ESPN Say's Newton To Enter Draft

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

They said the same thing about Vince Young. Bottom line is to be an effective, productive NFL starter you make it or you don't by pocket passing. Ben makes enough plays in the pocket to be an effective starter. From what I saw from Newton, he runs a gimmick high school/college offense where he's in shotgun 99.9% of the time.

This whole QB thing really makes 0 sense to me. I hate to bring this up but my god, we could've just kept JC, kept the freakin draft picks and built the team up around the guy. Now we messed up on McNabb, and now we're going back in the draft to get a project who had one good year in a gimmick offense. Like I said, just throw the 11 season and hopefully get more of a sure thing with Andrew Luck.

The thing is that Ben also came from a program that ran a gimicky offense. And not only that but he came from a conference that wasn't exactly known for great defense (in spite of its ability to produce quality NFL QB's).

Miami OH 2003 Football Preview

Offensive Coordiantor (and former NC State QB) Shane Montgomery's spread offense is the perfect vehicle for Roethlisberger's versatility. Designed rollouts, screens, and shovel passes keep defenses on their toes and open up the verticle passing game, where Roethlisberger's cannon arm becomes supremely dangerous.

I never really understood the comparisons to Vince Young to be honest. While both are scrambling QB's Young has a much more slight build when compared to Newton. On top of that Newtons arm strength has been deemed elite. Young was said to have a strong arm coming out of college but it was more of a "he should be able to make all the throws at the next level." Newtons arm is more along the lines of "he'll easily be able to make all the throws at the next level." And probably the most important difference is that Newton has a much better reputation when it comes to preparation.

Not to mention the fact that Newton was able to perform with a level of off field distractions that have frequently been able to knock Young off balance. Sure Young was clutch against USC in the national championship but he wasn't dealing with impending suspensions and people taking every chance they could to let him know he was a cheater and a thief.

At the very least Newton is Tebow with a better delivery while lacking the extreme intangibles that very few football players can come close to. However in having watched enough Steeler and Auburn games, as well as Texas games back in 2005, I sincerely believe that Big Ben with better mobility is a much better parallel to Newton than Young is.

Personally my biggest concern with Newton is if transitioning from the spread to the pro style offense will lead to complaints from his agent about how the offense needs to "allow him to improvise." I mean it's not like the Shanahan offense needs a precise "by the book" QB to run it like a Peyton Manning. For goodness sake Shanahan has gotten this offense to work with gunslingers like Elway, Plummer, and Cutler. Which actually makes me wonder more about how McNabb wasn't able to even post an 80+ rating in this offense. But I digress so long as Newton is able to accept coaching it should be a good fit. Otherwise it'll be McNabb 2.0.