Yeah, you're probably right with that. The comparisons between Sanchez and Stafford were endless. It almost seems like they fit the two into pre-set molds to make them easier to digest. Stafford was the guy with more athletic ability and upside while Sanchez was the guy with better mechanics & accuracy that could contribute more right now. Sanchez doesn't have a weak arm, though I don't think I would call it a rifle either. What matters most is that he has beyond sufficient arm strength to play in the NFL.
Pete Carroll is the reason that people discounted Sanchez. he was so desperate (for obvious reasons - both here and there) to have Sanchez back that he threw a major wrench into the works with his self-serving comment that Sanchez was not ready yet. It was a stupid comment on the face of it given Sanchez performance last year and nobody could really wrap their heads around why he said it, although the motive (self interest) was glaringly clear to anybody who wanted to see it. So the scouting departments began taking Sanchez apart to find weaknesses. If you look at the game film long enough you can find something that doesn't please you, and I think the NFL mainly went looking for why he shouldn't be drafted high instead of trying to confirm that he was a special talent. Detroit should have drafted him with the 1 pick, because they really needed a sure thing and Sanchez had a much lower bust potential than Stafford - who is probably not accurate enough to be an NFL star. StL should have drafted him with the 2 pick because Bulger is getting old AND he's injury prone AND he hasn't really been all that good for a few years any way. How they managed to not draft him is just a conundrum - that's where I expected him to go. Seattle should have drafted him on the 4 because Matt Hasselbeck is 34 years old and he really is going to be retired in a few years, oh yeah AND he's injury prone (hurt as we speak.) What an amazing boner they pulled by not getting their QB for the next decade when he was sitting there right in front of them. Finally, Cleveland should have taken him on the 5 instead of trading the pick. They do not have an A-class QB prospect on the roster and so they'll likely go through a very rough stretch over the next few years until they find one. We just got really lucky that the personnel folk on all 4 teams screwed the pooch and we got him instead.
Calm with your talk of pulling boners and franchise QBs! The knock on Sanchez as far as Carroll was concerned was his lack of experience and the "is he ready?" question. I think the issue with his arm is like Harpua put it; his arm isn't as strong as Stafford's so naturally now he has a pea-shooter.
It was a completely self-serving statement on Carroll's part. You don't need two years in a pro offense at the college level to be able to move upwards if your performance is already dominant, as Sanchez was last year. He knew he didn't need another year there. Carroll did also but he had no other options that he wanted to play at QB so he clawed desperately at Sanchez to try to force his return. USC is playing a true freshman at QB this year BTW, the other guy who is getting playing time is a redshirt freshman. Carroll just assumed that having suppressed Sanchez until his junior year (4th year with the program) that he would automatically get him back for year 5 and have time to develop another QB in that season. BTW, this is not hindsight here. Go back and find my posts in February and March. Same things said about both Sanchez and Carroll. We've gotten lucky that Sanchez came out of the gate fully ready to go and I will not deny that, but the prospect of that happening was always there. Certainly the odds were excellent that he would be in fine form by midseason.
I'm not sure I buy that. I just went and did kind of a frame-by-frame and it looks a lot like that ball was overthrown to me. The first angle they showed, it looked like he tripped over his feet, but from this angle he jumped off one foot because he saw the ball and tried to adjust - it's just that the ball is just so high that he doesn't have time to make the correct adjustment. This one was on Sanchez.
That ball is catchable if he jumps effectively. He got turned around and went down. It's possible that he doesn't jump well, like Chrebet had trouble getting 6 inches off the ground, in which case the ball was clearly overthrown because Sanchez should know that. I'm not making the comments about Stuckey and balance and body control in a vacuum. He rarely makes a good play when he's in a situation where either of those things are critical. He's great when the only thing he has to do is catch the ball, but he's really iffy if there's more to it that that.
Look at where he was running. Gauge it by the endzone paint. He actually has to try running backwards because not only is the ball thrown too high, it's also thrown behind him.
meh Those still frames don't catch the part where he goes to setup to jump and his legs hit each other. He basically tripped himself because he didn't have great body control. If he were able to set and jump like he was trying to do, it didn't look like a difficult catch to me. He only needed to get up a half a foot or so. Is there a video clip available?
Agree to disagree, I guess. No wide-open receiver should have to make a jump like that. Fuckin fanboys. :smile:
Maybe so. There's a process here that we're seeing where balls delivered to him perfectly are caught and brought down and balls that are not perfect are not. That's what is bothering me about him at the moment. Maybe it's just the early season sample but he sure looks out to sea on the balls thrown where nobody but him could catch them and those are balls he has to make a play on a lot of the time.
It obviously wasn't a perfect throw - it was off target or Stuckey wouldn't have had to have jumped for it. All I'm saying is I don't think it would have been a real difficult adjustment if he didn't trip over himself.
He's not a complete product, but he is showing me some skills after the catch that are making up for his early mistakes. He's not going to be a complete receiver, and I don't expect him to. But he's also not Brad Smith or Justin McCareins. This is what you get when you go on the cheap for wideouts, unfortunately. He is what he is, and if Schotty is smart, he's going to use him in a short-yardage role kind of like the Pats use Welker.
Sanchez said himself that it wasn't a good throw and he expects himself to make a throw like that. He said he would expect it out of a 7th grader. In all fairness if Stuckey doesn't trip then he catches that ball. I like some of the tools that Stuckey has, he seems to run good clean routes and is a threat running after the catch. If he improves on catching the ball in traffic and some footwork issues he can be a very viable 2nd reciever. Give him some time.
that's really all he is. His ability to fight for extra yardage and find the 1st down marker is very good. But he's not strong #2 guy. He's a slot receiver with quickness and is willing to fight for every yard.
I can't believe people are killing Stuckey in this thread. The guy is stepping up getting open coming back to the ball when Sanchez is rolling out and getting seperation. Sanchez made a crappy throw and Stuckey got tangled trying to adjust on a bad throw. He didn't make a great catch what he did do was get himself wide open in the endzone where a safe throw is a sure TD. Shit happens it's not like he dropped a ball that was in his hands. Stuckey is looking more and more like a very dependable starting NFL WR.
By the way what's missing from the frames you showed is why Stuckey was wide open. He put a hard inside fake on the defender and broke dead out across the field to create the huge space that Sanchez had. It's because he made such a hard cut that he couldn't adjust to the over throw. You can't kill him for creating a wide open area for the QB and the QB throwing it over his head to the one spot he couldn't adjust to out of that move.
