With the 2012 NFL draft in the books, plenty of us here at Mocking The Draft have started looking ahead to the 2013 draft. Prematurely? Maybe, but other than draft grades, what else have we got to write about? I thought I’d follow suit and get a head-start on quarterbacks likely to be in the discussion for next years draft.
Improvements Required: Landry Jones & Pocket Presence/Awareness
At this point last year, Landry Jones was rated as highly as a top five or ten talent. He started the season fine but when his offensive line started to fail him slightly and his stud receiver Ryan Broyles was lost for the season to injury, he wobbled. He still put up good numbers, but he struggled adjusting to consistent pressure from opposition defenses.
Jones wisely decided to go back to school for another year. This gives him the opportunity to iron out some flaws in his game that would get exposed at the NFL level. From my perspective, Jones has to improve his presence and awareness in the pocket.
Here we have Oklahoma against Texas from last season. A Texas defensive end is beating a block directly in front of Jones’ field of vision.
Jones panics with the pressure in his face. He begins to scramble out to his right, which is natural for right-handed quarterbacks. This however, allows the defensive end to peel off his block easier. Jones should have looked to step up into the pocket and keep his offensive tackle between him and the defender. That would have given the tackle a chance to recover the block and re-anchor, and kept Jones in the pocket with his eyes downfield.
Jones ends up on the receiving end of a hit from the defender as he throws the ball. The ball lands in the dirt, incomplete.
In this example Jones recognized the pressure, but chose the wrong way to deal with it. In our next two examples against FSU, it becomes a slightly different story.
Here Jones has a clean pocket. He has time to take a hitch and then throw.
But instead he starts to scramble. He senses pressure that wasn’t there. He again scrambles to his right, allowing the defense end to peel off his block and chase him down. In the end, Jones throws the ball away as he’s pushed out of bounds. Sensing ‘fake’ pressure is a bad sign. It means he was thinking about avoiding a hit rather than checking his progressions and making a throw.
Later in the game, the defense managed to get to him.
The defensive end gets a great jump off the snap is is already beating the offensive tackle at the point of initial contact.
At this point, the tackle is very nearly beat. Jones is looking to his left for his primary target, and surely must be able to see the defensive end in his peripheral vision. He has to step up in the pocket and give his tackle a chance to run the defender past him. Instead he takes a very small hitch.
That small hitch results in Jones taking a sack. As bad as the tackle may have been on this play, Jones has to be able to step up in the pocket and give him a chance to recover. The NFL has a wide variety of great pass rushers, from DeMarcus Ware and Jared Allen to Jason Peirre-Paul and Tamba Hali. These guys are going to get the better of offensive tackles at times during the game, just like on this play. The quarterback needs to step up and allow the tackle to run the pass rusher by him.
Jones does have plenty of talent going his way. After all, there is a reason he was once rated a top five pick. But he has to sort this out. In watching Jones, it was clearly his most troubling problem Going back to school this year gives him the chance to work on it. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how composed and aware he is in the pocket come September.
What do you think, do you agree this is a problem for Jones? Or do you feel like it’s being blown out of proportion and that he’ll be fine this season? Let us know in the comments. Also, if you liked this post, feel free to click the recommend button and maybe I’ll do more posts like these.
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