I'm starting 2 hope Jimmy can prove people wrong.

[rico6]

I actually meant Alex Smith.

God damned generic names.

[OnlyPantherFaninMaine]

The kid is a Carolina Panther, I wish him the best of luck and hope he turns out to be Peyton Manning and a stud. Your expectations were not lived up too, a rookie QB is going to struggle, just look at the situation he was drafted into. You better believe he wants to win just as much as us and will continue to grow on the playing field.

[jtnc]

I hope Him or Pike sees some light. Hope we didn't draft two busts.

:eek:

[Pox 08]

Pending on the lockout, Jimmy's going to have another leash on life in the NFL. I believe the mental tools are there for Jimmy, it's the right coaching that's going to get him over the hill.

When using other franchise QB's for example, Aaron specifically. He had one of the greatest Quarterbacks of all time to constantly watch, be coached, and be mentally prepared to be an NFL Caliber QB.

Last year, Jimmy was undoubtedly thrown into the wolves, but so were Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, etc. And they all shown that underneath their rookie shells, there were great talents waiting to be utilized.

Jimmy in this previous season, shown nothing, no flashes of brilliance, no wow factor, no nothing. I do pin a good chunk of blame on the staff, and Jerry's non-committal to producing a competitive team this year, however. Still nonetheless, I at least expected something out of the guy.

Jimmy should most definitely be put on watch this year. If he's still a bum with the current Offensive cast surrounding him, then he needs to sit. However, if he pulls an Aaron Smith then I'll be greatly relieved.

Wasn't Ryan sacked only like 15 times his rookie year, while having a 1700 yard rb carry him? Not exactly being thrown to the wolves, imo.

[Wither]

Starting? Shouldn't you have felt this way the whole time?

[GRWatcher]

With the CBA stuff going on. Can Jimmy work with the QB coach on unofficial terms?? If so. If I was Jimmy I'd be calling Shula up NOW!! Try to get as much work with him as I could.

If he can't work with the coach, there are position camps sponsored by current or former players at that position. Peyton Manning has a QB camp every off season. I believe there's a few others too.

He should be attending one of these camps if for no other reason than to clear his head from last season. Always learning & improving is a good goal to have too.

[Cyberjag]

Why on earth wouldn't any Panther fan wish the best for this kid? He's what we have, he's still loaded with potential, and he's young.

He was favorably compared to Rodgers, and that still stands. Rodgers had no arm as a rookie. Give Clausen a few years to finish maturing physically, and watch the impact of an NFL strength program. He will be able to hit those long throws too then. His mechanics are also poor at times. Well, they were noted as poor when he was on the run, and that was pretty common.

Here's an excerpt from something I wrote after some research on the draft profiles vs. the reality of his rookie year. Rather than rehash it here, I'll copy/paste because I'm feeling lazy this morning. And BTW, I'm no expert of course, I just took the time to write it down.

He seems tentative and impatient, to the point where early in the season he was having problems with the center/QB exchange.

This is true, anyone watching him can see it. But to be fair to him, that could be a rookie thing. He made a lot of comments about the speed of the game, and how he was adjusting to it. In any honest discussion, it's probably fair to chalk that up to rookie jitters. It's not like he was doing it in December, after all.

Rookie Jitters can normally be helped by the steadying presence of a veteran QB on the roster, and in this case someone like Jake McCown would have been useful. But the Panthers wanted to carry three quarterbacks, thought Moore was a legitimate starter, and didn't want to risk Pike to the practice squad.

Later in the season Clausen certainly appeared to be more comfortable under center, but the tentative tag was still appropriate at times after the ball was snapped. There's our second major criticism, right there.

He has poor pocket presence. He holds the ball too long when he's in the pocket, or he escapes the pocket too quickly when there is really no need to do so.

He seemed to make strides in this area as the season progressed, but sometimes he played in a way that brought this criticism right back to the forefront of people's minds. This was particularly evident late in the year against Pittsburgh. And boy, did he check down a lot against Pittsburgh. Granted, their defense does that to a lot of quarterbacks, but we really only care about Jimmy Clausen.

Against most teams that blitz a lot (and that became everyone the Panthers played by mid-season), he showed a real tendency to step out of the pocket rather than step up into it. So much for his ballyhoo'd decision making, huh?

Sometimes he looked like he was holding on to the ball too long, and sometimes he looked like he didn't have enough time to hold on to the ball at all.

So what's the difference? Well, NFL Linebackers tend to hit a lot harder than their collegiate counterparts, and it's possible he got a little spooked. There's your David Carr syndrome right there. Could that be it?

Maybe it's the way most of our passing plays seemed to take four or five seconds to develop. By the way, I say seemed because I'm an untrained observer. But a lot of plays just didn't look quick the way they did out in St. Louis.

That's partly because we didn't run a West Coast offense, by design our plays looked downfield more often than not. And we seemed to have a lot of third and longs this year. That could be due to a poor running game, or a predictable offensive set, or maybe he's just not cut out for the NFL.

Another option could be that poor Jimmy was lost in thought out there, trying to remember exactly how he was told to do specific things, focusing on mechanics when his head should be in the game.

He makes bad decisions with the ball

Jake Delhomme had a terrible game to close the 2008 season. Prior to that, he had played pretty good ball, and led the Panthers to 12 victories. Then, the Panthers lost the playoff game, and they lost Mike McCoy to Denver and brought in Rip Scherer. Scherer proceeded to take the one-time pro-bowl QB and rework his mechanics.

Instead of the supportive, buddy-type coach that McCoy was (you know, the kind who can get you settled down and comfortable when the defense has you rattled?), Scherer decided to implement a more structured approach that had Delhomme throwing according to rules based on specific coverages. No more getting a sense of the defense and going with what he felt would work, Delhomme now had to think about what the defense was doing, interpret the rules of the offense, and pass accordingly.

18 interceptions later, Jake was placed on the injured reserve list in a thinly disguised benching. His game never really has recovered.

And last year, Jimmy Clausen was the beneficiary of the Scherer/Davidson approach to the passing game.

Now, IF you buy into the possibility that coaching can make a tentative player confident, does it also stand to reason that the inverse is true? If Matt Ryan had started for Carolina in 2010, would he have been the cool, confident rookie we all remember, or might he have looked more like Jimmy Clausen did?

Is coaching worth considering when you talk about "a classic drop-back quarterback with above-average accuracy, good mechanics and a very quick release."? That reviewer goes on to talk about how, "despite the offense's struggles, Clausen showed mental and physical toughness and the ability to command the huddle, to keep his team into games well into the fourth quarter." Sound like a tentative player to you?

This goes to show you just how wrong people can be. Or how much influence the wrong kind of coaching can have on a pro prospect. Pick your poison...

He lacks great arm strength so he really struggles to throw the ball on the run.

This is an interesting one, considering how everyone and his brother said that Clausen had a strong arm in college. "Jimmy Clausen isn't Matt Stafford, but then again Peyton Manning doesn't have Stafford's arm either. Clausen has a very strong arm and at times he will just put the ball out on a frozen rope on the 18-yard comeback, out and post. He can fit the ball in tight windows and throws the ball with velocity without sacrificing touch."

That just has to be chalked up to fan misinterpretation, or accuracy issues. I doubt anyone's getting an Elway Cross from his passing, but I don't think Clausen has a particular problem with arm strength. He doesn't have Delhomme's deep ball, or Moore's, but he's still young and needs some time in an NFL strength program.

And any good offensive coordinator would know his limits and wouldn't be calling deep passes if he didn't have an arm anyway, so there's really nothing to see there.

He checks down far too quickly, and throws it away too much.

Yeah, I can see that. So did the scouts. Only they characterized it differently. How does this sound? "Works through his progressions better than just about any quarterback in college football. This is a display of his excellent football intelligence. When Clausen's first two reads are unavailable, he frequently found tight end Kyle Rudolph or checked off to a running back."

Clausen played with two rookies for most of the year. If they were covered or not where he thought, then he did what he did in college--worked through progressions quickly, found the open man, and dumped the ball off. This one has to be a matter of perspective. Give him some more targets to throw to, and those check-downs become solid distribution.

His release point is too low, and he isn't accurate. He throws way too many interceptions.

Clausen does tend to drop his release point when he's running, or when he isn't set well. That's something that needs to be coached out of him. Hopefully, the next staff will have the smarts to do it outside the regular season--let him keep his mind in the game when he's playing the game.

And as far as interceptions, he's not as bad as you might think. Clausen's INT percentage in 2010 was 3.0. For perspective, Tom Brady's was a freakishly low 0.8%. Ok, joking aside, here are a few others to chew on. Aaron Rodger's is 2.3, Drew Brees' is 3.3, and Jay Cutler's is 3.7. Something in the range of 3% is fairly normal for an NFL quarterback.

Clausen's problem wasn't the frequency of interceptions, it's how many of them were run back. There's some more decision making for you, with a helping of rookie receivers...

There's more, but you get the idea. And this doesn't even go in to the improvements he made over the course of the year.

Clausen's evaluation is a classic case of a rookie QB playing for coaches who think he's a ten year vet surrounded with talent. I'm really expecting a far, far different player this coming year. With the requisite howling from the haters when he wins the starting job in Training Camp, of course...

[CatMan72]

...waiting for TRD to show up, LOL

I think coaching has a huge impact, look at DJ Augustin on the Bobcats before and after Larry Brown, Larry Brown had DJ thinking his way through every move and people were calling DJ a bust... Silas shows up and tells DJ to just play, take an open shot when he sees it, and DJ becomes a totally different player overnight.

Let's not forget that Scherer appears to have done a job on Moore as well. At the end of 2009 Moore was playing "free", 2010 comes around and Moore is a totally different guy. I think some of it was jitters, but I also think Scherer got in his head and had him trying to think his way through everything.

I don't remember his exact words, but Jake Delhomme said in an interview that he was basically being over-coached and got to the point of trying to think his way through every move he made.

Clausen may or may not be the answer, but I think he was setup for failure last year.

[Happy Panther]

except the coaching staff did work with him

and the O-Line was fine

[AceMan]

In before Matt Moore, I meant TRD

[Icege]

...waiting for TRD to show up, LOL

Jimmy is going to be a bust because his parents tried to provide him with more opportunities instead of kicking him to the curb and telling him to figure it out. I'm not jealous because im on the verge of being successful. Matt Moore's hair is good to eat. All QBs are busts if theyre not 6'5" 240lbs and performed identically to Manning.

Did I miss anything?

Lol sorry trd but it was just too tempting

[CatMan72]

I also think it's important to note that on top of being a rookie, Clausen did not have the benefit of being prepared to be the starting QB during the preseason.

You'll notice that most teams make a decision very early on whether or not they will start the rookie QB so they can get him as many reps in mini-camp, OTA's, training camp etc.

[jarhead]

Though I am not high on him I am afraid we are stuck with him at least one more year so yea lets hope he exels.

[MadHatter]

...waiting for TRD to show up, LOL

I think coaching has a huge impact, look at DJ Augustin on the Bobcats before and after Larry Brown, Larry Brown had DJ thinking his way through every move and people were calling DJ a bust... Silas shows up and tells DJ to just play, take an open shot when he sees it, and DJ becomes a totally different player overnight.

Let's not forget that Scherer appears to have done a job on Moore as well. At the end of 2009 Moore was playing "free", 2010 comes around and Moore is a totally different guy. I think some of it was jitters, but I also think Scherer got in his head and had him trying to think his way through everything.

I don't remember his exact words, but Jake Delhomme said in an interview that he was basically being over-coached and got to the point of trying to think his way through every move he made.

Clausen may or may not be the answer, but I think he was setup for failure last year.

Excellent points.