2023-2024 NFL Season Thread • Page 2783

Anticipation vs man to man is really just reading one defender’s hips and knowing when a WR has leverage to break away. Fields is good at that, hence why I heavily criticized WFT for calling man against him the whole game. You shouldn’t leave your defenders on an island that much if you’re facing a QB with a really accurate arm. Fields does do a nice job at ball placement the second his receiver gets a step or an angle on man coverage. (And I’m not downplaying that, Fields arm talent itself is outstanding).

When I talk about Fields issues with anticipation, I mean that he hasn’t shown he can anticipate holes in the zone early when it’s not straight up simple man to man. That’s when anticipation gets tricky and only the top 10 to 12 QBs in the league are good enough to do it consistently, let alone Fields rarely even flashes it. A pass could either be wide open or intercepted depending on your timing, and you gotta process zone looks before they develop in order to throw early enough to hit those open windows.

The reason I distinguish THIS form of anticipation as a vital QB skill, is because it requires you to read the whole defense at once, not just one guy. It’s legitimately harder, but it’s what high volume QBs have to do in order to still pick up chunk yards even when the opponent is specifically calling plays to stop the pass. Any decent NFL QB should be able to punish teams for calling too much man (and Fields is better than decent at this, which means he might be successful if the Bears can run the ball well enough to force teams to keep calling man.) but beating zone with anticipation is what weeds out the average / subpar QBs from the good franchise QBs.

The only example of zone coverage I saw in these clips was the one of the defenders dropping back and him throwing underneath. That’s basic anticipation I suppose but not really the same as him knowing when and when not to throw a medium-distance post against cover 2 vs when you should throw it against a different coverage.

 

I told Laura my twitter account is great and she said "okay"

 

thats the appropriate response

 

She's smart she should have a twitter account

 

No she shouldn't she deserves better

 

I'm not moving from here until I die or am ready to buy a house/townhouse/etc again

 

And please understand I’m not being willfully contrarian or moving the goal posts, this is legitimately my full take on how good your anticipation has to be, to be that QB who can regularly throw for 300 yards against a defense who is gameplanning against that QB. And this is why people need to look at anticipation as more than just “throwing early”. Fields can beat man all day but the second a team is good at calling zone he’s stumped - and that is what good defenses will do when the game is close and Fields has to answer through the air.

 

Goff, Cousins, and Herbert are probably the worst QBs who are able to anticipate throws against dense zone coverage regularly, so that should give you an idea of how difficult it is and how high the bar is.

I would say Trevor and (this year’s version of) Baker Mayfield do it sometimes but not consistently yet, they practice it and try to get better at it for sure but sometimes their timing is off or they over anticipate something that isn’t there

like, this is the style of QB play that won Joe Montana / Steve Young superbowls, and this is the style of QB play that changed the league forever into a more finesse, precision-oriented game once Kurt Warner, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees had extreme success.

Because of the way defenses play now, that skill is a requirement of the QB position in modern football, the same way that agility and mobility is also a recent requirement of the QB position in modern football. You can be a mobile unconventional QB and have success - but even those guys (Mahomes, Hurts, Lamar etc) aren’t exempt, they still sooner or later get forced to perfect the art of downfield anticipation vs zone in order to maintain their success.

 

Never wonder why we have so many divorce lawyers

 

I had a friend who didn’t let anyone talk to him during Eagles games. His wife was obviously annoyed by this when they had a kid and he had this window where he couldn’t be bothered but he started doing it for games he had bets on and fantasy stakes too and yeah he’s divorced now lol I couldn’t imagine dating someone like that

 

As I’ve said before, fantasy football rots brains

 

not sure whats worse, this, or this couple we know who had to have the guys jeep gladiator in their engagement photos because he loves his car so much.

 

My first car was a hand-me-down 1993 Plymouth Duster from my sister. Then when I got my first job out of college, I bought a 2009 Kia Spectra. Since then, I've had two Kia Niros, and I love them.

 

That's why I shared the video though. It had two examples of him throwing before a hole had opened up. One to Moore over the middle for like 15 and one on a TE finding the soft spot, fields being with him in knowing because of the zone look that spot is gonna be there and converting a 3rd down. I share it not to be NAHNAHNAH I'M RIGHT but more so like...hey! he's getting a bit better at this.

 

Also, I think like the Randall and Elf argument thread, we should make a "Dorking out too much while casual conversation about cars is happening" thread haha

 

Besides the people getting married you should only have kids or pets in engagement pictures.

 

Unless Bill Murray shows up.

 

Grow up murph

 

no fuck that creep bastard, I’d punch him if he tried to crash my wedding.

 

omg youre getting married?

 

Are you happy to have given up on life?