Many of the smartest NFL voices, from Tom Brady to Greg Olsen to Cam Newton to Aaron Rodgers, have tried to reclaim the status quo around quarterback development all season by arguing teams are speeding youngsters into bad situations too early in their careers.
This week, ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes rebutted that argument by claiming that the narrative is just based on “nostalgia.”
Kimes argued that plenty of young QBs were great in the modern NFL right away, and the game demands more physically and mentally at that position than it used to.
“There’s this nostalgia thing happening that’s really irritating me right now,” Kimes said Wednesday on The Right Time with Bomani Jones.
In the NFL over the past half-decade, both Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes stepped in and won multiple MVPs in their first five seasons as full-time starters. Rookies like Jayden Daniels and Brock Purdy led turnarounds right away for their teams.
For that reason, Kimes believes modern QB detractors in the media are seeing what they want to see.
“It drives me crazy right now that … there’s this narrative that quarterback play is not good right now, or that young quarterbacks aren’t playing well, when the best quarterbacks in the league are all like an average age of 26, we’re getting an incredible rookie year out of Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye actually is looking pretty decent too, shockingly, in a horrible situation,” Kimes said. “We can’t really compare quarterback play stats across eras anymore because Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, etc., they’re not going to put up those yards anymore. But they’re still obviously better than those guys.”
The NFL Live panelist and ESPN Swiss Army knife argued that the NFL requires quarterbacks to be mobile and athletic, which could be filtering out more stand-still pocket passers than before. But for Kimes, the issue isn’t that coaching staffs and front offices are ruining young quarterbacks by rushing them into the mix. It’s that the position has changed, and players and teams are still catching on.
“The other thing is defenses are just much better now,” Kimes explained. “Everyone’s like, ‘well they’re barely throwing it downfield’ … there’s more disguise, they’re more athletic, the pressures are crazy. It’s just harder now.”
Lastly, Kimes pointed out that what analysts and outsiders might see as a “good situation” isn’t always that. This year’s Chicago Bears were supposed to be a perfect landing spot for No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams, but the 2022 Heisman winner looks far from a generational prospect so far.
That’s because, as Kimes sees it, analysts (and executives) are just as hit or miss at predicting how other parts of the team will fit together as they are projecting QB development.
“I think the hardest part isn’t even evaluating whether quarterbacks are ready … not only are we bad at evaluating the quarterback position, we seem to also struggle with evaluating the situations that they’re walking into,” Kimes said.
It was predictable that as more NFL stars from the modern era trickled into the media, they would explain this phenomenon from their point of view. But the balance from Kimes’ side is useful context as retired athletes continue to rail against greedy front offices and impatient owners.
[The Right Time with Bomani Jones on YouTube]
