Written by, Jake Hatch
It's not often that a 4th round quarterback is expected to take over an offense as the starter in the NFL. This is the exact situation that Jarret Stidham is faced with, except his task is even taller. Barring an unexpected turn of events, Stidham will be given the keys to the offense of a team that just enjoyed a 20 year run as the greatest dynasty in the history of football. If that isn't already enough pressure, he also has to follow in the footsteps of the greatest quarterback of all-time while equipped with a roster that has very few big-name players. It certainly is the "Patriots Way" for Bill Belichick to completely ignore the draft position of a player when showing his trust in a player, but asking a fourth-round quarterback to follow in the footsteps of Tom Brady feels like a stretch even for Belichick.
I actually was a huge fan of Stidham as a value pick in the draft last year, and was ecstatic when the Patriots selected him in the fourth round; before the draft I had given him a third-round draft grade. Most mid-round quarterbacks project as run-of-the-mill backups that might make a few spot-starts before completely disappearing from the league. Jarrett Stidham did not fit this description whatsoever. For a quarterback that was not likely to go before the 3rd round, I felt he showed that he had a legitimate shot to be a high-quality starter in the NFL. However, while there were plenty of traits that stood out as high-end attributes, his tape also revealed some extremely concerning tendencies that could cause him to crash-and-burn in the NFL.
Stidham isn't the classic 50-50 prospect. Sure he is boom or bust, but I don't see his chances at success as a coin flip. Stidham is a highly conditional prospect: I believe that in an ideal environment he will flourish, and in a difficult situation he will flounder. He has to be in the right offense with specific types of receivers, a good offensive line, and a coach that can play to his strengths while also hammering on his many weaknesses. As a result, when the Pats drafted him, beyond the fact that he would be playing for my team, I was excited for his development as a prospect. Stidham would get the chance to work with Bill Belichick and learn the ropes under Tom Brady for a few years before having a legitimate chance to compete for the starting job. This plan was carried out exactly as expected through Stidham's first season in the NFL, but everything was thrown up in the air after Brady's departure. Suddenly, Stidham was cast into the lead role after he had just begun his time as the understudy. While I'm sure he learned as much as a quarterback can from Brady in his first season, he had far less time than expected to get accustomed to being a starting NFL quarterback.
Before I get into the specifics of how he fits into this Patriots offense, I want to outline his strengths and weaknesses and go back to his college days to give a complete scouting report on him. We'll begin with his biggest strength. With a clean pocket, Jarrett Stidham has some of the best mechanics you can find out of a college quarterback. It sounds like a bit of an overreaction for a fourth-rounder, but they truly are elite-level mechanics. With a clean pocket, he has very little wasted movement, fully loads from his back leg, immediately sliding his front foot fully open. His release is compact as he already begins to fire his hips forward right before he brings his arm right up around his head. He stays tall as his hip shoulder separation creates a slingshot where his arm accelerates quickly, spinning the ball perfectly with good accuracy and above-average arm strength. Though he was not consistently asked to make full-field reads in college, he nonetheless did a great job of protecting the ball, never threw more than 6 interceptions in a season. Additionally, when Stidham found creases in the line or rolled out, he was an above-average runner in college and was decent enough at throwing the ball on the run. When things went according to plan in college, Stidham was a fun quarterback to watch.
Despite all of the good qualities that he displayed in college, there were plenty of glaring weaknesses in his game that were a cause of concern for his projectability. The most glaring concern of Stidham's college tape was his pocket presence when under pressure. Anytime the pocket began to collapse, or even any time Stidham sensed blitzes in his face, he would step away from his target and either throw inaccurate floaters off his back foot when facing a bull-rush or spiking the ball into the ground throwing off of his front foot when an edge rusher closed in. This simply cannot happen at an NFL level. While Stidham did a good job of avoiding sacks considering how poor his line play was in college, every time he sensed pressure he looked to be in full-blown panic mode. In fact, he's one of the most panicky NFL quarterback prospects I've ever watched on tape. These poor mechanical moments when under pressure will not work in the NFL and the floaters that he releases with pressure in his face will either result in incompletions or interceptions in the NFL. I don't even think he really forces the ball into coverage when he's under pressure, the ball just travels so slowly when he throws off of his back foot that I just cannot imagine he will have success with any of these throws. He has a pretty strong arm, but anyone not named Patrick Mahomes should not be throwing off their back foot consistently. Furthermore, Stidham showed time and time again that he was unable to kickstart comebacks in his Auburn days, and did not show a ton of fight with the game on the line. I will stop short of saying that he looked like he would give up—because that would be a disservice to him—but his general mental toughness in college certainly had some question marks. Not exactly what Patriots fans want to hear about their quarterback of the future.
One of the common points that I would like to refute was that his 2017 sophomore tape was better than his 2018. For me, the tape from 2017 led me to the exact same conclusions as the 2018 tape did. Sure Auburn was a better team in 2017 as they had a better record and managed to beat Alabama, but I felt that was the main difference between the two campaigns: the team was better in 2017. The reason Stidham was much more highly regarded as a potential first-round pick in 2017 was simply that he was younger, which made his mistakes more tolerable to scouts. I think the issue in 2018 was that he genuinely did not improve on any of his holes. A portion of this can be chalked up to the players and coaches surrounding him. In 2018 his blocking got significantly worse and he was under constant duress. His receivers dropped more balls than the previous year and the only receiver that got consistently open was current Giants receiver, Darius Slayton. After Head Coach Gus Malzahn received a massive contract extension in 2017, the Auburn team began to crumble and the team began collapsing in second halves of games. The offense featured way too many ineffective screen passes—many of which still somehow ended with drops—and placed unnecessary training wheels on Stidham's ability to read the whole field. Stidham didn't do himself any favors in 2018, but neither did the rest of his team.
I watched Stidham play periodically throughout the preseason last year, but recently I went back and watched every snap of his preseason tape. In the preseason, Stidham finally showed improvement for the first time in nearly two years, and not only did he improve: he improved pretty significantly. While he certainly was not perfect, he looked surprisingly well prepared for the NFL out of the gate and looked much more like a high-end second-round pick than a fourth-round pick. Honestly, I even think he looked better than fellow first-round quarterback Dwayne Haskins did throughout most of this past season.
During the preseason, I was most impressed by Stidham's ability to quickly read defenses, and scan the whole entire field. Throughout college Stidham rarely forced balls into low-percentage coverages, but he was simply not asked to make full-field reads in college. As a result, I was very relieved to see that his limited field-reading was more of a result of his college offensive scheme than his football intelligence: which was mostly what I suspected. Not only did he improve his field-reading, but he improved on his execution as well. I always felt that in college he was good at finding the holes in zone coverage, and throwing to receivers that were open in the creases, but I felt that his anticipation when trying to "throw someone open" was lacking: specifically against man coverage. I also felt that he was inconsistent when trying to loft the ball with touch, which much more important in the NFL where the press coverage is tighter, and the defensive backs are more disciplined in zone coverage. Stidham improved both of these in the preseason: he consistently fired the ball right into the hands of his receivers on slant routes to lead them out of their breaks efficiently. While I felt that he lacked consistency when throwing slants in college, whether it was Dontrelle Inman, Josh Gordon or his favorite target, Jakobi Meyers, he completed nearly every slant throw that I watched. Furthermore, he threw his fade routes with fantastic touch, finding ways to either loft the ball out of reach of the defender to the back shoulder of the receiver—such as on the first Demaryius Thomas touchdown against the Giants or the Damoun Patterson touchdown against the Titans or to lead the receiver down the field.
Stidham also found ways to build on one of his most underrated strengths: his feet. Stidham often avoided sacks when the pocket collapsed and sensed creases in the line allowing him to gain significant positive yards when scrambling. Stidham is surprisingly fast and shifty and did a good job avoiding contact during the preseason. He also showed very good instincts when rolling out of the pocket, either finding lanes to run, throwing the ball away, or throwing the ball on the run. In college he avoided forcing the ball into coverage when rolling out—a problem many young quarterbacks have—but in the preseason he actually seemed to keep his eyes down the field more often, and showed the ability to throw the ball more accurately on the run than he did in college. This allowed him to be much more improvisational when evading the pocket and allowed receivers to modify their routes to gain separation. One example of this was in the Giants game when Stidham rolled to the left during a play, and Demaryius Thomas cut his route back towards the left pylon for a wide-open 5-yard touchdown. This type of play would not be possible without Stidham rolling out, and will be a key aspect of Stidham's game for the Patriots receiving core as it will allow the receivers more time to gain separation: something they were simply unable to do last year.
There were clearly many positives to Stidham's preseason play, but he still showed many of the flaws that I was worried about during his college days. In the final preseason game against the Giants, he only threw his only interception during the preseason, and it was unsurprisingly a result of poor-pocket awareness. Stidham had an opportunity to roll out to the right to avoid an edge-rusher coming toward his blind-side, but instead, he stayed in the pocket and was hit as he threw. The ball popped in the air and landed in a defensive back's hands for one of the easiest interceptions safety Sean Chandler will ever make in his career. While this was his only interception of the preseason, I felt that he should have thrown 2-3 more in the game versus the Titans: a game ironically was his best game on the stat-sheet with a 123.4 passer rating. The first throw was a 2-yard out-route on the goal-line where Stidham didn't complete his weight shift towards his target and the cornerback dropped what should have been a pick-six after hopping the route. The second throw happened on a hitch route by Nick Brossette where Stidham threw the ball late off of his back foot and the defensive back completely missed the ball after hopping the route for what should have been Stidham's second pick-six. The third throw was a result of an offensive line collapse where they allowed three linemen to get in Stidham's face on a four-man rush. Not having time to evade the pocket, Stidham should've just ended the broken play by taking a sack on third and 13. Instead, he floated a ball off his back foot towards the sideline that the defensive back intercepted with a dive barely out of bounds. All of these throws resulted from poor mechanics, and Stidham still has a lot of work to do when he's working with a compromised pocket. This was exactly what happened in Stidham's pick-six that he threw in the regular season to Jamal Adams. Stidham's offensive line was losing ground on the Jets defensive line as the play developed, and Stidham floated a ball off his back foot right into Jamal Adams's hands for a touchdown.
While I am still very concerned about Stidham's flat out inability to deal with a collapsing pocket, I felt that during the preseason he panicked a bit less often than he did at Auburn. I was very impressed by his improved awareness when rolling out to avoid pressure, and I honestly believe that until Stidham learns how to deal with a pass rush, he should try to roll out whenever the pocket breaks down. Instead of throwing drifters off of his back foot, I'd rather see him roll out, and either extend the play for his receivers, tuck it and run, or simply throw the ball away. Stidham's feet will be one of his biggest assets as a developing quarterback because his ability to extend plays will allow him to avoid sacks and take some pressure off of his receivers which in turn will make it easier to find open receivers. While Stidham protected the ball well in college, if he does not evade the pocket when he senses pressure, he will throw a lot of interceptions and will take a lot of unnecessary sacks in the NFL.
Josh McDaniels will have his work cut out for him when scheming an offense for Stidham. Generally, with a young QB, the goal is to create plays where the quarterback gets the ball out of their hand as quick as possible, but I think this will be a challenge given the Patriots struggles at the receiver. Stidham did show good chemistry with Jakobi Meyers specifically on quick slants, and Edelman can beat still beat one-on-one coverage even at this age with quick routes, so this will certainly be a part of the scheme, but it cannot be the whole strategy.
I think one of the most important things for the Patriots offense will be the ability to scheme play-action passes: something they have fared very well with in the past. Stidham looked very comfortable under center in the preseason, and with the max protection packages that play-action allows with blocking running backs or fullbacks (with James Develin coming back this year) will be a huge asset for Stidham. This way he will either have more time to scan the field, or will have a designed rollout: both of which will minimize the pressure in his face. There will definitely plenty of running back slip screens, and some check-downs to James White as well, but Stidham will have to throw more than just screens and check-downs to have any sort of success with his limited supporting cast.
The current trend in the NFL with scheming young quarterbacks has been implementing four or five receiver sets out of the shotgun similar to the spread offenses of many college teams, but I don't think this should be the case with Stidham at all. I would rather see him in packages that maximize the volume of blockers over the volume of receivers, and while I think he is certainly developing in this area, I still don't trust his ability to pick up blitzing linebackers consistently enough to create an offense around getting the ball out quickly with every play. Furthermore, I don't even trust his receivers to get open quickly on every play. Stidham will certainly still have to regularly release the ball quickly, however, I don't think the answer for him is running exclusively quick, one-read plays because it was certainly not the answer for him in college. I honestly think he would be best off running a variation of the current Patriots offense rather than the offense the Patriots schemed for Jimmy G. For this Stidham run offense, the training wheels and modifications for him would be prioritizing blocking and adding designed runs and roll-outs. The Patriots have to find ways to get him a clean pocket because he will consistently make great throws with a clean pocket, and when he does not have a clean pocket, the coaching staff needs to make sure that he evades the pocket and rolls out, instead of trying to step up to avoid pressure like Tom Brady was so good at.
I hoped the Patriots would keep Tom Brady around to give Stidham at least one more year to develop and learn behind him. While I felt that Stidham would need to sit for 2-3 years before he was ready to start in the NFL, I think he is "ready" right now. I don't believe he is as ready as he could have been if he sat another year, however, there is reason to believe he will have some success this year. His NFL game film (albeit being in the preseason) was a limited but substantial example of how much he improved after just one NFL offseason. While I do not believe that Bill Belichick has been a good evaluator of college talent recently, I still believe he is by far the best evaluator of talent on an NFL field, and it is a bit relieving that he has continuously raved about how much progress "Stid" has made since becoming a Patriot. Stidham had the luxury of learning under the greatest quarterback of all time and is now beginning his career as an NFL starter with the greatest coach of all time, and a fantastic offensive coordinator.
Patriots fans should certainly temper their expectations and be ready for a year full of growing pains. Stidham will likely have a few big games against some lower-caliber teams, and some struggles against the best teams—particularly against great pass-rushes—but he will not have a bad year, and I believe that after this season he will begin the next season as the starting quarterback of the Patriots once again. I don't see this team finishing better than 9-7, and I think the most likely outcome is a 7-9 or 8-8 finish. The Patriots still have a great defense and a great coaching staff, but their offense will no-doubt be worse than the year before. Even if they put up a poor record and go 6-10, I don't think people should give up on Stidham assuming he shows promise. They still have a receiving core that finished last season as arguably the worst in the league, and young quarterbacks tend to struggle in their first full seasons.
It is going to be tough for Patriots fans to start from square one with a developing young quarterback, but I truly believe that Jarrett Stidham is the quarterback of the future for the team. He's simply too talented for Bill Belichick and his coaching staff to not take advantage of his skills, and I think he will certainly surprise some people who have said that he is not the answer for the Patriots. It may not always be pretty—especially in games when he's under constant duress—but Stidham will steadily improve throughout the year, and I don't think anyone in the NFL should be writing him off just yet. He's a fourth-round pick that has something to prove and is going to be replacing a long-term franchise quarterback. Sounds a bit like a sixth-round pick that we all know a little something about.
No, I don't think Stidham is going to be the next Tom Brady, but I believe Stidham will have a successful first-year campaign as a starter, and in a few years I think it's a definite possibility that Patriots fans won't regret that the team traded Jimmy Garoppolo a few years ago. There's no other way to put it: it's going to be a tough road for Jarrett Stidham to follow in the footsteps of Tom Brady, but I have a feeling that at the end of this year the Patriots will be sticking with Stidham.
I actually was a huge fan of Stidham as a value pick in the draft last year, and was ecstatic when the Patriots selected him in the fourth round; before the draft I had given him a third-round draft grade. Most mid-round quarterbacks project as run-of-the-mill backups that might make a few spot-starts before completely disappearing from the league. Jarrett Stidham did not fit this description whatsoever. For a quarterback that was not likely to go before the 3rd round, I felt he showed that he had a legitimate shot to be a high-quality starter in the NFL. However, while there were plenty of traits that stood out as high-end attributes, his tape also revealed some extremely concerning tendencies that could cause him to crash-and-burn in the NFL.
Stidham isn't the classic 50-50 prospect. Sure he is boom or bust, but I don't see his chances at success as a coin flip. Stidham is a highly conditional prospect: I believe that in an ideal environment he will flourish, and in a difficult situation he will flounder. He has to be in the right offense with specific types of receivers, a good offensive line, and a coach that can play to his strengths while also hammering on his many weaknesses. As a result, when the Pats drafted him, beyond the fact that he would be playing for my team, I was excited for his development as a prospect. Stidham would get the chance to work with Bill Belichick and learn the ropes under Tom Brady for a few years before having a legitimate chance to compete for the starting job. This plan was carried out exactly as expected through Stidham's first season in the NFL, but everything was thrown up in the air after Brady's departure. Suddenly, Stidham was cast into the lead role after he had just begun his time as the understudy. While I'm sure he learned as much as a quarterback can from Brady in his first season, he had far less time than expected to get accustomed to being a starting NFL quarterback.
Before I get into the specifics of how he fits into this Patriots offense, I want to outline his strengths and weaknesses and go back to his college days to give a complete scouting report on him. We'll begin with his biggest strength. With a clean pocket, Jarrett Stidham has some of the best mechanics you can find out of a college quarterback. It sounds like a bit of an overreaction for a fourth-rounder, but they truly are elite-level mechanics. With a clean pocket, he has very little wasted movement, fully loads from his back leg, immediately sliding his front foot fully open. His release is compact as he already begins to fire his hips forward right before he brings his arm right up around his head. He stays tall as his hip shoulder separation creates a slingshot where his arm accelerates quickly, spinning the ball perfectly with good accuracy and above-average arm strength. Though he was not consistently asked to make full-field reads in college, he nonetheless did a great job of protecting the ball, never threw more than 6 interceptions in a season. Additionally, when Stidham found creases in the line or rolled out, he was an above-average runner in college and was decent enough at throwing the ball on the run. When things went according to plan in college, Stidham was a fun quarterback to watch.
Despite all of the good qualities that he displayed in college, there were plenty of glaring weaknesses in his game that were a cause of concern for his projectability. The most glaring concern of Stidham's college tape was his pocket presence when under pressure. Anytime the pocket began to collapse, or even any time Stidham sensed blitzes in his face, he would step away from his target and either throw inaccurate floaters off his back foot when facing a bull-rush or spiking the ball into the ground throwing off of his front foot when an edge rusher closed in. This simply cannot happen at an NFL level. While Stidham did a good job of avoiding sacks considering how poor his line play was in college, every time he sensed pressure he looked to be in full-blown panic mode. In fact, he's one of the most panicky NFL quarterback prospects I've ever watched on tape. These poor mechanical moments when under pressure will not work in the NFL and the floaters that he releases with pressure in his face will either result in incompletions or interceptions in the NFL. I don't even think he really forces the ball into coverage when he's under pressure, the ball just travels so slowly when he throws off of his back foot that I just cannot imagine he will have success with any of these throws. He has a pretty strong arm, but anyone not named Patrick Mahomes should not be throwing off their back foot consistently. Furthermore, Stidham showed time and time again that he was unable to kickstart comebacks in his Auburn days, and did not show a ton of fight with the game on the line. I will stop short of saying that he looked like he would give up—because that would be a disservice to him—but his general mental toughness in college certainly had some question marks. Not exactly what Patriots fans want to hear about their quarterback of the future.
One of the common points that I would like to refute was that his 2017 sophomore tape was better than his 2018. For me, the tape from 2017 led me to the exact same conclusions as the 2018 tape did. Sure Auburn was a better team in 2017 as they had a better record and managed to beat Alabama, but I felt that was the main difference between the two campaigns: the team was better in 2017. The reason Stidham was much more highly regarded as a potential first-round pick in 2017 was simply that he was younger, which made his mistakes more tolerable to scouts. I think the issue in 2018 was that he genuinely did not improve on any of his holes. A portion of this can be chalked up to the players and coaches surrounding him. In 2018 his blocking got significantly worse and he was under constant duress. His receivers dropped more balls than the previous year and the only receiver that got consistently open was current Giants receiver, Darius Slayton. After Head Coach Gus Malzahn received a massive contract extension in 2017, the Auburn team began to crumble and the team began collapsing in second halves of games. The offense featured way too many ineffective screen passes—many of which still somehow ended with drops—and placed unnecessary training wheels on Stidham's ability to read the whole field. Stidham didn't do himself any favors in 2018, but neither did the rest of his team.
I watched Stidham play periodically throughout the preseason last year, but recently I went back and watched every snap of his preseason tape. In the preseason, Stidham finally showed improvement for the first time in nearly two years, and not only did he improve: he improved pretty significantly. While he certainly was not perfect, he looked surprisingly well prepared for the NFL out of the gate and looked much more like a high-end second-round pick than a fourth-round pick. Honestly, I even think he looked better than fellow first-round quarterback Dwayne Haskins did throughout most of this past season.
During the preseason, I was most impressed by Stidham's ability to quickly read defenses, and scan the whole entire field. Throughout college Stidham rarely forced balls into low-percentage coverages, but he was simply not asked to make full-field reads in college. As a result, I was very relieved to see that his limited field-reading was more of a result of his college offensive scheme than his football intelligence: which was mostly what I suspected. Not only did he improve his field-reading, but he improved on his execution as well. I always felt that in college he was good at finding the holes in zone coverage, and throwing to receivers that were open in the creases, but I felt that his anticipation when trying to "throw someone open" was lacking: specifically against man coverage. I also felt that he was inconsistent when trying to loft the ball with touch, which much more important in the NFL where the press coverage is tighter, and the defensive backs are more disciplined in zone coverage. Stidham improved both of these in the preseason: he consistently fired the ball right into the hands of his receivers on slant routes to lead them out of their breaks efficiently. While I felt that he lacked consistency when throwing slants in college, whether it was Dontrelle Inman, Josh Gordon or his favorite target, Jakobi Meyers, he completed nearly every slant throw that I watched. Furthermore, he threw his fade routes with fantastic touch, finding ways to either loft the ball out of reach of the defender to the back shoulder of the receiver—such as on the first Demaryius Thomas touchdown against the Giants or the Damoun Patterson touchdown against the Titans or to lead the receiver down the field.
Stidham also found ways to build on one of his most underrated strengths: his feet. Stidham often avoided sacks when the pocket collapsed and sensed creases in the line allowing him to gain significant positive yards when scrambling. Stidham is surprisingly fast and shifty and did a good job avoiding contact during the preseason. He also showed very good instincts when rolling out of the pocket, either finding lanes to run, throwing the ball away, or throwing the ball on the run. In college he avoided forcing the ball into coverage when rolling out—a problem many young quarterbacks have—but in the preseason he actually seemed to keep his eyes down the field more often, and showed the ability to throw the ball more accurately on the run than he did in college. This allowed him to be much more improvisational when evading the pocket and allowed receivers to modify their routes to gain separation. One example of this was in the Giants game when Stidham rolled to the left during a play, and Demaryius Thomas cut his route back towards the left pylon for a wide-open 5-yard touchdown. This type of play would not be possible without Stidham rolling out, and will be a key aspect of Stidham's game for the Patriots receiving core as it will allow the receivers more time to gain separation: something they were simply unable to do last year.
There were clearly many positives to Stidham's preseason play, but he still showed many of the flaws that I was worried about during his college days. In the final preseason game against the Giants, he only threw his only interception during the preseason, and it was unsurprisingly a result of poor-pocket awareness. Stidham had an opportunity to roll out to the right to avoid an edge-rusher coming toward his blind-side, but instead, he stayed in the pocket and was hit as he threw. The ball popped in the air and landed in a defensive back's hands for one of the easiest interceptions safety Sean Chandler will ever make in his career. While this was his only interception of the preseason, I felt that he should have thrown 2-3 more in the game versus the Titans: a game ironically was his best game on the stat-sheet with a 123.4 passer rating. The first throw was a 2-yard out-route on the goal-line where Stidham didn't complete his weight shift towards his target and the cornerback dropped what should have been a pick-six after hopping the route. The second throw happened on a hitch route by Nick Brossette where Stidham threw the ball late off of his back foot and the defensive back completely missed the ball after hopping the route for what should have been Stidham's second pick-six. The third throw was a result of an offensive line collapse where they allowed three linemen to get in Stidham's face on a four-man rush. Not having time to evade the pocket, Stidham should've just ended the broken play by taking a sack on third and 13. Instead, he floated a ball off his back foot towards the sideline that the defensive back intercepted with a dive barely out of bounds. All of these throws resulted from poor mechanics, and Stidham still has a lot of work to do when he's working with a compromised pocket. This was exactly what happened in Stidham's pick-six that he threw in the regular season to Jamal Adams. Stidham's offensive line was losing ground on the Jets defensive line as the play developed, and Stidham floated a ball off his back foot right into Jamal Adams's hands for a touchdown.
While I am still very concerned about Stidham's flat out inability to deal with a collapsing pocket, I felt that during the preseason he panicked a bit less often than he did at Auburn. I was very impressed by his improved awareness when rolling out to avoid pressure, and I honestly believe that until Stidham learns how to deal with a pass rush, he should try to roll out whenever the pocket breaks down. Instead of throwing drifters off of his back foot, I'd rather see him roll out, and either extend the play for his receivers, tuck it and run, or simply throw the ball away. Stidham's feet will be one of his biggest assets as a developing quarterback because his ability to extend plays will allow him to avoid sacks and take some pressure off of his receivers which in turn will make it easier to find open receivers. While Stidham protected the ball well in college, if he does not evade the pocket when he senses pressure, he will throw a lot of interceptions and will take a lot of unnecessary sacks in the NFL.
Josh McDaniels will have his work cut out for him when scheming an offense for Stidham. Generally, with a young QB, the goal is to create plays where the quarterback gets the ball out of their hand as quick as possible, but I think this will be a challenge given the Patriots struggles at the receiver. Stidham did show good chemistry with Jakobi Meyers specifically on quick slants, and Edelman can beat still beat one-on-one coverage even at this age with quick routes, so this will certainly be a part of the scheme, but it cannot be the whole strategy.
I think one of the most important things for the Patriots offense will be the ability to scheme play-action passes: something they have fared very well with in the past. Stidham looked very comfortable under center in the preseason, and with the max protection packages that play-action allows with blocking running backs or fullbacks (with James Develin coming back this year) will be a huge asset for Stidham. This way he will either have more time to scan the field, or will have a designed rollout: both of which will minimize the pressure in his face. There will definitely plenty of running back slip screens, and some check-downs to James White as well, but Stidham will have to throw more than just screens and check-downs to have any sort of success with his limited supporting cast.
The current trend in the NFL with scheming young quarterbacks has been implementing four or five receiver sets out of the shotgun similar to the spread offenses of many college teams, but I don't think this should be the case with Stidham at all. I would rather see him in packages that maximize the volume of blockers over the volume of receivers, and while I think he is certainly developing in this area, I still don't trust his ability to pick up blitzing linebackers consistently enough to create an offense around getting the ball out quickly with every play. Furthermore, I don't even trust his receivers to get open quickly on every play. Stidham will certainly still have to regularly release the ball quickly, however, I don't think the answer for him is running exclusively quick, one-read plays because it was certainly not the answer for him in college. I honestly think he would be best off running a variation of the current Patriots offense rather than the offense the Patriots schemed for Jimmy G. For this Stidham run offense, the training wheels and modifications for him would be prioritizing blocking and adding designed runs and roll-outs. The Patriots have to find ways to get him a clean pocket because he will consistently make great throws with a clean pocket, and when he does not have a clean pocket, the coaching staff needs to make sure that he evades the pocket and rolls out, instead of trying to step up to avoid pressure like Tom Brady was so good at.
I hoped the Patriots would keep Tom Brady around to give Stidham at least one more year to develop and learn behind him. While I felt that Stidham would need to sit for 2-3 years before he was ready to start in the NFL, I think he is "ready" right now. I don't believe he is as ready as he could have been if he sat another year, however, there is reason to believe he will have some success this year. His NFL game film (albeit being in the preseason) was a limited but substantial example of how much he improved after just one NFL offseason. While I do not believe that Bill Belichick has been a good evaluator of college talent recently, I still believe he is by far the best evaluator of talent on an NFL field, and it is a bit relieving that he has continuously raved about how much progress "Stid" has made since becoming a Patriot. Stidham had the luxury of learning under the greatest quarterback of all time and is now beginning his career as an NFL starter with the greatest coach of all time, and a fantastic offensive coordinator.
Patriots fans should certainly temper their expectations and be ready for a year full of growing pains. Stidham will likely have a few big games against some lower-caliber teams, and some struggles against the best teams—particularly against great pass-rushes—but he will not have a bad year, and I believe that after this season he will begin the next season as the starting quarterback of the Patriots once again. I don't see this team finishing better than 9-7, and I think the most likely outcome is a 7-9 or 8-8 finish. The Patriots still have a great defense and a great coaching staff, but their offense will no-doubt be worse than the year before. Even if they put up a poor record and go 6-10, I don't think people should give up on Stidham assuming he shows promise. They still have a receiving core that finished last season as arguably the worst in the league, and young quarterbacks tend to struggle in their first full seasons.
It is going to be tough for Patriots fans to start from square one with a developing young quarterback, but I truly believe that Jarrett Stidham is the quarterback of the future for the team. He's simply too talented for Bill Belichick and his coaching staff to not take advantage of his skills, and I think he will certainly surprise some people who have said that he is not the answer for the Patriots. It may not always be pretty—especially in games when he's under constant duress—but Stidham will steadily improve throughout the year, and I don't think anyone in the NFL should be writing him off just yet. He's a fourth-round pick that has something to prove and is going to be replacing a long-term franchise quarterback. Sounds a bit like a sixth-round pick that we all know a little something about.
No, I don't think Stidham is going to be the next Tom Brady, but I believe Stidham will have a successful first-year campaign as a starter, and in a few years I think it's a definite possibility that Patriots fans won't regret that the team traded Jimmy Garoppolo a few years ago. There's no other way to put it: it's going to be a tough road for Jarrett Stidham to follow in the footsteps of Tom Brady, but I have a feeling that at the end of this year the Patriots will be sticking with Stidham.