The 2009 QB Class still looks promising.

Today is the final installment of our QB Forum. For the past two days (starting Friday) we’ve been analyzing the quarterback class of 2009 and comparing the three young guns selected in the first round of that year’s draft. Zac Snyder of SideLion Report and Marc Greenberg of The Jet Press (both FanSided blogs) and I look to the future in the final segment of our forum. We look at who has the brightest NFL future based on their first two seasons as well as who has been the best value up to this point. It probably gets trite listening to me talk about how good Josh Freeman is, so it’s not listening to a couple of non-aligned bloggers admit as much.

Who has the brightest future?

Zac Synder (Lions)

This is a really hard question to answer considering there are so many unanswered questions with Matthew Stafford. Those that haven’t watched him much might be quick to dismiss him in this case but he was drafted number one overall for a reason. We’ve seen flashes of it in Detroit but there is certainly no guarantee that he will stay healthy enough for his start to shine to its potential. Josh Freeman is my safe pick and Matthew Stafford is my pick on the condition that his injury problems are a thing of the past.

(more…)

Chances are neither of these guys would be good on the Bucs.

We started our quarterback forum yesterday afternoon when we posted part one of our round-table on the QB Class of 2009. Bloggers Zac Snyder from SideLion Report and Marc Greenberg of The Jet Press discussed how all three quarterbacks would fare in the other teams’ offenses with me in part two of our series. You can check out part three tomorrow when we get into projections for the future.

How would your guy fare on the other two teams?

Zac Snyder (Lions)

Unfortunately, I can’t say that Stafford would fare any differently on the Bucs or Jets. His injuries haven’t necessarily been due to poor play along the offensive line so there is no reason to expect he wouldn’t have suffered them in a different environment.

(more…)

Josh Freeman was the third QB selected in the 2009 NFL Draft.

I had the amazing opportunity to sit down with fellow FanSided bloggers Zac Snyder and Marc Greenberg of the SideLion Report and the Jet Press respectively. The topic was the 2009 QB class, now two years into their young NFL careers. With the first pick in the ’09 draft the Lions selected Matthew Stafford out of Georgia, the Jets took Mark Sanchez out of  USC with the fifth selection and the Buccaneers traded up to grab Josh Freeman out of Kansas State at 17. All three have now started, experiencing ups and downs and plenty of growing pains along the way. We all sat down to discuss three signal-callers and how each of them have progressed since entering the league together in ’09.

We divided the forum up into three parts, we’ll be putting up a new part all through the weekend, starting today.

Evaluate your team’s own QB objectively, what has he done well so far and what is the biggest concern moving forward.

Zac Snyder (Lions)

The biggest concern with Matthew Stafford is obviously his health. Above all, a quarterback must be dependable and it is hard to argue a player is dependable when they have a hard time staying on the field. Through his first two years in the league, Stafford has played in just 13 games and has suffered three fairly significant injuries. Doctors and team officials are optimistic that this will not be a lingering problem but a lot of fans are now in “show me” mode. It is amazing that even with all the injuries it is pretty easy to see that Stafford is developing as a quarterback rather than being stunted by the adversity. The Lions won the only game that Stafford played in start to finish and lead the Bears and Jets prior to his departure in the other two games he started. Interceptions were a big problem in year one but he threw just one (compared to six touchdowns) in 2010.

(more…)