadiums dictate style. Same thing for football offenses. Quarterbacks have to be slipped into systems that best feature their skills. Very, very few players can make a bad fit work. Too often, though, teams think that the player makes the system rather than the other way around. It sends them hunting for a guy with obvious tools—a gun for an arm, mobility—around whom they figure they will build an offense.
Walsh and his West Coast offense have proved that’s just not how it works.
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Walsh always cautioned me: “Very few people can coach the quarterback, and even fewer can evaluate them.” After more than 30 years in football I can verify that that statement is 100 percent accurate. When it comes to the most important position in sports, biases, rationalizations, and willful ignorance all get in the way of dispassionate and accurate analysis. Even a genius like Walsh knew that it was an imperfect science with exceptions to every rule. Drew Brees, it turns out, was not too short. Philip Rivers’s slightly sidearm delivery works just fine. Kurt Warner’s Arena League pedigree was good enough to get him to the Hall of Fame. But along the way, while studying Belichick as he searched for Brady’s replacement, and by watching Walsh, Montana, and Young operating inside the West Coast offense, I’ve managed to compile a list of “7 QB Qualities” that, though not foolproof, have helped me formalize my beliefs on the quarterback evaluation process.
1. A WINNING WAY
“Winning is a habit,” Vince Lombardi said. “Unfortunately, so is losing.” Bill Parcells’s golden rule was to draft prospects with at least 23 wins in college. It told him that a player knew what it took to be successful and was committed to doing the little things that got the job done. Now, 23 wins isn’t a magic number, but it’s a pretty good indicator. You can’t bluff your way to 23 wins, not even in Pop Warner. Jameis Winston was 26–1 as a college starter, Marcus Mariota was 36–5, and Kirk Cousins was 27–12. That’s a trio that is holding fairly steady in the pros after succeeding against the top tier of college competition.
The flip side may be the Chicago Bears’ 2017 first rounder Mitch Trubisky. Trubisky started only one year at North Carolina, and his numbers caved against top-25 competition. Let’s look at his yards per attempt in particular. This statistic is telling because it is a representation of what a quarterback is seeing and where he is looking. It’s an eye-level test. Higher yards per attempt—say, 7.5 or better—indicate a quarterback who is looking long, looking for big plays. Lower numbers indicate a quarterback who may be too concerned about being hit or is playing it safe and thus takes the quickest completion.
In Cleveland, we learned the power of this statistic the hard way. When once-great quarterback Bernie Kosar was nearing the end of his career, he was more concerned about his completion percentage than yards per attempt. During a game against Miami, Kosar was struggling, and Belichick pulled him from the game.
Kosar argued, “How can you pull me? I’m 15 of 19.”
To which Belichick immediately snapped back out of the side of his mouth, “Yeah, for 82 yards.”
Kosar was spending too much time not getting sacked to realize that he was no longer doing the job we were paying him to do.
Trubisky’s yards-per-attempt average dropped from 8.3 to 6.2 against top-25 teams. Similarly, when he played from ahead, he averaged 9.1 yards per attempt versus 7.2 when he was behind. That’s a fairly significant spread. Fans of Trubisky will blame the talent level that supported him for the discrepancy, but that’s not how it works. The same teammates helped him to the good numbers, too. Meanwhile, Houston Texan Deshaun Watson, drafted the same year as Trubisky, averaged 7.7 yards per attempt when his team was ahead and 9.4 when it was down. In other words, he turned up the heat when his team needed it the most, when it was time to catch up.
By the way, Watson won 32 games in college. Trubisky? Eight.
If you believe in the rule of 23, you don’t need to watch the next five seasons to know how these stories end.
2. A THICK SKIN
“The measure of who we are is how we react to something that does not go our way,” says San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. It’s definitely a good measure of a quarterback as well. I always tried to find a prospect who had already overcome adversity, and not only on the field. If past performance is the best indicator of future achievement, those who have fought through bad times are likely to be able to do so again. The one thing every young NFL quarterback can be certain of is that he will struggle mightily at some point. Even Peyton Manning went 3–13 as a rookie. Poor Troy Aikman finished 0–11 his first year. So I wanted to know how a prospect handled criticism and whether he let bad plays get to him.
Winston won those 26 games in college despite throwing 28 interceptions. Yes, that’s way too many, and yes, such misfires, which have continued in the pros, will keep him from the pinnacle of his profession if he doesn’t clean them up. But say this about him: Those mistakes don’t bother him. He comes off the field acting as if they are just part of the game—which they are. His mental toughness allows him to keep taking chances, to keep moving forward.
Nobody questions Tom Brady’s mental toughness, but after one of his rare interceptions he tends to be a bit more careful with the ball for a couple of series, avoiding throws into especially tight spots. I hate turnovers, but when I evaluate quarterbacks, I hate thin skin even more.
3. WORK ETHIC
“Your best player has to set a tone for intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning,” says NBA coach and TV analyst Jeff Van Gundy. Okay, so this is not an earth-shattering revelation, but you’d be surprised how many scouts ignore it. Do you think JaMarcus Russell was the hardest worker at LSU? Or Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M? Here’s a hint: Taking care of your body is a pretty accurate indicator of commitment to the job. Being lazy gets in the way of winning. Think of the recent quarterback busts. How many were truly hard workers? Ryan Leaf was 20 pounds overweight at his initial weigh-in. What kind of group rationalization did the Chargers’ brain trust have to engage in to convince itself that he was a worthy second overall pick? Your star quarterback needs to be a gym rat, pure and simple—first at practice, last to leave. (It’s not the only quality he needs, of course. Case in point: Tim Tebow.) Too often, football suits believe they can change a player’s work habits. Al Davis thought he could make Russell love the game enough to work as hard as he needed to. He found out soon enough that he couldn’t.
Why do teams like the Raiders and Chargers convince themselves that they can change a player’s character? Hubris, for one thing. But it’s mainly because every once in a while a team gets lucky and pulls it off. There are, of course, exceptions to every one of these 7 QB Qualities. None is bigger than Brett Favre’s “discovered” work ethic.
The Falcons drafted Favre near the top of the second round in 1991, but all he was in his rookie season was a disaster off the field. As Favre himself described it a few years later to a reporter, “I missed the team picture. I missed a couple of other things. I was late for meetings. I was surprised it took them that long to trade me.” Of course, after getting traded to Green Bay, Favre became an all-time great. Guess the Packers ironed out his character flaws, right? Not so fast. Favre’s issues were with alcohol, and he had to solve them for himself before he could become the player he did. Falcons coach Jerry Glanville tried everything in Atlanta, going so far as to drive around town asking bartenders not to serve his quarterback, but in the end he didn’t have that kind of power. No one does. Assuming you can change a guy is magical thinking.
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br /> 4. FOOTBALL SMARTS
Here’s the thing: Everyone watches game tape, but precious few benefit from it. Watching and studying are two different things. A quarterback who really studies tape will learn what the defense is trying to do. If he knows what he’s looking for, he also can note individual strengths and weaknesses as well as the particulars of the attack. New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees is a tape nerd. He knows the personnel of every team’s schemes and can ID all the adjustments made in each of them. Brees gets so obsessed as to be annoying, the kid in the front of the class with all the answers, asking for more homework. Brady, too. (The 7 QB Qualities often overlap like this: You need a great work ethic to study film long enough to build your football smarts.) But on Sunday that translates into wins. There is nothing the defense can do that will catch you by surprise.
(Well, almost nothing. Here’s another classic exception to my 7 QB Qualities: In Super Bowl LI, on third and six with just over two minutes left in the first half, Brady was expecting the same coverage from the Falcons—straight man to man—that they played 99 percent of the time in those situations. But as Brady let the ball go toward Danny Amendola, he didn’t realize that the Falcons had made a slight modification to the safety’s responsibilities. The next thing anyone knew, that safety, Robert Alford, was running the ball back 82 yards for a pick-six. Let it be a lesson to everyone: If you want to beat Brady and the Pats, you have to try something a little different. Staying conventional is suicide.)
Brady, like Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and a few others, knows that success on Sunday comes from time spent Monday through Saturday preparing yourself to think and play faster. A quick mind comes with preparation. You prepare so well that you don’t have to think; you just react.
This is hard for young players, though, because they often enter the NFL with little or no understanding of what it means to study tape even though they obviously watch plenty of it in college. Don’t blame their coaches. Blame the time restrictions of the NCAA, not to mention classroom responsibilities. Today’s college offenses are controlled from the sidelines—every play, every audible. Quarterbacks never have to call anything. But in the pros, radio communication between the coach and quarterback is shut off with 15 seconds on the play clock, and so quarterbacks are on their own. NFL games aren’t just more complicated, they’re also faster, so how quickly a quarterback can process information and make decisions often makes the difference between winning and losing. And that processing can happen only if a quarterback is football smart.
It’s not until they get to the NFL that quarterbacks begin to understand the game’s tiny crucial details, such as the leverage points of defensive backs or the side of the receiver defenders want to take away, the same way a basketball defender tries to take away an opponent’s “stronger” hand. It takes time for a young passer to understand that when a blitz comes from the defensive backfield, the defender responsible for the blitzer’s vacated area will cheat to that side, creating a hole in coverage and thus tipping off the blitz.
Subtleties gleaned from studying tape the correct way often make the difference between a Pro Bowl QB and a draft bust. The truly scary thing from a personnel standpoint is that no matter how much you vet a college quarterback, it will always be a 50/50 gamble. Why? Because you simply can’t measure his ultimate football smarts and how he’ll react to the speed and complications of the pro game until he gets under the center on a Sunday.
5. INNATE ABILITY
“Some quarterbacks are just born with such instincts and intuition,” Walsh wrote in his book Finding the Winning Edge. “As a rule, there is not much coaches can do to develop this area.” I’m no geneticist, but I can tell you that when Tom Brady’s mom first took him in her arms, he already had somewhere in his DNA the fundamental quarterback requirements—tangible and intangible. Obviously, he would need to develop some tools—the arm, the foot movement, the rush-avoiding quickness, the sense of timing—but the core of what makes him who he is on the field today was pretty much there already. I understand how subjective this “born with it” quality is, but I don’t care. Walsh couldn’t define it, either, but he knew it when he saw it. And I believe in it, too.
Speaking of “it,” from all indications, Deshaun Watson has it. I mean, the guy started in high school and college as a freshman. On the other hand, Miami Dolphins fans will tell you that Ryan Tannehill was no quarterback in the crib. Athlete, yes, but a natural for the position? Don’t think so. In fact, in high school, Tannehill didn’t become the starter until his junior year, and he was only a three-star recruit—listed as an athlete, not a quarterback. At Texas A&M, he was even moved to wide receiver for two years before starting six games at quarterback as a junior. Sure, he impressed a lot of people as the starter on a solid team as a senior, but you couldn’t exactly argue that Tannehill was a natural. Whatever that certain something is, he lacks it, and that is what’s holding him back in the pros. Because he is not an instinctive player, he doesn’t play as fast as he needs to. Don’t get me wrong; he is capable of good things. It’s just that he doesn’t seem capable of fast things. The best indication of this is his play on third down, when blitzes and passing situations speed up considerably. Tannehill’s career third-down numbers: 26 interceptions, one-half yard less per attempt than his overall average, and a 58 percent completion rate (versus 63 percent overall). When the game pushes him, Tannehill is less productive. If Walsh were still around, he would be telling the Dolphins they need to start looking for a new quarterback, one with more innate ability.
6. CARRIAGE
The University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, benches players—even stars—if he doesn’t like the way they are carrying themselves, correcting the problem before it subverts the team. How long, do you imagine, would quarterback Jay Cutler be stuck on Geno’s bench? You don’t think body language is important? Ask Bears fans. I think Cutler would still be playing in Soldier Field if his sideline posture indicated he was even a little interested. At times he has looked as if he’d sooner sit in a dentist’s chair than get back in the game. Cutler has problems on the field, too, sure, but they are compounded by the way he responds to them. He acts like he just doesn’t give a damn. I don’t get it. His coaches in Chicago and Miami must have known that his lousy body language would kill credibility among teammates almost faster than his poor play would. Quarterbacks have to inspire. And if they can’t always do it with pinpoint throws and blitz-facing courage—everyone has a bad day—they can always look as if they have it all under control and that somehow they will figure out how to lead the team to victory. No one wants to follow a sulker. (Exception: Cam Newton is a Heisman Trophy winner, a number one overall NFL draft pick, and an MVP even though he hunkers down under a towel, argues with coaches, and storms out of press conferences. Go figure. However, he hasn’t yet led his team to a Super Bowl, so…)
7. LEADERSHIP
Quarterbacks who fail to gain the respect of teammates leave a team rudderless. When teams I worked for were in the market for a quarterback, we made sure we knew what the teammates of any prospective hires were saying about the guy (off the record, of course). Is his competitiveness contagious or overbearing? Are players willing to go to war with him? Does he command the huddle? Finding the truth isn’t easy. College coaches used to be a good source for this kind of stuff, but lately they have become adept at talking up their prospects because they want their guys to make it to the league—and not just for the players’ sake. Pros promote programs. Therefore, scouts have to dig deeper to get what they need even if it’s not what we want to hear.
A recent very high pick was dinged by his college teammates. Check that. They flat-out hated him. They refused to attend his private workouts, for heaven’s sake. But the team that drafted him chose to ignore all that, and today most of the teammates he’s had feel exactly the same way his college teammates did. Trust me, injuries are not the o
nly reason Robert Griffin III has had such a hard time finding a job.
Gil Brandt, the Cowboys’ legendary personnel guy, once told me: “The best time to draft a quarterback is when you don’t need one.” It’s actually one piece of advice I got to pass along to Belichick. In New England before the 2014 draft, we had a meeting to make sure we were focused on finding a player to replace Tom Brady (on the assumption that someday, eventually, perhaps, he was actually going to have to retire). The current backup, Ryan Mallett, was entering his final season under contract, and we knew he was not the answer. When we drafted Mallett, he looked to have all the skills. Unfortunately, he lacked the maturity and work ethic to play at the next level. Guys like that are exceedingly frustrating to coach because they never see that they are wasting their talents. We gave Mallett time to shape up, but he didn’t and it became time to move on. Brady was coming off a subpar season for him, with his lowest quarterback rating since 2003. But nobody thought he was anywhere close to finished, so the timing was perfect. Whoever we selected would have at least a couple of years to get ready away from the spotlight.
The draft had many prospects: Blake Bortles of Central Florida, Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M, Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville, Derek Carr of Fresno State, and Jimmy Garoppolo of Eastern Illinois. Choosing near the bottom of the first round was going to prevent us from having our pick of the group. Still, the offensive staff, mostly Josh McDaniels, the quarterback coach and offensive coordinator, spent time watching tape on them all and then narrowing the field. Fresh off my time in Cleveland, I was up to speed on our options because I had spent considerable time assessing each quarterback for the Browns. By the time McDaniels and Belichick had completed their tape study, we were down to two: Manziel and Garoppolo.
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