ckparrothead
Premium Member
Evidently for whatever reason he was asked to throw 112 passes at his Pro Day...and he completed 110 of them.
You guys know me, you know I like Yates a lot. I consider him a guy that could absolutely become a franchise starter in the NFL.
I've been doing a lot of work on QBs and part of it is comparative work, putting clips up of similar throws from different players, which sort of highlights in your mind the difference between the players.
I have to say, Yates' footwork is FREAK-ISH. I mean downright FREAK quality.
What I found when I did my studies of QB releases was that if you measure the release from the lead-foot up, and then from the throwing elbow up, you obviously get different time readings. One is the full motion and the other is just the arm motion only.
Across the board, I found that guys with weaker arms tended to have more discrepancy between foot-up and elbow-up release times. In other words, Ryan Mallett's motion from lead foot-up would be something like 49 milliseconds, but his motion from drop elbow-up would be 43 milliseconds. But Andy Dalton, who has a much weaker arm, would be lead foot-up at 56 milliseconds (forget the exact numbers), and arm-up would be 41 milliseconds. The disparity between those (6 milliseconds and 15 milliseconds, respectively), would roughly correlate with strong-armed guys and weak-armed guys.
This is intuitive! I measured intermediate pocket passes with pocket rhythm. Guys with naturally weaker arms need their feet more to get the torque to drive the football, and it would only follow that would increase the time from when they start up with their lead foot and then start up their arm motion.
The exception? T.J. Yates. I don't think people accuse this guy of having a big arm, although sometimes you have to wonder when you see him throw the ball 55 or 60 yards thru the air with perfect ball placement on a vertical while on the run. But Yates had the SMALLEST discrepancy between foot-up and arm-up motions....of any QB I measured. His feet just move that fast and his weight transferrance is that efficient. He can shuffle and reset his feet inside the pocket, and then throw the ball like boxer punch, quicker than any player in this draft.
And he's ACCURATE. He's accurate short, and he's accurate deep. The problem is, in his ultra-conservative offense, you didn't see him throw a bunch of those intermediate sized 25 to 35 yard throws (thru the air, as the crow flies). You have to put together reams of tape to isolate enough of those throws to get a good sense for his accuracy. Luckily, nobody's ever accused me of being lazy, when it comes to Draft stuff. I've found that on those throws he has what I consider requisite accuracy, which is about 80 percent hitting the WR's hands.
And did I mention, he probably has THE most accurate deep ball in the Draft? Even more accurate than Newton or Mallett. When he played basketball, he was a star 3-point shooter. It shows in his deep ball as he drops that ball right in the bucket with great placement, timing and arc. I don't know why Chad Reuter seems on a crusade against high-arc deep balls. From what I've heard, especially from Sean Smith, quarterbacks are more prone to high-arc on their deep balls in the NFL, and hitting the outside shoulder, than in college.
He's a little over-aggressive, as TedSlimmJr has come to say, "The REAL T.J. Yates" shows up every now and then. He's referring to how in 2009 and prior, Yates did throw some interceptions.
He's an excellent game manager. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. He manages the clock. He manages situations. I don't know if there's a quarterback in this Draft that I would take over him if I had less than 2 minutes remaining with no timeouts and I needed to drive 50 or 60 yards to either get a touchdown or field goal to prevent losing the game. That's saying a LOT.
His dedication to the details is PHENOMENAL. Many times I mentioned in my initial scouting reports the name "Peyton Manning"...and as I did background on him, I found that he grew up and still is a diehard Colts fan, and has attended Manning Camp three consecutive years. What was he in charge of teaching the kids at Manning Camp? What else? THE DEEP BALL.
But you're talking a four year starter that has been thru ALL the ups and downs, kept fighting, fought thru adversity, all the hate mail, etc...and got BETTER. A guy that is accurate short, accurate intermediate and REAL accurate deep, a guy that is naturally aggressive but was harnessed by a conservative offense, a guy with FREAK footwork, the quickest release in the Draft, a dedication to the smallest of details, extremely hard worker, a leader, great game, situation and time manager...and this guy is so under the radar it's sickening.
Yeah, I've put Ponder above him. That hasn't always been the case. I do think physically Christian's top line is just higher as he's got more athletic ability and experience throwing the intermediate ball more often. You don't know if Yates is going to be a risky thrower again when he has to throw more aggressively again. That's the danger.
But I see Yates as like another Trent Green, similar footwork, similar effective deep ball.
You guys know me, you know I like Yates a lot. I consider him a guy that could absolutely become a franchise starter in the NFL.
I've been doing a lot of work on QBs and part of it is comparative work, putting clips up of similar throws from different players, which sort of highlights in your mind the difference between the players.
I have to say, Yates' footwork is FREAK-ISH. I mean downright FREAK quality.
What I found when I did my studies of QB releases was that if you measure the release from the lead-foot up, and then from the throwing elbow up, you obviously get different time readings. One is the full motion and the other is just the arm motion only.
Across the board, I found that guys with weaker arms tended to have more discrepancy between foot-up and elbow-up release times. In other words, Ryan Mallett's motion from lead foot-up would be something like 49 milliseconds, but his motion from drop elbow-up would be 43 milliseconds. But Andy Dalton, who has a much weaker arm, would be lead foot-up at 56 milliseconds (forget the exact numbers), and arm-up would be 41 milliseconds. The disparity between those (6 milliseconds and 15 milliseconds, respectively), would roughly correlate with strong-armed guys and weak-armed guys.
This is intuitive! I measured intermediate pocket passes with pocket rhythm. Guys with naturally weaker arms need their feet more to get the torque to drive the football, and it would only follow that would increase the time from when they start up with their lead foot and then start up their arm motion.
The exception? T.J. Yates. I don't think people accuse this guy of having a big arm, although sometimes you have to wonder when you see him throw the ball 55 or 60 yards thru the air with perfect ball placement on a vertical while on the run. But Yates had the SMALLEST discrepancy between foot-up and arm-up motions....of any QB I measured. His feet just move that fast and his weight transferrance is that efficient. He can shuffle and reset his feet inside the pocket, and then throw the ball like boxer punch, quicker than any player in this draft.
And he's ACCURATE. He's accurate short, and he's accurate deep. The problem is, in his ultra-conservative offense, you didn't see him throw a bunch of those intermediate sized 25 to 35 yard throws (thru the air, as the crow flies). You have to put together reams of tape to isolate enough of those throws to get a good sense for his accuracy. Luckily, nobody's ever accused me of being lazy, when it comes to Draft stuff. I've found that on those throws he has what I consider requisite accuracy, which is about 80 percent hitting the WR's hands.
And did I mention, he probably has THE most accurate deep ball in the Draft? Even more accurate than Newton or Mallett. When he played basketball, he was a star 3-point shooter. It shows in his deep ball as he drops that ball right in the bucket with great placement, timing and arc. I don't know why Chad Reuter seems on a crusade against high-arc deep balls. From what I've heard, especially from Sean Smith, quarterbacks are more prone to high-arc on their deep balls in the NFL, and hitting the outside shoulder, than in college.
He's a little over-aggressive, as TedSlimmJr has come to say, "The REAL T.J. Yates" shows up every now and then. He's referring to how in 2009 and prior, Yates did throw some interceptions.
He's an excellent game manager. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. He manages the clock. He manages situations. I don't know if there's a quarterback in this Draft that I would take over him if I had less than 2 minutes remaining with no timeouts and I needed to drive 50 or 60 yards to either get a touchdown or field goal to prevent losing the game. That's saying a LOT.
His dedication to the details is PHENOMENAL. Many times I mentioned in my initial scouting reports the name "Peyton Manning"...and as I did background on him, I found that he grew up and still is a diehard Colts fan, and has attended Manning Camp three consecutive years. What was he in charge of teaching the kids at Manning Camp? What else? THE DEEP BALL.
But you're talking a four year starter that has been thru ALL the ups and downs, kept fighting, fought thru adversity, all the hate mail, etc...and got BETTER. A guy that is accurate short, accurate intermediate and REAL accurate deep, a guy that is naturally aggressive but was harnessed by a conservative offense, a guy with FREAK footwork, the quickest release in the Draft, a dedication to the smallest of details, extremely hard worker, a leader, great game, situation and time manager...and this guy is so under the radar it's sickening.
Yeah, I've put Ponder above him. That hasn't always been the case. I do think physically Christian's top line is just higher as he's got more athletic ability and experience throwing the intermediate ball more often. You don't know if Yates is going to be a risky thrower again when he has to throw more aggressively again. That's the danger.
But I see Yates as like another Trent Green, similar footwork, similar effective deep ball.
