The case against Rosen:
tl;dr at the top and bottom: tl;dr Josh Rosen was a bottom 5 QB last year overall, and with a clean pocket. Coaching changes last year did not improve his play. Our roster and cap situation makes us unable to compete until after the 2020 season, and only then we will have a very small window in which our current franchise players decline, and before Rosen's huge cap hit if he does perform well.
To properly evaluate this situation, I think we need to look at four things:
1) The status of the current talent on the roster
2) The status of the cap
3) The rating of Josh Rosen as a player
4) History of bad 1st round Rookie QB’s in the past two decades
Lets start with:
1) The status of the current talent on the roster:
Lets run a quick age-check on the best players on our roster, 4 years from now:
Trent Williams, 34 - According to
NFL offensive tackles and the age-wall, most tackles begin to decline at age 32. Trent will be two years beyond that barrier at that point in time.
Morgan Moses, 32 - See above
Brandon Scherff, 31
Jordan Reed, 32 - Relies mostly on athleticism. Injury concerns won't get better with age
Josh Norman, 35 - Has already begun to decline
Ryan Kerrigan, 34 - According to
Aging Curve for NFL Defensive Players: DL, LB & DB, the decline starts at ~30/31. Kerrigan is about to hit that decline.
We have a roster that is aging quickly, and our best players will be hitting their decline in the next 1-4 years, if not already.
2) The status of the cap:
Our cap situation is bad. Alex Smith hits for $20 mil in 2019, $21 mil in 2020. Our best QB is out for this season, possibly for the rest of his career. If he does come back, we don’t know what he’ll look like at that age, and given his injury. We cannot compete when we are sinking $20 mil+ into effectively dead money each of the next two years. In summation: The Redskins have a $29 million dead cap hit for someone who won’t step foot on the field in 2019, and possibly not for 2020 as well.
3) The rating of Josh Rosen as a player: Based on what Josh Rosen showed last year, he is not a starting NFL Quarterback. People will make excuses for Rosen because of his bad O-Line. Yes, it was atrocious, but Rosen didn’t take advantage when he did have time to throw.
Here are some statistics to back that claim up, showing Rosen’s performance in a clean pocket vs showing the average NFL QB in a clean pocket: Rosen had an adjusted completion% of 69.9%. The NFL average was 78.1%. Rosen had 6.5 Y/A. The NFL average was 7.8. Rosen’s TD % was 3.7%, the NFL average was 5.1%. His INT % was 3.0, the NFL average was 1.8%. His passer rating was 80.9, the NFL average was 103.1. By every measurable statistic, he was significantly worse than an average NFL QB, while not under pressure - something that was supposed to be his strength coming out of college. For someone supposed to be the most 'pro ready' coming out of last years draft, he still has a lot of polishing left.
The Redskins won games early last year because we could run, take care of the ball, and play good defense. Rosen turns the ball over at a high rate, is bad under pressure, was not good, even in a clean pocket last year.
Next, while his coaches did him no favors, the change from Mike McCoy to Byron Leftwich midseason did not result in an increase Rosen's performance. McCoy was fired 7 games into the season and replaced with Leftwhich, who Bruce Arians himself called 'A rising star' (
Bruce Arians: Bucs OC Byron Leftwich is a 'rising star'). There were 9 games remaining in the season with an OC vouched for by Arians, in which Rosen wasn't any better.
Lastly, looking at the other Rookie QB's that were average to below average this year (Darnold, Allen), can you tell me that either of them had a better supporting cast?
David Johnson + Larry Fitz/Christian Kirk
Isaiah Crowell + Robby Anderson/Quincy Enuwa
The corpse of LeSean McCoy + Kelvin Benjamin/Zay Jones
Yes, he had a bad O-Line. But when you take a look at his stats when he had a clean pocket, he was still in the bottom-5 of QB’s last year. Coaching changes didn't impact his play, and he had a better supporting cast than the other rookies who struggled last year. Nothing he showed last year gave any indication he should be a starting NFL QB.
4) History of bad Rookie QB’s:
Looking at QB’s who were drafted in the first round, had bad rookie seasons, then went on to succeed in the past 20 years:
Peyton Manning
Jared Goff (Missed in my other posts, as others have pointed out)
Looking at QB’s who were drafted in the first round, had bad rookie seasons, then went on to not succeed in the past 20 years:
Paxton Lynch
Jameis Winston
Blake Bortles
Johnny Manziel
EJ Manuel
Brandon Weeden
Jake Locker
Blaine Gabbert
Christian Ponder
JaMarcus Russell
Brady Quinn
Matt Leinart
JP Losman
Kyle Boller
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Tim Couch
Akili Smith
tl;dr Josh Rosen was a bottom 5 QB last year overall, and with a clean pocket. Coaching changes last year did not improve his play. Our roster and cap situation makes us unable to compete until after the 2020 season, and only then we will have a very small window in which our current franchise players decline, and before Rosen's huge cap hit if he does perform well.
For years, the Redskins have been known for making asinine trades and signings that mortgage our future for the chance at immediate, short-term success. This would just be another chapter in that story.
