I really appreciate this write up.. I think you hit the nail on the head in what big time qb's are asked to do. Produce in and out of structure. ALso haveing a few elite traits should be apart of this evaluation. A player like Tannehill who is an above avg qb does not have any elite traits imo.
One thing that I have a tough time agreeing with you on and that is also because we have a tough time evaluating this is the difficulty of what a qb is being asked to do.
If you are a follower of Steven Ruiz or some other online qb guru's you may fall into the trap that believing things like the rpo are used as training wheels for qb's that aren't good at progressions or reading the defense. That may have been true about 5 years ago but that is certainly not the case now.
Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles offense are thriving thanks to the RPO. But can they keep it up?
www.footballoutsiders.com
This article does a great job of explaining why that is. The eagles success when we run RPO is squarely on Jalen. That structure puts so much pressure on the qb consistently making the right decision, and so far he has with great success.
If you have a hierarchy of easiest to hardest things offenses ask a qb to do I would like to see your ranking.
A guy like herbert being able to sit in the pocket all day and go through progressions while throwing strikes is a enviable skill set and offense , it's one that more and more teams are having less success with. So maybe instead of difficult offenses to run , a more simpler approach is better.
If i had to summarize the nfl right now it would be like that this, there are 2 barriers for successful offenses. Teams are basically given free reign to get into the red zone. What determines a team getting into the red zone is the least mistakes committed i.e. penalties, sacks, turnovers and drops. . That is barrier 1. Barrier 2 for success is what do teams do in the red zone? DO they score td's get fg's or do they turn it over?
Few if any qb's are able to overcome mistakes. THe josh allen, Mahomes, and herberts of the world have the talent to overcome mistakes.
WHen I look at hurts I see him as a perfect qb for this era of football , because he has 3 elite traits imo. 1. He is an elite decision maker. He does not turn the ball over, he does not take big sacks. 2. In the red zone he is elite at producing. This is the 2nd year in a row that the Eagles dominate in the red zone ( best this year) THe pressure the rpo , and hurts legs puts on defenses makes us the best running red zone team in the nfl and its not even close. How good is Hurts in the Red zone? He and Dak are the only qb to be in the top 8 in the past 2 years.
So again, I don't care how beautiful of a ball herbert throws. I care about a red zone percentage in the 70's instead of the low 50's like herbert has had the2 of the past 3 years.
If we place an emphasis on results rather than style , it's easy to see why there is so much enthusiasm behind Hurts. Elite REd zone production. Does not f*** up. that seems to be the recipe for success in todays nfl.
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