New commanders head coach Dan Quinn has a different perspective on the QB position being a defensive guru.
Asked if it makes him look at the position differently, Quinn said, “It definitely has because that’s the person you’re trying to attack the most.”
“How quickly can they process something? ‘OK, it looks like zone but it’s really man-to-man. It’s two-high [safeties], it’s one high,'” Quinn said. “All the triggers you want to get to, can you do it after the ball gets in his hand?”
“How quickly can a guy make a right decision?” Quinn said. “How quickly can he speed up when a blitz is coming? How quickly can [he] anticipate when those things happen? So, I’ve really been mindful of watching and say not just the throwing motion or the accuracy, but what happens? Can you get out of a bad play?”
Commanders will have their pick of Maye or Daniels
“With the quarterback you really have to watch every single play to say did he get them out of a bad play here in a run game? Did he, you know, move outside? So, it’s not just the throws, you encompass everything,” Quinn said of the Commanders holistic evaluation process.
“Don’t just look at the throws but look at an entire game. And then you’ll really have an assessment about ‘Did you scramble to remain a passer? Did you know sometimes a throw away was the best decision right here?’ It wouldn’t show that on the stat sheet, but that was actually a really good decision. And so those are the things that I’ve been digging in on.”
Commanders GM Adam Peters has his fare share of QB draft day decisions being on the 49ers for the trade up to select Trey Lance, and more successfully taking Brock Purdy with the last pick.
“You learn more and more every time you do it,” Peters said, “and most of them are mistakes. It’s really hard to evaluate quarterbacks, but you just try to get better and try to understand what you did the last time that was really good and what you did last time that was really bad.”
“Different processes, hopefully there’s not a whole lot of bad things that you did, but you always learn. And so it’s constantly evolving and I don’t think anybody has the magic pill to understand that one. If they do let me know, I’ll hire them.”
The Commanders will need to get this decision right having traded away last seasons starter Sam Howell to the Seahawks.
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