The Ramsey Dilemma

[sportscurmudgeon]

I know that some folks here will not like this, but what the hay...

Patrick Ramsey has looked just short of incompetent so far this pre-season. It isn't that his timing is off or he is just missing his throws; he has looked awful. And that scares me a bit for this reason:

Ramsey showed in the past two years that he is a big tough kid with a big arm. That's it. That's all he showed. Don't tell me about his great scramble against the Jets. Don't tell me how he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against whomever. He played in a goofy offensive system that asked him to take a pounding and make throws that only someone with a cannon for an arm would have a prayer of completing. That's what he showed.

Now he is in a system for the first time in his life where he has to use a part of his body other than his arm to be successful - - and so far it isn't working. He'd have to improve 200% to look confused out there. My guess is that he has never had to do anything at QB (at Tulane or with the Spurrier Skins) other than drop back and pull the trigger. That is NOT the system that Gibbs uses and in his minicamps and his QB camps and in his passing camps and in training camp, he has not gotten it. Yet...

There have been lots of guys with great arms - better than Ramsey's - who never managed to make it in the NFL because they never got the concept of the mental part of the game. The list is long but the name all of you will recognize immediately is Jeff George whose arm made Ramsey's look like a rag doll.

This is an important year for Patrick Ramsey and the best place for him to be is on the bench so he can try to understand what needs to be done and not try to learn it on the fly. Because if he does not improve a whole lot in the next season, he may not be "the future" for this team - even if Danny Boy is the one who "discovered him" and drafted him. This kid needs a lot of time on the vine - or the pine if you wish - to be able to play in this offensive system.