Stafford vs. Sanchez

Don't get me wrong, I like the way Mark has played and though still flawed, I'm elated at the progress Stafford has made in the first four weeks. Still a long row to hoe for each, though.

Just thought it was rather silly to hold a few throws against the guy when, for the most part, he had an outstanding half on the road.

 

I think both of these guys will be huge players...Turn both franchises completely around and have a winning program.

We could possible look in 5 years at this past draft the same as the one in 2004 i think (eli, rivers, big ben). But the comparison can be made for last years draft too...

 

Both QB will have GREAT careers, Stafford just needs to have some weapons at his disposal.

Stafford performed better on the Wonderlic test 38 to Sanchez's 28.. not sure what factor, if any, this has on a QB tho...

 

Stafford is doing ok so far. Tough team to work for at the moment and he's holding his own. If the Lions get to work on the trenches and build up the areas of the team that Millen neglected in his OCD WR spree Stafford might well turn into one of the better QB's in the NFL.

The tragedy of course is that if Millen had never taken a WR in the first round, opting instead to draft the positions that actually make a difference the Lions probably would never have collapsed. His reign as GM was the worst in football history and he did a demolition job on the franchise that is going to take years of good management to fix. You guys are lucky that Ford fired him. It would have been very depressing watching him draft the bookend WR - Michael Crabtree - on the 1 to make sure the lions had the best WR corps in NFL history.

 

There are so many things wrong with this post. Not because I am showing any bias - just because some of what you say simply does not make sense.

Sanchez does not have as much upside but can play now. That's quite easy to say 4 games into the year when the kid is 3-1. That was absolutely not the popular notion pre-draft. Do I need to remind you about the whole "16 career starts" vs "4 years starting at Georgia" comments. Nobody thought Sanchez was more ready than Stafford pre-draft. I am talking pundits here, guys that are paid to analyze prospects, not guys on message boards.

I can't speak about timed foot speed, but I can speak about the footwork, Sanchez has some of the best footwork in the league. I don't know how one would go about rating footwork relative to another but everything I read/hear about his footwork is that it is uncanny for a rookie. In terms of straight line speed I dont know if anyone wants to dig up the 40 times from the combine but from all the games that I have seen - and I have watched 2 lions games - Sanchez looks faster than stafford no doubt.

 

It's very true. If Brady had had the trouble at Purdue that he had at Michigan, getting on the field and staying there, he would not have been an NFL prospect.

It's also true that what he did at Michigan was to underachieve dramatically.

Michigan - 56
Purdue - 35

That's not a football score, that's the number of players each college has had drafted by the NFL since 1997. The big difference is going to be in the guys drafted late (obviously) who got picked when the tie breaker was that they played for Michigan instead of Purdue.

Edit: whoops, went back and checked and the numbers actually say Michigan 21 players drafted from round 5 to 7 and Purdue 15. So the big difference is in rounds 1 to 4. That said, Tom Brady's shot at getting picked would have been low given he went in the 6th from Michigan. That same standing wouldn't have been there from Purdue because the scouts would have looked at him and asked exactly why they were drafting him. The answer for the Pats was that he was a very smart guy who had QB'd at a top 10 school.

BTW, I'm convinced the Pats drafted Brady for the same reason they drafted Cassell: to handle the very complicated job of relying signs in the Patriot's sign stealing video system.

 

I don't see Russell having any upside. In fact, I don't see him having any more down side. Its probably the worse a QB can be, missing everyone on the field.

As for Stafford, he has the arm strength, but isn't as accurate yet (from what I've read). Can he become more accurate? I don't know if u can work on your accuracy either. Arm strength comes natural, thats for sure. I believe accuracy is also mostly natural. I don't think you can coach accuracy. U can coach awareness and pocket pressence though. I don't see a very high ceiling for Stafford. I could be biased though.

As for Sanchez, I actually think he has a very high ceiling. He doesn't need to worry about his accuracy. His arm strength is not weak. He can throw the ball 50+ yards down the field with great accuracy and good enough zip. Pennington's first year as a starter was very good. Sanchez has similar accuracy, but better arm strength. Not just average, but above average. All he needs to do is stop staring down receivers and be careful with ball handling/endzone awareness. Reason why I think Sanchez has a very high ceiling is because, even though he ran a pro style offense in college, he only had 16 starts and couldn't beat JD Booty for the starting spot. After 16 college starts, he was drafted 5th overall. That shows you how has progressed in the game. I don't see him stopping all of a sudden.

 

I'm pretty sure he'd have started his sophomore year if Carroll didn't want to keep him around for years 4 and 5. There's something about the way that Carroll handled the situation that tells me that he was sure he had Sanchez locked up for this season and totally shocked when he got away.

Booty was a senior when Sanchez was a soph, and like Lloyd Carr at Michigan - when he had to handle the senior Tom Brady vs sophomore Drew Henson - Carroll chose to play the lesser QB (at the time) to keep his commitments to his 5 year player. Also like Carr, Carroll lost the QB early by dicking around that way.

 

He has the best WR in the league. Stafford will be good.

 

#1 - Again, what does when I joined have to do with anything I said? Is there a certain grace period I don't know about that I need to adhere to before refuting points?

#2 & #3 - It's pretty simple, so I'll repeat it. If you think Stafford needs to markedly improve his accuracy, then wouldn't Sanchez need to do the same? Beyond shiny draft buzz words, why is Sanchez already extremely accurate and Stafford inaccurate despite both having nearly identical comp %s?

Here's another one: Why is the nimble QB that moves around the pocket with relative ease and has the great ability to avoid the rush getting sacked on a higher frequency of his dropbacks than the plodder with "some" ability to step up despite the nimble QB having the better OL?

Essentially, you are giving Sanchez a pass, glossing over his shortcomings and consider his improvement a lock. Stafford, OTOH, seems to be held to a different standard.

#4 - I don't know what this means. I haven't called anyone names nor have I said anything derogatory about Sanchez or the Jets. Can you say the same about me or the Lions? Monosyllabically, of course.

Basically, this post says almost exactly the same thing the others have. You talk about having a discussion but have yet to address the crux of the matter or the questions I've posed.

For the guy who talked about Millen, here's a stat to chew on: only 3 of 39 draft picks from the 2002-2006 drafts are currently on the roster.

 

I'm very excited about Sanchez. Love the footwork, the moxie the energy the tempo. Yes here comes the but. When I watch Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Baltimore, Ind, Chicago and yes the Giants I see classic drop back QB's who throw the ball outside, up the field with a certain comfortable ease that is almost scary. Stafford has that kind of ability. I'm still not sure Sanchez does. That doesn't mean we can't win big with an accurate agile up tempo game.

I think if you look around the league there is a new group of QB's who are big and can really throw the football that are starting to dominate the game.

 

Counterpoints would be Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers, both of whom are smallish also (Brees much so) and still setting standards.

 

So basically, you're mad because you got your feelings hurt. I think the football smart thing is something you hold dearly to, because I never mentioned that or said that I was the final word on anything football related. It's starting to make much more sense now. How dare anyone call one of your takes laughable, eh?

And I'm not taking the high road, but it is amusing that the one hurling insults, bringing up last year, etc. is entirely you.

Comp% can be flawed, but if your ball placement sucks, over time, it will get reflected in that %. There's only so long you can complete passes continually throwing to the wrong shoulder, at a guy's feet, behind him, etc. Your contention is that Stafford is getting bailed out by the "big-bodied WRs". It was and still is laughable. Less than half of his completions have gone to Pettigrew and CJ, guys you brought up to support that ridiculous contention. It's also convenient for you to leave out that he came right back and completed big passes after those missed throws. Or that he orchestrated 3 9+ play, 70+ yard scoring drives in that first half, including his second 98 yarder in as many weeks. But yeah, those 4-5 throws over 4 weeks totally make your case.

Two yards!

BTW, how many 57% QBs have been considered extremely accurate in the last decade? Does the list start and end with Sanchez?

Of course bad reads, not reading coverages correctly, etc lead to sacks. Funny how you neglected to add any one of those things to your initial analysis, eh? Being able to move around the pocket means dick if you're having difficulty reading defenses, holding the ball too long and don't know where to go with the ball.

For the guy that brought up Millen is for the guy that brought up Millen. If you didn't, then why would think it's directed towards you?

Oh noes, not the unemployment rate!

 

It was only a bit of sarcasm. Your appraisal of the two is that Stafford has a stronger arm but otherwise isn't as smart, smooth, or good-looking as Sanchez. I agreed with you, chief. Take it easy.

And yeah, I think you can work on a QBs accuracy greatly. See Eli Manning now as opposed to Eli Manning then.

 

I don't know what network you watch for your pre-draft coverage, but I pretty much exclusively watch the NFL Network because Mayock is the best in the business and makes Kiper look like the hair-gelled-jackass that he is.

Mayock's assessment was that Sanchez had great accuracy and his footwork was as technically sound as any rookie he had ever seen. He also pointed to Sanchez' experience in running a pro-style offense as another reason he would have immediate success.

His assessment of Stafford was that he had a bigger arm and was an overall better athlete. I will admit that here I took a writer's liberty and equated "better athlete" to better runner, but besides that I only took what Mayock said. In addition to that he pointed out that at Georgia Stafford had receivers that would bail him out when he got lazy with his technique/ball placement. He also pointed to Stafford's superior athletic ability as another cause for him to have a problem adjusting to the pro-level because raw ability wasn't going to carry him nearly as far as it used to.

Again, I took all this from Mike Mayock from NFL Network because I have a massive man-crush on his football knowledge. I don't remember if he said this on Path to the Draft or during the Combine itself or on NFL Total Access and don't really feel like looking it up, but you can either do it via nfl.com or just take my word for it. I should have specified that this was my source.

What draft gurus did you turn to? And can you please give me a tad more benefit of the doubt than thinking I turned to "guys on message boards" as opposed to "guys that are paid to analyze prospects." C'mon, I haven't shown myself to be that retarded, have I?

 

Accuracy issues can stem either from having an inaccurate arm (for whatever reason you simply have troubling manipulating the muscle fibers in your arm in fine and compact motions) or you simply have poor throwing technique. Technique can be worked on, muscle issues can't. Arm strength is always a muscle issue, improving your release and spiral can give you a tad more zip but won't turn a pea-shooter into a howitzer.

I don't mean to imply that Sanchez has a low ceiling, mind you. Only that it's not as high as Stafford's. The main reason for this, as I read in pre-draft coverage courtesy of Mike Mayock, is due to his stronger arm and superior athletic ability. Again, this doesn't mean Sanchez is weak-armed and clumsy, just not as athletic and strong-armed as Stafford. I don't think a single Jet fan should feel anything but good about Sanchez (save for ball security issues) and I'm not trying to knock him in anyway, for what that's worth.

 

Stafford may have a better arm but Sanchez has a pretty damn good arm.

I agree with the comments about GQs frame. He definitely should/will gain some mass but not too much to compromise his agility.

I think the main difference between the two aside from the physical attributes is that GQ is far more charismatic than Stafford And seems better equipped to take on the media.

Sanchez is also backed by a popular Coach among the fanbase, in Ryan, whom willingly deflects media scrutiny from GQ to himself. That's more that can be said for a fledgling Detroit coach who is likely out the door in 2 seasons.