The NFL Draft is one of the next major milestones of the offseason and quarterbacks will certainly be a main topic of conversation. Once the likes of Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Jayden Daniels have been selected and are slotted into their new homes throughout the league, the next question will center around how quickly they take the field.
Historically, quarterbacks taken in the first round are almost instantly thrust into the starting role on Day 1 even if they are not necessarily prepared for it. While the majority of teams seem to immediately throw their QBs into the fire, it may not be the best approach. The Green Bay Packers (with Jordan Love) and the Kansas City Chiefs (with Patrick Mahomes) are two recent examples of teams electing to develop their quarterbacks in a backup role for at least the first season and, in those cases, have proven to be a successful track. So why don’t more teams follow this method?
Former Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff was asked this very question by Kevin Clark of ESPN and the former executive highlighted the pressures coaches feel to put at least a .500 product on the field to keep their jobs alive even if it hurts the development of their young player.
“If you’re a head coach or a general manager, and you’re kicking off your time or you’re a little bit hot or a lot hot, all your thinking is ‘I need to get to the survival state here. I need to win games and I need to be on the other side of .500, which keeps me in the discussion,'” he said.
Specifically, Dimitroff noted that coaches and front-office executives are aiming to get to nine wins to maintain their job statuses. While electing to bring in veteran players and putting the development of younger prospects on the back burner may lower the club’s overall ceiling, it also heightens the floor in some respects.
“It’s the veteran (signings) to me,” Dimitroff said when asked when he know a team is looking to simply get to .500 instead of pushing for a Super Bowl. “It’s making that coach feel comfortable that he doesn’t have to develop players necessarily and that we can get to this spot, we’ll pay a little bit of money for it, and we’ll get to that area (of mediocrity) and then we’ll look to continue to think about how we’re going to develop.
“Look, to me there are lazy coaches out there that just don’t have it in them to develop the young players and…
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