Doughty love

Improvisation has always been a part of the game.

There's no other explanation for this scenario, Doughty has magic eyes and scientists need to study him for the greater good...

It's just a matter of trust between Doughty and Gase.

 

There were several observations in that 'podcast' that had me questioning their chops.

 

Same here, wasn't sure if it was slip ups though, as they do so many QBs.

 

His voice was exactly the same as the alpha comedian in "The Whitest Kids I Know" sketch comedy troop. Thus, I couldn't make it past a minute. If you've ever seen that show you'll know who I'm talking about.

 

Not to tickle Dolphin25's taint or anything...But I totally fawned all over Doughty during our upcoming Perfectville podcast that we recorded yesterday. Look for it, you'll love it Dolphin25

 

Matt Moore to Philly or St Louis


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Doughty can make Moore expandable is my point


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It would be nice to see us trade away Moore.

 

First off he said that in camp Doughty has been "the best thrower of the football on the entire roster". That's just not true. Either he means it the right way and he's just wrong about it, or he means it in a way that is uncommonly confusing. When scouts and guys like me talk about passers in terms of how good they are as a pure thrower of the football, we're talking about a mix 'n match of four things usually: velocity, ball spin, accuracy and sometimes touch. When people talk about how good of a "thrower of the football" a player is, invariably arm strength or velocity is included in that. The others are kind of optional but arm strength is always in there.

Doughty is clearly very accurate and he is able to throw change-ups, but his velocity is sub-par and his spin is nothing special either. So if this guy is talking about Doughty as the best thrower of the football in camp and he means it as encompassing touch, spin and accuracy but NOT velocity, that would be a weird usage of the term. Bottom line, nobody's going to watch Brandon Doughty practice next to Ryan Tannehill and then say Doughty is the best thrower of the football. More accurate, maybe (most camp observations I've seen have not necessarily said this). More touch, maybe. Better pure thrower? Not a chance.

The second observation he made which set off alarms is when he's trying to explain who Doughty is as a quarterback he says, "throws the ball tremendously well, accurate thrower, he's athletic, he's a functional mover, he looks to throw after he moves out of the pocket, unscripted movement, he has that short game and intermediate game accuracy."

Again, that "throws the ball tremendously well" comment usually implies velocity and Doughty's velocity, whether this ultimately matters or not is moot, his velocity is not good at the NFL level. It's average to below average. But to spend as much time as he did talking about Doughty's athleticism, being a functional mover, looking to throw after he moves out of the pocket, talking about his unscripted movement? That sets off alarm bells too because what in blazes is your scale context if you're talking about these things like they are a strength for Doughty? The guy runs a 5.1 or 5.2 and you can see that lack of speed and athleticism on tape.

Again, it matters not whether the mobility thing is ultimately important or not. I just have to question when you start leading in on an evaluation of a player and you isolate two of his weaknesses as an NFL prospect and you label them strengths. And not like sneaky strengths or secret strengths in some convoluted logical construction, but just straight up oh yeah Doughty on tape man he throws the ball REALLY well and he's also a good movement/improvisation throw on the run guy. What?!?

I will say this though, I see professionals all the time kind of half-@ss an evaluation and make mistakes like that. It doesn't mean this dude is bad at what he does. I think he just said some things that make me question how much he's really studied and thought about Brandon Doughty, or Ryan Tannehill for that matter since he made an explicit comparison of Doughty and Tannehill in "thrower of the football" terms and said Doughty is a better thrower. He's not. And I like Doughty, and have been critical of Tannehill. But we're talking about a specific item here not the full package.

 

Sorry. You're wrong on this. Talking about a player's throwing talent or how good of a thrower of the football he is almost invariably speaks primarily to his velocity and ball spin first and foremost. Accuracy and touch are optional tag-alongs that could be implied by the statement, but not necessarily.

Stop spinning it. He made a bad observation.

He said that Brandon Doughty is "athletic". Simply put, that was incorrect. Again, stop with the spin. Pay attention to the brick wall in front of your nose.

 

I liked what I saw from Doughty. He has one major flaw though and that is his velocity. You try to throw that out pattern with that and it's a pick 6. The ball will never reach the receiver in time. Saw it over and over with Jay Fiedler.

 

Are you guy's arguing over the context of another mans article? Isn't that something that varies on a personal level?

 

Exactly, when he says "better thrower of the football", he may mean that he processes quicker, throws catchable balls, reading open better, and just plain completing more passes.

 

His biggest flaw is his lack of athleticism. After that, velocity.

But no his velocity is not such that if he throws the out pattern it's a pick-6. That's just not an accurate evaluation of his arm strength, IMO.

To me every quarterback has an array of throws. The fallacy is this easy thinking that fans fall into that a quarterback has a certain arm strength and he throws with that arm strength every time. Just not the case.

Let's think about this in terms of letter grades. A "C" throw is an average velocity throw for an NFL starter. It's not a pick-6 throw. I find that Brandon Doughty is capable of stringing consistent "B" caliber throws, but he's also capable of throwing out some "D" caliber throws that are below average and could get picked off.

The following are two throws from Brandon Doughty that are really back-to-back in the same game, and nearly identical throws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjpp1-5cR1s&feature=youtu.be&t=4147
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjpp1-5cR1s&feature=youtu.be&t=4171

One of those throws is clearly a "D" in the NFL. It floated and yes it could very well have been picked off. The other is a solid "B". Same quarterback. Same distance. Virtually the same throw with the only difference being one is to the right and the other to the left. But the major difference were the timing and mechanics which dictated one of the throws didn't have solid torque behind it while the other throw did. That's the difference between a "B" and a "D".

Two more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtoRNy9QmBs&feature=youtu.be&t=24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjpp1-5cR1s&feature=youtu.be&t=4377

The first of those throws is a solid "B" considering the timing and circumstances. Pops off that plant leg coming out of the play fake, doesn't even take an extra hitch step and launches it 58-59 yards through the air (an uncommon distance even in the NFL). Ball doesn't lose energy on the tail end of the throw at all. I had that ball going near what you'd see out of a Matt Stafford on a similar throw, and every bit what Tannehill is capable of.

Second of those throws, not bad at all. That is an NFL caliber throw, solid all the way around. But it's more like a "C". He takes that extra hitch step to really come under it and that's what helps him avoid the ball floating or losing energy and so he really lays it out for the receiver and that's what makes it a solid "C" level NFL throw. It's a bit longer throw than the first one, but also a bit slower pace.

The fact that these quarterbacks throw with inconsistent pace to me is why arm strength can 'improve'...which is to say really the guy just more consistently brings out his "B" game than his "D" game. But sometimes the throws at the lower end of your range are unavoidable because of traffic or circumstances. You hear Tom Brady cited as a guy whose arm strength improved and really I think he's just more consistent with his mechanics, awareness, timing, ball spin, etc.

What I was getting at before is that because of the inherent limitations and the presence of those "D" caliber throws in Doughty's arsenal, nobody is going to watch practice of he and Tannehill side by side and say Doughty has more throwing talent. Doughty's best velocities are Tannehill's average velocities. And, shockingly, not every throw is going to see Doughty with his best spin or velocity.

Where do you place Doughty in the NFL scale? He's easily got better arm strength than Peyton Manning did in the years he was with Gase in Denver. He's got a better arm than Tyrod Taylor. I really doubt anyone could show that Doughty's arm is any worse than Teddy Bridgewater's, Phil Rivers', Andy Dalton's, or Kirk Cousins. If he makes improvements to his consistency then his arm would probably be on par with a Alex Smith, Drew Brees or Andrew Luck.

I don't see any use pretending he's not in that range of players and that's fine. You can play in the NFL like that. They can't all be Joe Flacco, Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Matt Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler, Ryan Tannehill or Ben Roethlisberger.

This Friday I detected that Doughty emphasized throwing with pace a little more than throwing with touch. I think he's trying to prove something. It worked well enough, had a nice outing.

 

If that's what he meant then I question his knowledge and how much he's been around the game because at that point he's just throwing around jargon that he's heard other people say without really knowing what it refers to.

And at this point people are just arguing to argue.

 

Yes you're spinning this. Actively. You don't like anyone saying anything that can be even vaguely interpreted as non-positive about Brandon Doughty.

Just leave it alone. The guy said that Doughty is a "better thrower of the football" than Tannehill and I can guarantee that if you lined up 100 professional scouts to watch the two in practice, you MIGHT get five of them to agree with that statement because they have funky contrarian definitions of what that statement implies.

He also said Doughty is "athletic" and that's just false unless you're comparing him to Refrigerator Perry as a 53 year old man.

The fact you've even got to dissect everything beyond that is evidence that you're so biased you can't hear anything even close to non-positive about Doughty without finding some way to argue it.

 

What is true is that you engage in classic spin maneuvers about anything that comes off as not being 1000% pro-Doughty. For example, you're moving the goal posts. Now if I'm saying that "athletic" is not a term that should be used as a positive descriptor in Doughty's evaluation, I must be saying he can't move in the pocket. Now, if I'm saying that arm strength should not be considered a positive for him, that must only mean he can't throw the ball 80 yards. That's spin. That's you bailing water for your boy instead of looking at things objectively.

 

No offense, but it seems to me that you're the only one arguing, if Doughty's accuracy and touch are way ahead of the others, arm strength and ball spin will not make the other guy a "better thrower of the football", accuracy is, and will always be, the most important trait in throwing the ball.

 

Yes. You're on a message board arguing just to argue, at this point. But that's fine. You have a right to be wrong.

 

Right!...This calls for a unique blend of psychology and extreme violence...

 

Time to start throwing around insults and claiming everyone is a "GAWDDAMN Doughty Doubter"


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I hope your day gets better.

 

Nope. Not true at all. Maximum distance is related to what NFL scouts refer to as arm strength, there's a positive correlation, but they're not one and the same.

I think I've explained myself fairly well on the arm strength issue with Doughty.

If you're evaluating a player and you're communicating that evaluation to someone, you're expressing the guy's traits that are above or below average. If you say a guy is "accurate" but he's a 46% completion guy, yeah when someone challenges you on it you can say hey I've seen some pee-wee football players that can't hit the broad side of a barn literally. And it's like, ooook...noted. Not a very valuable observation then to have communicated that this guy is "accurate" because your scale is ridiculous. Such is the case when you're leading in with an extensive discussion about how "athletic" Brandon Doughty is and how good of a movement guy he is. That's bull sh-t. None of that stuff for him is above average. In fact it's all significantly below average because he's slow as balls and ultimately how good you are as an improvisational/movement/scrambling quarterback IS going to be tied primarily to your speed, agility and explosiveness. Of which he has almost ZERO (relative to pro quarterback prospects). Is he pretty aware? Absolutely. That doesn't make him "athletic" not should you spend 75% of your evaluation describing how good he is in those movement situations as a means of identifying what kind of player he is for the consumer of your evaluation.

And I say no more on this topic. If you want me to respect your opinions on Doughty more then you need to show a little more dimension than just doubting, questioning and couching anything anyone says that comes close to non-positive about Doughty, while simultaneously swallowing whole anything that anyone says positive about him.

 

I see what you did there .......

 

Could you please explain a little grouping Alex Smith, Drew Brees and Andrew Luck in the arm strength category? That's blowing my mind a little. I haven't studied it as much as you and so I'm interested in your reasonings. I know Rivers arm isn't great, isn't bad. A lot of his deep passes back in the day were jump balls to Vincent Jackson. Need to watch more of Dalton and Cousins.

 

Which one of those do you see as not like the others? I'm guessing Luck?

Andrew Luck's arm strength continues to be a challenging case because he actually has a very strong natural inherent arm strength. If you get him on his knees and just have him heave the ball, he can probably wail it out there pretty good. I've seen him slice a ball into the end zone at above 50 mph while his legs were literally off the ground. But the fact of the matter is when you start tracking most of his throws, he doesn't really throw with that B or B+ velocity that often. He always had had and continues (IMO) to have an issue connecting his lower body mechanics into his arm strength to get that pop in the mitt. I think Tannehill actually does it a lot better.

As for Drew Brees, while Drew does have a "live" arm, that's really just kind of a "C" level arm for an NFL starter. What he has going for him is incredibly consistent mechanics and spin, to go along with some pretty good agility and explosiveness (he can actually dunk the ball over the bottom rung of the goal posts at about 6'0"). The reason I bring up the latter is because when he gets into a situation where the arm strength is going to more typically stand out to you on film (out of the pocket, on the run, cross body, etc) his agility and explosiveness play a part in that impressive throwing ability from on the run. But that can be deceptive, as it is in the case of Tyrod Taylor who doesn't have a good arm.

Alex Smith was never the physically impressive thrower even when he came out. That eval belonged to Aaron Rodgers. I've always thought of Smith as being kind of average in that department.

Some of this is in the eye of the beholder. What I'm saying is that basically when you get south of the kinds of guys I mentioned (e.g. Flacco, Kaepernick, Newton, Rodgers, Stafford, Cutler, Tannehill, Big Ben), what's the point in differentiating it much more unless you've got a guy on your hands like Peyton during some of his most productive years when you'd say holy ball sack this guy really is depending purely on accuracy, ball spin, touch, timing and shot selection because there are certain normal things you'd expect any NFL starting QB to do that he just can't do. And even then, obviously it didn't stop Peyton breaking records and stuff.

 

I knew Brees didn't have the world's strongest arm but he gets every ounce out of it. Smith has an underrated arm. People think because he's at the bottom each year in average depth of throw, he has a noodle arm, but he throws a decent deep pass (KC receivers just suck)

But yeah, Luck I thought had more of a monster arm.

I always thought Peyton's passes were ugly by the way (is that what you mean by ballspin?). He often threw wounded ducks it seemed

 

Peyton especially post-spine/neck/shoulder stuff, just different arm strength than he used to have.

Again if you have a "C" level arm you're going to be noted for having a "live arm" or some such because that's par for the NFL. But none of those three have functionally impressive arms relative to the rest of the crowd among NFL starters. And I'd say that if Doughty's arm is any less than those guys, and he probably is, but it's by a hair.

 

Yes, even pre-neck injury I never admired his throws. His passes tended to wobble at the end of the throw. Of course this is anecdotal and I haven't looked at all 10,000 passes. Just through the years, felt like his passes wobbled even if they were on point.

Remember it was Leaf that had all the arm strength

Some reports from before his draft.

As great as he was, he has a high INT rate for one of the GOATS. Wonder if the wobble had anything to do with that ...

Doughty's arm strength if it's in the Brees/Luck realm is more than plenty.

EDIT: Just watched the last two youtube videos you posted on the previous page. That long TD pass ... yeah I'm not concerned about his arm strength at all. The thing is, if you have a little less arm strength than the next guy, but can recognize something a hair faster, your throws will be just fine when you get the timing down. You can't always be Big Ben and notice Mike Wallace or Antonio Brown late in their routes and still launch it ... but he has more than enough strength IMO.

Here is another long TD pass

https://www.clippituser.tv/c/eqybd

 

Peyton, in his prime, had tremendous arm strength.

 

I disagree with that.

 

jdang is right. The reason why Leaf was in the same conversation with Manning was mostly due to Leaf's tremendous arm strength and Manning's O.K. arm strength.