Week 12 NFL thread

Next season will be Kaepernick's fourth season, but point taken...

My biggest concern with both of these guys is that they both have seemed to turn into whiny bitches after last season.

With RG3, I'm a little sympathetic since he has to deal with Shanahan and it would be easy to understand how that could take its toll on any young QB, and RG3's reputation was that of a class act up until recently.

Kaepernick just seems like a petulant child who is spending his time reading his Twitter messages when he should be doing game prep.

 

Yeah, Wilson has gotten better and he didn't have his best receiver for the first half of the season either. Granted, it was a player he hadn't played with before, so it wasn't like he was used to relying on him, but still...

 

Third season of playing.

 

What more would you like to see from Wilson?

 

He has played most of the year without their best olinemen and a times with 3 startes on the offensive line out.

 

As noted, I haven't watched much of Wilson. Haven't even looked at his numbers this season. Just seemed like I've seen him lumped in with the others in other discussions of whether this group of young QBs is unable to hack it in the NFL. If not, just ignore the mention of his name in my post.

 

Wilson's numbers (both rushing and passing) are virtually identical to last year (or at least are on pace to be) and his team is 10-1. No regression there.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/14881/russell-wilson

 

Again, I wasn't trying to pick on Wilson. My mistake if I thought I saw others include him in this topic of discussion. Best to exclude him from my post and any further discussion.

My point being, isn't it entirely normal for these second-year quarterbacks (let's limit this to RGIII and Kaepernick) to experience a sophomore slump and a bit unfair to begin labeling them as busts when they haven't even completed their second seasons as starters?

I'm curious if the numbers, historically, back up the idea of the sophomore slump.

 

I would kill for Kaepernick to "regress" the way Wilson has.

 

I don't know that anyone outside of a few nitwits are labeling either of them busts.

I do know this: Griffin is not the same player he was, and not all of it has to do with his knees. He's missing reads on wide-open receivers, he's overthrowing a lot of passes, he's forcing a lot of passes, and seems to have completely lost his touch.

His passing stats are only comparable to last year because he racks up a lot of garbage-time yardage.

 

They're not busts, but there is definitely reason to be concerned.

 

Grifffin had next to no preseason due to rehab. It's not too surprising he's out of synch. I won't say he gets a pass for 2013, but it's no reason to write him off.
BTW, Cam Newton did not "regress" last year. His stats were similar to those of 2011. He just didn't improve at the rate expected by many observers. In the modern world of hysterical conclusion-jumping, standing still equals going backwards, or even outright failure.