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Sam Darnold's draft assessment

Zod

By Zod,
in Carolina Panthers

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Waldo Grand Master

Waldo

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Legitimate question: Is he just dumb? Not Bradshaw dumb but just not a bright guy? 

The projects around the league recently that have made that leap sound pretty smart. Lance last year showed a lot of brains in his interviews that I saw, one reason I was happy to take a flyer on a guy like that. 

I have never heard Sam speak and thought there was much brain power there, kind of an old school jock template if you will. It all just looks more than football awareness issues really.

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LinvilleGorge Grand Master

LinvilleGorge

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10 minutes ago, Waldo said:

Legitimate question: Is he just dumb? Not Bradshaw dumb but just not a bright guy? 

The projects around the league recently that have made that leap sound pretty smart. Lance last year showed a lot of brains in his interviews that I saw, one reason I was happy to take a flyer on a guy like that. 

I have never heard Sam speak and thought there was much brain power there, kind of an old school jock template if you will. It all just looks more than football awareness issues really.

He lacks QB instincts. Once that ball is snapped, you have to be running on instinct. If you're thinking you're going to be too slow. Darnold is quite obviously thinking out there and that's why it all happens too slowly for him. He looks good when his first read is open because then he can operate without thinking.

It's not an intelligence thing, it's a how your mind works thing. You could be Elon Musk smart and still not have the right mentality to succeed at QB. 

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pantherj Grand Master

pantherj

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In watching Darnold in his season here I've seen what is the main problem. He often doesn't throw to his first read when they are clearly open. That alone is enough to cause a lot of poor performances. To make matters worse his deep ball is terrible almost always. That's pretty much enough to lock us into 5 - 12ish records so long as he's here.

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CRA Grand Master

CRA

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Sam was just an all around athlete that ended up at QB in college.   That's not the DNA for a modern day NFL QB.   

Game is too QB centric now and too much played above the shoulders.   If you look at the reps in life Sam has vs a Trevor Lawerence? It's not even in the same ballpark.  Now maybe Trevor will bust too.  But Trevor has been doing nothing but playing QB year round since middle school.    Sam just never had the work put in vs other guys that are coming in to the league. 

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Waldo Grand Master

Waldo

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1 minute ago, LinvilleGorge said:

He lacks QB instincts. Once that ball is snapped, you have to be running on instinct. If you're thinking you're going to be too slow. Darnold is quite obviously thinking out there and that's why it all happens too slowly for him. He looks good when his first read is open because then he can operate without thinking.

It's not an intelligence thing, it's a how your mind works thing. You could be Elon Musk smart and still not have the right mentality to succeed at QB. 

I just don't know how to phrase it. It's more than instincts, it's capacity in some fashion. He can't see it and it's apparent his coaches can't coach that up, he is doing the same stuff he did in school. 

Definition of mental ability:
Mental ability has many different definitions, including the power to learn or retain knowledge, the ability to understand the facts and significance of your behavior, possession of the qualities (capacity, ability, power) required to get something done.

He lacks the capacity or ability part I would guess. IDK, it's so hard to quantify but he certainly does not have it.

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CRA Grand Master

CRA

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6 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I just don't know how to phrase it. It's more than instincts, it's capacity in some fashion. He can't see it and it's apparent his coaches can't coach that up, he is doing the same stuff he did in school. 

Definition of mental ability:
Mental ability has many different definitions, including the power to learn or retain knowledge, the ability to understand the facts and significance of your behavior, possession of the qualities (capacity, ability, power) required to get something done.

He lacks the capacity or ability part I would guess. IDK, it's so hard to quantify but he certainly does not have it.

don't forget Sam was recruited initially to play LB at USC. 

and I think he only played one full season as a QB in high school.  

 

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SmokinwithWilly Grand Master

SmokinwithWilly

Posted
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2 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I just don't know how to phrase it. It's more than instincts, it's capacity in some fashion. He can't see it and it's apparent his coaches can't coach that up, he is doing the same stuff he did in school. 

Definition of mental ability:
Mental ability has many different definitions, including the power to learn or retain knowledge, the ability to understand the facts and significance of your behavior, possession of the qualities (capacity, ability, power) required to get something done.

He lacks the capacity or ability part I would guess. IDK, it's so hard to quantify but he certainly does not have it.

I've said before I wonder if it's how he sees it. I know from personal experience, I was trying to understand how a particular type of valve works and I could not get it no matter what. Everyone around me got it, but I couldn't. Then I stopped trying to understand the valve like everyone else was doing and instead tried to understand how fluid moved through the valve and it clicked. Not only could I understand that valve, I could understand any version of that valve. 

I'm not saying Darnold will ever have one of those moments, it's just watching him never progress it looks like he's stuck much like I was. Of course with Gase and Rhule leading him, he looks worse now than ever. I don't know if he does or doesn't have it, and frankly I don't want to wait anymore to find out. Maybe McAdoo can help him, maybe not. Unless he has dramatic improvement by week 17, it's either cheap backup or hit the pavement. 

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LinvilleGorge Grand Master

LinvilleGorge

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9 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I just don't know how to phrase it. It's more than instincts, it's capacity in some fashion. He can't see it and it's apparent his coaches can't coach that up, he is doing the same stuff he did in school. 

Definition of mental ability:
Mental ability has many different definitions, including the power to learn or retain knowledge, the ability to understand the facts and significance of your behavior, possession of the qualities (capacity, ability, power) required to get something done.

He lacks the capacity or ability part I would guess. IDK, it's so hard to quantify but he certainly does not have it.

He can't turn the thinking switch off. You gotta be able to go into autopilot and trust your instincts (and those instincts have to actually be good).

It's why if I'm drafting a QB this year I'm taking Sam Howell. We've seen him play with NFL caliber weapons and we've seen him play behind a terrible OL and with very limited weapons. There's way less questions about his mental makeup on the field than there are most QB prospects. We've seen him in a variety of situations and he's found ways to produce and make his team competitive in all of them.

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