Originally Posted by
Fletch
It's very interesting that you say this trapezeus. You've been one of my bigger critics on this topic. I've posted an article by two guys that followed him at FSU and have to date nailed Manuel to a T.
What's interesting about your statement above is that this isn't really coaching him [Manuel] per se, what it is is tailoring the offense, not around his strengths, but away from his weaknesses. It's sounding more and more like Manuel's upside, if we ever get that far, is akin to how Neil O'Donnell played for the Steelers, or Trent Dilfer tops. This is the same exact thing that those writers said happened at FSU. They said that the coaching staff finally gave up and just restructured the offense around him. Whether that is "building around his strengths" or "building to avoid highlighting his weaknesses" is just semantics after that.
The point is that they finally realized that he's not very coachable. As the writers put it, when the coaches thought that they had corrected one thing, they'd move on to another to correct, but while they were correcting that, the prior issue would pop up again. The likened it to a game of whack-a-mole where the moles are the problems.
It was a perfect analogy.
Anyway, it sounds and looks to me like this is exactly where our staff is with him at this point. He can't read Ds all that well, he's inaccurate, something that's difficult to coach in, but which is one of his biggest issues. I imagine that he's already one even remotely significant injury away from the coaching staff throwing their hands into the air out of frustration I have to imagine. Not that there weren't any signs of the potential for that or anything.
Those aren't easily coachable things, those are the things that make the top QB prospects the top QB prospects. You won't find QB prospects projected for the 1st 20 picks that have been proven to have inaccuracy and defense reading issues. Just doesn't happen. But Whaley knew better. Everyone preannointed him the next new hottest GM commodity in the NFL. He's walking a very precarious fine line that's going to have disappeared, one way or the other, but the end of October. He's either going to look like genius, or he's going to look worse than Levy and Nix. Which would you put your money on right now?
And let's keep in mind, Manuel's been working on this all offseason it's been reported, and at the OTAs. He's playing against players that aren't even NFL caliber right now. Even our starting LBs aren't good against the pass and our secondary after Gilmore is full of similar players. McKelvin has sucked for years as a CB, Williams and he benefitted by our pass-rush heavy D last season despite the fact that they helped allow the the third most passing TDs in team history.
How is this going to improve in preseason much less in the regular season. He's got 7 more practices then a game against the Giants, then two more practices and a game @ Carolina. It only gets tougher after that as players that don't belong in the NFL continue to get cut and the games take on more meaning. Do you really have hopes that the list of things that the staff has been working on trying to correct with Manuel are going to iron themselves out in the next week and a half?