That was certainly a pleasant surprise, hope JHH continues to challenge him so he continues to play better
Good post. I don't want to disparage King because of the insane difference he is for us in comparison to what we've had. I think he would note himself how he's held the ball too long on a handful of occasions. A few of those sacks belong to him.
If I'm King or Lashlee, I practice running and throwing crossers every day for the remainder of the season. I don't know what's going on, but we leave them out of our calls too often and, when we do run/throw them, King sails them.
Excellent observations, Lu. Spot on.
The reason we are missing those is exactly because we are leaving them out of the calls, which likely means we don’t practice them enough.
This observation is a big element in our lack of offensive consistency.
WE KNEW COMING IN that though an electric play maker, King has a tendency to be streaky and erratic as a pocket passer. The more you give him to read, he has to fight his running instincts to try to “be a pocket passer”. You see this from most all the ultra athletic running quarterbacks and it leads to indecisiveness and taking unnecessary sacks.
You help these guys by shrinking the field on their reads and speeding up their clock. One- one thousand, two- one thousand, THREE! Give him in breaking and seam routes over the middle on the same side to look for as he drops. If he doesn’t LOVE what he sees, he immediately checks down to a back on the same side the receivers just cleared or runs.
3 seconds or less. No thinking, no waiting. If he runs, no hero ball. Take the easy yardage , get down or out of bounds and stay healthy.
King was NEVER going to run this offense like the guy Lashlee had at SMU. There is a reason ultra athletic guys struggle with poise and pocket vision. IT IS INSTINCTS. Don’t make your guy fight his god-given talent. Create a structure that allows his talent to thrive. Alter the system to him, not the other way around.
He gets indecisive past his first read because his instincts tell him to run and he fights them. Add in an inconsistent line and receivers and he gets downright jittery and understandably so.
Cut down those reads and put receivers in his vision quickly without having to scan the entire field. We wI’ll be happy with what he does.