Greg Cosell’s Film Review: The question of the mobile quarterback

I’ve given a lot of thought to the question of mobile quarterbacks, and specifically this: Can you be a mobile, movement quarterback who makes spontaneous running plays, and also a precise quarterback who masters all of the subtleties of playing the position in the pocket?

Theoretically, there has only been one quarterback that made the transition from spontaneous, spectacular mobile quarterback to a precision pocket quarterback, and that’s Steve Young. He was coached by arguably the greatest quarterback coach we’ve seen in Bill Walsh, who understood that the position starts and ends in the pocket and anything else is ancillary.

The question is how are these mobile quarterbacks being coached? I don’t know. But if you encourage these mobile quarterbacks to showcase their running ability, that presents the flip side, is that they’re going to miss things – pre-snap, after the snap, because of their technique, because they leave the pocket too early, and so forth. If you’re willing to live with that – you’re the coach after all, I’m not – that’s OK. They will make some plays. But they’ll miss things. There is no statistic for passes that aren’t thrown but should be.

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There were a few examples from last week’s games:

ROBERT GRIFFIN III

Griffin gets a bit of a mulligan because this was his first game back since Week 2. But I’ll tell you what I saw on film from last week’s game against Minnesota.

Griffin isn’t great at his drops after taking the snap, and has poor footwork and lower body mechanics for a quarterback with excellent overall athleticism. He is capable of some great throws – he can really throw the deep ball – but at this point Griffin looks like a rookie quarterback early in his career trying to learn and understand a new system.

Here’s an example. On third and 3 late in the third quarter from the Vikings’ 8-yard line, the Vikings went “zero blitz” with no deep safety. The route concepts in the play call took care of blitz with three-step drop timing; Jackson was “x iso” running a quick out. Griffin had what any quarterback would want: Jackson one-on-one with no help on a three-step drop route. Griffin just kept drifting backward with no idea what he had, creating his own pressure, then threw the ball away.

Even a big play showed, if you watched closely, that Griffin needs to improve in pocket awareness and perceiving pressure that isn’t there. The Vikings had a tackle/end stunt, Griffin saw the color of the other team and immediately broke down. He saw the stunt get picked up, reset and made a great throw for a 56-yard gain to DeSean Jackson.

That’s a big play. But in the big picture it’s hard play quarterback from the pocket in the NFL perceiving pressure like that. It won’t always turn out to be a big play. Most mobile quarterbacks have this issue of leaving the pocket too soon based on perceived pressure (but, again, keep in mind Griffin was playing in his first game in many weeks). 

CAM NEWTON

Newton played well early in the season when he was tethered to the pocket because of injuries. He’s healthy again, and he’s the foundation of the Panthers’ running game. I don’t think a quarterback can be a foundation of an NFL team’s running game. But, more than that, the past few weeks Newton has regressed in the subtleties of pocket play. And, he is a naturally scatter-shot thrower.

On the first play of the game against the Saints, the Panthers had a shot play called. The Panthers ran play action out of “12” personnel (one back, two tight ends) with an unbalanced offensive line. The safeties dropped down to play the run action. Kelvin Benjamin ran a deep post. But Newton threw it over the top of Benjamin when he needed to take him across the field. It was an opportunity missed.

Another play showed how Newton isn’t executing the subtle details. On an incompletion to Jerricho Cotchery in the middle of the field, Newton never dropped and planted. He just drifted back. Cotchery was wide open against busted coverage, but Newton was not in proper balance fading away. He lofted the ball instead of driving the throw. It should have been an easy touchdown. Instead, cornerback Keenan Lewis had time to recover and break it up.

COLIN KAEPERNICK

An offensive line gets blamed for sacks, but mobile quarterbacks will generally take more sacks. The 49ers offensive line didn’t play well last week, when the Rams had eight sacks, but Kaepernick was responsible for some too, especially the fourth sack.

The safeties lined up in blitz position on the line. That’s an automatic alert – it’s blitz, and likely “zero blitz.” The 49ers had Michael Crabtree running to the post. Kaepernick made no pre-snap recognition of this. It was third and 3, and on those plays he has a strong tendency to look for Anquan Boldin. The Rams knew this, so they took Boldin away. Then Kaepernick does what you can’t do operating from the pocket: He dropped his eyes and looked to run. And he ran himself into a sack on a play that should have been a big gain to Crabtree on the post route.

These quarterbacks can all make spectacular, spontaneous plays. But those teams have to live with them missing some things, as we’ve seen on these plays. It’s almost unprecedented to be a mobile quarterback and also a pocket quarterback at the same time. That’s what teams have to consider when they make decisions about what they want at the position.

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NFL analyst and NFL Films senior producer Greg Cosell watches as much NFL game film as anyone. Throughout the season, Cosell will join Shutdown Corner to share his observations on the teams, schemes and personnel from around the league.