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TheBucMan
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Location: Huntsville AL
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Aug 02, 11:43 am
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Post subject: Patient approach is needed with Freeman
TAMPA - When the Bucs took the field for the first training camp workout Saturday, the rookie quarterback Coach Raheem Morris says he's "married" to looked more like a bridesmaid than a bride.
As during most of the offseason workouts, Josh Freeman fell in behind veterans Luke McCown and Byron Leftwich and took mostly second-team - or were those third-team? - snaps.
If all goes as planned, Freeman will spend his entire rookie season doing that. And well he should. For as eager as everyone is to see Freeman under center this year, the Bucs desperately need to exercise patience with him.
To hurry Freeman into the starting lineup now is to take the same risk the Lions took with Joey Harrington in 2002 and the Chargers with Ryan Leaf in 1998.
It's also the same risk the Ravens took with Joe Flacco and the Falcons with Matt Ryan a year ago. But Freeman is not like Flacco or Ryan. Not even close.
To begin with, Ryan and Flacco came into the league after their senior seasons. Freeman left school as a junior and it's safe to say he's nowhere near as polished as Ryan and Flacco were.
Ryan, for example, was coming off a three-year run in which he completed more than 60 percent of his passes and Flacco a two-year run in which he completed more than 60 percent of his passes.
Freeman comes into the league with no such run. He completed 63.3 percent of his passes as a sophomore, but that figure fell to 58.6 percent last year. It may not seem like a big deal, but history suggests it is.
Between 1997 and 2004, 10 quarterbacks were drafted in the first round who did not complete at least 60 percent of their passes during their final year of college ball: Jim Druckenmiller, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, Michael Vick, Patrick Ramsey, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, J.P. Losman, Harrington and Leaf.
Anyone see a pattern there?
With the exception of Vick, each of those quarterbacks played his way out of the franchise role he once held. That doesn't mean Freeman will do the same, but it suggests the Bucs should be patient.
And that is their plan. Though they'll alter it if they absolutely have to, or if Freeman proves to be a far better option than either McCown or Leftwich, the Bucs' plan is to keep Freeman on the sidelines this year.
And so it was Saturday that Freeman took a few more snaps than he did during the offseason workouts, but only a couple with the first-team offense that belonged mostly to McCown and Leftwich.
"What you have to remember," Bucs coach Raheem Morris said, "is that the Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco stories don't happen every year. For the most part, it's been the Philip Rivers story.
"It's been sit behind a quarterback, the franchise makes a decision to keep you and trade the other guy and now all of a sudden that other guy becomes our headache.
"It's been Drew Bledsoe rolls out, gets smashed by Mo Lewis and now all of a sudden Tom Brady emerges and suddenly he becomes everybody's headache.
"I could keep naming those types of quarterbacks, because that's the history of our league. And we're in a situation now where when we drafted Freeman that's exactly what we said we'd do.
"We said, 'We'll get the guy, we'll get him in here and then we'll let it play itself out.' That's the ideal play."
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/aug/02 ... orts-bucs/
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Incognito
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Location: Florida
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Aug 02, 12:02 pm
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Post subject: Re: Patient approach is needed with Freeman
This new HC and FO seems to have the perfect philosophy in this matter. I hope they handle other matters with such careful planning. Yeah this gives me a renewed sense of confidence in our new coaching staff and the path we're on.
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