Mothman wrote:
Yes, it did but as you know, all of that stuff is pretty typical of young, developing quarterbacks.
There's so much to consider when evaluating these guys that it's easy to see why it's such an inexact science. I still wonder if Ponder scrambles early at times and fails to see all of his options because his protection was so poor in his first season that his internal clock never re-set. It's so easy to develop bad habits and can be so hard to break them. When he gets comfortable, I still think he looks like a good quarterback but he doesn't react to pressure well and that, of course, is why teams pressure quarterbacks, especially young quarterbacks. When rushed, most of them don't tend to make the same decisions a Brees or Peyton Manning would make. They quickly fall back on athleticism, their mechanics break down, etc.
It certainly sounds like the Bucs offensive scheme wasn't doing Freeman any favors.
One of the things I found interesting about it had nothing to do with Freeman. It was the way the first play Prisco presents in still shots illustrated just how deceptive those shots can be. If most of us here had looked at that first shot without knowing what eventually happened, I doubt many would predict an INT by Jenkins as the result of the play.
For sure, as it stands now I'm much more leaning on the problems coming from the Bucs rather than freeman. From what I've seen / heard from the bucs beat writers, their fans, the discussions on reddit and what not, most of them call the bucs situation a disaster right now, as bad as childress. They all want Schiano gone, some more stuff I didn't know is during a victory formation kneel down when the game was over he ordered his defense to "attack" the formation. This sparked a bunch of back and forth from Tom Coughlin (they were playing the giants) and I guess it's considered unsportsman like to do that when the games basically over.
The leaking of the drug test / drug program information is another major offense that's childress like. Same thing with removing him as the team captain (the players claim they voted for him yet when the coach comes in and says "nope you lost!" seems kind of fishy!)
Then you have the Mike Williams quote talking about the Glennon switch and saying they've already had a lot of reps with him and this was the day Josh was benched. Most teams don't give their #2 reps with the one's mid-season, in fact I'd say no one does that.
Then you have this article which shows you a good glimpse into the offense there. It's basically a "#### it go deep" offense that's poorly designed. Guys running to the same spots, nothing really inventive or interesting there. While Vincent Jackson is pretty good he's always been really inconstant. He's the type of WR who gets you 30 fantasy points one week and 2 the next so I'm not surprised to hear he's had some big drops and mistakes.
I believe the bucs will do no better than 2-14 and have a real shot at 0-16. Glennon isn't going to fix that team because I don't think Freeman was the problem. Schiano will be fired at the end of the season if not earlier, that much is basically guaranteed.
My take on this now has changed as well. I think Ponder's lost the starting job 100%. Cassel will play until they think Josh is up to speed and then it's his job to lose at that point. Now when they say all that crap about ponder having a future on the team I actually believe they mean it. But it's not as the starter, he'll drop down to back up status / 3rd string and they'll let him "develop" more on the bench. In that sense I hate to say it but I don't think the ponder experiment is over unless Freeman is the guy. Should Freeman fail, Ponder will start 2014 with maybe another rookie draft pick on the depth chart.
