ANUFan
Club Member
This is GREAT and must read article for anyone that's ever been interested in what it takes to be a QB in the NFL. It has alot of interesting information on why the position is so hard to play and master. Here's a little taste:
http://www.nfl.com/qb2016
"Try this: 'Hey, it's second-and-5, we're in Tiger, they just played Cover 3, so let's go Flank Right 2-Jet Z-Sail F-Drive. Tiger is a personnel group. Flank Right is the formation. 2-Jet is the protection. Z-Sail and F-Drive are two route combinations. And that is the simplest play, and formation, I could call: A two-receiver route and [another] two-receiver route, and the first one I said, you wanna start your eyes there. Or the play could end in the word 'alert,' which means if we get a certain look, be alert to audible to a specific play that we memorized during the week. Now, are they in nickel? Are they treating this as three wides or are they staying in base?
Oh, they're matching, say, Richard Sherman on [Charles] Clay ... you need to be aware of that. So you've got a pre-snap read, then a drop read and a set read. On your drop, you're reading something -- you have a primary receiver, or a primary route combination -- then once your back foot hits and you don't throw the No. 1 read, then you're into your set read, and now you're getting through a progression: Ding ding ding ding ding. Meanwhile somebody's trying to hold you up and clothesline you. And you have to do all this in maybe two seconds."
"Let's say a play just ended -- say Doug Baldwin just made a big catch," Wilson says. "The next thing I'm looking at is, I call it the 'shot clock' -- how much time? Forty seconds on the [play] clock? Thirty? What's the situation? Is it first-down-and-10 now? Is it third-and-3? Then I'm checking out the defensive personnel -- who's coming in, who's coming out? -- and then doing the same for our offensive personnel. You want to know who your guys are, who's the best player for that particular play, who may get open that play ... what the matchups are. And you also want to think about and analyze and visualize what they may do on defense. If you don't like the play, you can check out of it. You can change it. You try to put your team in the best position possible. You try to figure out what the front is and what the defense is doing. A lot of times, it's a pre-snap read. Sometimes, it's the front. Sometimes, it's where guys are lined up, their body position, whatever that may be. And sometimes, just as soon as you snap it, you figure out what they're doing.
http://www.nfl.com/qb2016