Saw Bridgewater in Person Last Night

For starters, to be 100% clear, I am NOT advocating trading Ben and starting over at QB. I think Ben is the cornerstone of what should be a rebuild of a team that can once again challenge in 2015/2016.

With that out of the way, I went to the UCONN/Louisville game last night, and was excited to watch a potential #1 overall pick in person. I was not disappointed. Bridgewater's stat line was pedestrian - 21 of 37, 288 yes, 1 TD, 1 Int. However, his play was way better than that. Much better. He was victimized by the dropsies by his WRs - to the point where a least 3 or 4 Louisville drives ended with drops of passes that would have converted 1st downs - most of them drilled right into the numbers. Here's what impressed me:

1) He does the little things. On every single play that includes a handoff or fake handoff, he looks exactly the same until the play ends. When he fakes a handoff, it looks like a handoff. When he hands it off, he follows through with a fake drop back or bootleg that looks authentic. Watching him vs. other QBs is night and day. With the UCONN QB it was instantly obvious who had the ball. With Bridgewater, there were a few times where he faked me out, and I had to really watch for the ball on every play. His bootlegs were particularly successful.
2) He reads coverages and finds the open guy. All night he consistently attacked the open areas in the defense, and quickly found the right guy. UCONN's one interception was on a ball that was thrown deep under pressure, and I think it was perhaps one of those cases where a QB says "I'm going for it, and if they get it, it's just as good as a punt."
3) His arm strength and mechanics are excellent. He reminds me of Brady in how he always steps into his throws and makes perfect mechanical throws. The balls get to his receivers quickly and he leads them so that they can catch the passes in full stride. He has a quick release.
4) He also has touch. He is able to throw those passes over the LBs and in front of the safeties that seem to have both zip and a looping arc at the same time. Really pretty, and really deadly. It would have been nice to see someone hold onto one.
5) He has good mobility and escapability. He is not RG3 or Cam Newton. He is a more conventional drop back passer. However, he has mobility and surprising ability to disengage from contact for such a skinny guy.
6) He's decisive. He rarely held the ball long enough for the pressure to be a factor, even though his O line looked a little bit suspect against a mediocre UCONN defensive front.

Drawbacks:
1) He's really skinny. I am not sure how he would hold up being a shaky NFL O line.
2) Every throw on the run that I saw was him rolling to his right. All of the bootlegs were off of play fakes to the left side. When he scrambled it was always to the right except for a hail mary pass at the end of the half where he escaped left and had time to set and throw. I haven't watched him enough to know whether that was just coincidence last night, or whether he struggles when he has to escape left.
3) I'm not sure that he's the type of QB that will put the team on his back inspirationally. He seemed a bit demonstrative in a negative way about the drops, but I didn't observe much in the way of positive interaction with his teammates. On his TD pass, instead of heading toward the end zone to high five the receiver, or even catch the receiver on the way back to the sideline, he simply headed to the sideline and had a couple of high fives with oncoming PAT team players. He seemed a bit detached.

That's it for now. Really good QB. Is he a legit #1 overall pick? Maybe. He sure looks a lot better to me than Geno Smith did, and he has been adequate as a rookie starter.

 

I'm not sold on him, I think he will have trouble making the jump to the NFL. His size is a real concern, get that boy in the gym.