Unfavorable comparison for Bradford
Not the kind of buzz Bradford would like to inspire at this point.
Last season, Sam Bradford played behind a dominant offensive line, racking up 50 touchdown passes and helping the Oklahoma offense score 716 points.
Bradford’s lack of contact, though good for Oklahoma’s laundry bills, brought a flood of questions about how Bradford would perform behind an average offensive line. It wasn’t his No. 1 reason for coming back, but Bradford won’t get his chance to definitively answer that question.
Now, he’s drawn an ominous comparison from at least one NFL scout.
From the New York Times:
The former N.F.L. scout Dave Razzano projects Bradford as an upper-end first-round pick, but he said he needed to watch more game tape of Bradford.
“I need to see him in games where he was pressured,” said Razzano, who scouted in the N.F.L. for 21 years and most recently worked for the Arizona Cardinals.
Razzano said Bradford reminded him of Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart, who played at Southern California, in that neither faced much defensive pressure in college. When Bradford played against Texas earlier this month, Razzano said he was bothered that Bradford locked in on receivers and threw errant passes when pressured.
He said that many quarterbacks who struggled in transition to the N.F.L. rarely faced defensive pressure in college.
“Everybody can sit back and make throws with time,” Razzano said. “Now, the question is, can he without time?”
While it’s doubtful Bradford flies up the Google Trends chart with a barrage of party photos featuring him bonging beers and getting friendly in a hot tub with bikini-clad co-eds, the on-field comparison is probably fair.
That said, Bradford is still a long way from being a key player in one of the great all-time postgame rants.
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That is indeed a fair question, and quite an interesting note by Razzano about quarterbacks who struggle to make the transition rarely faced much pressure in college.
I would add that those same quarterbacks also had more of an option to run in college than they will be given in the NFL. The NFL has shown that 98% of the time you need a top 10 QB to reach deep into the playoffs. You just can’t afford your QB to get hurt. They’ve recently adopted the “Wildcat” offense in the NFL because you have such a huge advantage with a quarterback that can run – but of course they’re using a running back that can throw instead of a quarterback that can run.
There’s a long history of OU quarterbacks struggling in the NFL – I’d love to see Bradford break that mold and do something big – but it’s going to be a wait and see kinda thing – nobody will know what he can do until he’s out there on Sundays.