I am going to say this.. Tommy has been the least of our worries this year on offense... The whole offense has been "off", timing off.. first few games we missed a bunch of throws long... had some key drops as well.. OL has been a train wreck... and spacing on some plays has been terrible... some of the screens especially. With all that said, There are a few things Tommy needs to work on:
1) He has a tendency with any throws over the middle.. to hold the ball just a touch too long.. its as if he does not trust where the WR is breaking/going or he wants extra time to make sure he doesn't get a pic.. keep in mind i am not blaming him for most of the sacks ( much of them have the pocket collapsing so fast nobody could read where to throw it). I want him working on throwing on the break not waiting for eye contact from the WR.. He has to practice this with the guys.. treat every warm up/practice/pregame doing this with the guys. The videos i have seen from practice drills.. this is not happening.
2) On plays where he gets out of the pocket he typically only looks down the sideline for long throws. I want him looking back over the middle to find whomever has a middle depth rout. Many times he looks long sideline and he cant pull the trigger.. thats ok but i want him surveying underneath alot more. There have been plays missed underneath. And please he has to throw the ball away and not take a 3-5 yard loss stepping out of bounds because nothing is there.. I know he is smart.. this is an indicator that the game is still moving a little fast for him.
3) His footwork is impeccable in the pocket but i do want him stepping up more and even moving slightly left or right to see the passing lanes better and develop his pocket presence. I have seen what appears to be either a trust issue or him not seeing short/intermediate/quicker patterns because there is not much of a passing lane there. Yes I realize that with our OL issues he cant slide "up and to the left/right" a ton right now.. I am aware he has prob been coached the "shuffle drill" his whole life.. We used to do it but with simulated (real speed) OL blocking ( not seen many do this) to get a better real time feel for it (pocket presence/feel) for our QB.. it helped considerably (way better having simulated rush real OL in front of him for foreground while maintaining posture/hand/ball position, vision down field and footwork. We could call out which OL would back into the pocket farthest to simulate pressure and see QB reaction with presence and footwork) What i don't want is him getting bad habbits.. because there are times he can step up but doesn't.. his mental clock right now is a little off because of the pressure the last 2 years. He has to find a way to reset this regardless of the play before. Very tough.. but I think he has it in him
4) I want him to talk with Gilbert/Babers to give him the ability when going fast to call a 3Yd quick pass to the slot.. There are times.. maybe 5-6 a game when the D is giving us coverage playing off the slot (or really any WR) about 10 yards.. I want TD to have the ability to see that and have the Slot (or any WR on the field) take 2 steps forward and turn around.. a quick throw that allows us to get 5 yards ( i didn't say a slant rout.. that requires a passing lane that may not be there) and notice i said I want TD to have that.. We line-up TD takes a quick look at the D before looking to the sideline.. if its there he starts the play... not wait for the sideline to tell him to do it.. I want him to have the ability to call that when the opportunity is there in realtime when going fast... this also opens up other things in the normal offense. Not to mention gives him some plays that do not allow the rush to get home..
5) He has got better with this from week 1 but I need him looking off the safety more.. it also moves the LB's and helps creates holes for short/intermediate routes to open up. 2 steps to the left or right by a LB reading his eyes will open some of our underneath TE routes and even some slot crossing/slant routes. This also helps with #1 above.. staring down guys on short/ intermediate routes gives the LB's time to make those windows much smaller
Alot of these issues might be cleaned up if we would have had a normal spring/preseason... But i have seen these same issues last year as well.. TD appears to be hard worker.. The work above is the hardest work for him to master.. He has footwork, arm talent... We need the game to slow down slightly for him.. work on these extremely tough areas for growth... HIs growth is going to make the difference for us next year from a 3-4 Win team to a 7-8 win team.. He is a good kid.. I want him to lead us back to an offense that looks competent, functional and dangerous. I think he can. Now lets get him healthy/work on this stuff for next year and kick some tail...
