....can I just say that I do have reservations about his first start for us being against the Cowboys, who from what I've seen over the last two years have one of the toughest defenses in this league, along with a surprisingly productive offense based on a playmaking ability from Dak that really wasn't present in his first few years, when he was more a steady game manager that rarely made mistakes or big throws. I get the same feeling from the thought of Rosen starting that game as I did from Matt Moore starting against Baltimore a few years ago. The starting QB wasn't getting it done and never deserved the starting job in the first place, but it was setting the other QB up for failure by having him start in terrible circumstances. In Matt's case, we've been manhandled by Baltimore, absolutely filleted and dissected, in almost every recent outing except for a laughable suckfest between Tannehill and Matt Schaub. Moore predictably sucked and we were doomed for Cutler starting.
I've been excited to see Fitz benched the last two weeks, as it was overdue both times, yet my excitement dimmed pretty quickly when I realized the defensive line was just having a track meet to the quarterback every play on obvious passing situations. Rosen deserves a chance to play, but man does it suck to be the guy in there, having to pass the ball once the defense has already gotten into the head of the lineman. Fitz has had a mixed bag in the pocket for sure, but quarters 3/4 behind this line have turned into a free for all for the defense. And perhaps the defense would have been in less of a groove had Fitz not dug us a whole with some bad picks and easily batted passes by lineman in his throwing lane.
I never agreed with the sentiment that you start Rosen after the bye. Given the direction of this team with its obvious rebuilding, it made no sense to start a 36 year old QB unless Rosen showed he wasn't ready to play. In preseason, Rosen showed he was ready to play. He showed he could move the offense. He showed he could elude pass rush (a trait which was disappeared in his garbage time appearences). He showed he could place the ball and make big plays with good downfield vision. What's worse is that most of us here knew the Flores wasn't going to give him a fair shot based on his comments after preseason game 1, where he crticized Rosen for things that a veteran Fitzpatrick has done his entire career. Flores showed in that moment that he had preconceived visions of the two QB's and was going to look for whatever evidence there was to support that narrative. Fitzpatrick, for his part, was terrible in week three, when the announcers basically knew that Fitzpatrick was being given the starting job but were openly questioning it after Fitzpatrick supplied garbage an entire half.
The bottom line is that I think we're in a real pickle right now. Flores made a "safe" pick at QB and that backfired spectacularly. As much as you want to set the stage for a young QB to have success, the only stage that has been set is an absolute travesty. Instead of the stage being set, Rosen is instead placed in the same situation he was in Arizona, where he is inserted into a lineup that has been unspeakably bad (AZ fired their OC not long into last season). For fear of putting a young QB in at the wrong time, we've created a situation where the right time might not exist anymore. The right time was to let Josh build off solid play in the preseason, where the o-line play sucked pretty bad but we did a good job as a whole, but that time has passed and we can't go back. It just seems entire futile and senseless to waste any more time with Fitzpatrick starting and delay the only thing that makes sense, even if its a hard landing spot.
At the same time, what are we protecting him for? You don't want to ruin Rosen, but isn't it more laughable to protect a guy when every game you fail to start him gives him one less chance to prove his worth and develop himself? There's only 14 left (assuming health, lol) before we can potentially draft a QB highly and we need to know what we have.
I won't feel good about this week's QB decision no matter what it is. Fitzpatrick is wasted time and ineffective to boot, but Rosen is going to have an impossible task. We'll see.
