In defense of Weber

[Schnoodler]

He does have a great arm. Maybe he doesn't make such great use of it. But there are only two great arms in the big ten, his and Juice, and neither are looking very good. Now cousins, he's got a a crappy arm and makes great use of it.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Gee, I thought I was posting on the Gopher message board, not the Daunte C. fan club. Impressive that you his completion percentage out to 3 significant figures. I stand behind my original statement. In Daunte's marquee years (where he was damned effective; I'll give you that) you had the opponents best CB and a safety covering #81. Then at least one LB in the box shadowing Daunte in case he took off. If the Vikings send out 4 guys, that leaves at least one WR being covered by a guy who should have been playing in NFL Europe. Any QB can make that throw.

I'll grant you that over time Daunte has wound up playing on teams with progressively crappier OL's. And its hard to run for your life when you can't run any more. But opposing defensive coaches have learned the way to beat Culpepper is show blitz and then drop everybody into coverage. That's a pick 6 waiting to happen. The man simply cannot read defenses. That's why he's backing up rookies at this stage in his career.

Um, I'm pretty sure you were the one that brought up Culpepper.

Did Moss make Culpepper a better QB? Of course, Moss was nearly unstoppable in his prime.
Do many fans undervalue how good Culpepper was? No doubt about it.

Culpepper's best season was 2004 when he put up increadible numbers. Could have been the MVP that season. That was also Moss' worst season as a Viking by far because he was hurt most of the year. He didn't play in 5 games, and had 4 others where he had 40 yards or less. Moss did not have a lot to do with Culpepper's success in '04.

 

[Iceland12]

Sometimes we all need to just call a spade a spade. For 3 years I've seen the following items repeated over and over:

1. His footwork is atrocious. He rarely plants his feet or strides into the throw WHEN HE HAS TIME.
2. His arm strength seems to be average, and cannot make up for #1. This resulted in a majority of his picks and pick-6's.
3. He double clutches causing timing issues. This results in mistimed passes and hanging receivers out to dry (i.e., Decker chin hit in Cal game).
4. His accuracy is horrible. Decker covered this up, but his high bounce-to-shin ratio has been evident all 3 seasons.
5. His vision of the field is sub-par. He didn't seem to know where his receivers should be (blitz reads) or would be (when plays broke down). He locks in on the first option and doesn't feel comfortable with check-downs.
6. His internal clock and pocket presence seemed to disintegrate as the year went on. The alarm clock either fired early/late or he started running into his OL instead of getting out of the pocket.


I see a lot of offseason work for him, to even prove to everyone that he can compete at this level.

The spread offense hid a lot of these flaws, and he was exposed this year big-time.

I'd love to see him succeed, and can only hope he puts in the time and effort to improve for next year. Some of it will be Fisch and his playcalling and QB development skills, but the onus is still on Weber to get better.

He's put in a LOT of off-season work already.

I agree on 1-4 completely. I've always wondered how many receivers were going to get killed going up for high throws in the middle of the field.

Number 5 may be the routes are being run incorrectly which exacerbates the problem. Brewster, who doesn't throw anybody under a bus has even mentioned this a few times.

Number 6 also has bugged me big time. I don't know how many times I screamed "throw it" or "take off" at the field or TV. I can't help but think that coaching much have something to do with that.

One note on Saturday's game. A lot of drops and bad throws, but they started the game with their Number One wideout having played football for 3 years and by the 3rd Quarter the Number One Wideout was a converted Corner. Everybody knows how you get to be a Defensive Back: you can't catch the football!

 

[PlayHosea]

Gee, I thought I was posting on the Gopher message board, not the Daunte C. fan club. Impressive that you his completion percentage out to 3 significant figures. I stand behind my original statement. In Daunte's marquee years (where he was damned effective; I'll give you that) you had the opponents best CB and a safety covering #81. Then at least one LB in the box shadowing Daunte in case he took off. If the Vikings send out 4 guys, that leaves at least one WR being covered by a guy who should have been playing in NFL Europe. Any QB can make that throw.

I'll grant you that over time Daunte has wound up playing on teams with progressively crappier OL's. And its hard to run for your life when you can't run any more. But opposing defensive coaches have learned the way to beat Culpepper is show blitz and then drop everybody into coverage. That's a pick 6 waiting to happen. The man simply cannot read defenses. That's why he's backing up rookies at this stage in his career.

Moss never wore #81 when he played with Culpepper.

 

[Mr. Samsonite]

I didn't see anywhere in the post where he questioned his arm strength. If that's all there were to it, Kyle Boller and Tarvaris Jackson would be two of the best QBs in the NFL. If you got "weak arm" from his post, then you are the idiot, my friend.

Just like Favre right? hes considered one of the best passers in the NFL and he throws more picks than anyone, if weber has his 3 top receivers in iowa he wins that game, if fisch really wanted to throw a fade then marqueis should have been in, not troy. I think our coaches have put our players in the worst of positions they could, weber is having a rough year, but come on man, how does everyone turn on him this hard? you'd think he killed someone in your family or something

 

[BradDad]

If Weber were not "local", I believe he would have been benched weeks ago. It is political.

Right. Because we all know coaches are willing to put less than their best team out there because of politics.

/sarc off

No intention to give Weber a pass here. From what I could see - limited mostly to TV, and even then not all the games - the only receiver Weber really trusted while he was there was Decker. After Decker, the only receiver I saw that impressed me even a bit was Tow-Arnett. In terms of Weber's future development, losing Decker was probably a blessing long term ... at some point he has to read defenses and go where the defense dictates the ball go.

It's not that easy, folks. Tim Tebow's been less effective in the passing game this year - and he's a third year starter running the same offense he's been training in for four years. What was different? Percy Harvin & Louis Murphy, both of whom Tebow trusted implicitly, are now in the NFL; Tim's working with a new group of starters who don't draw anywhere near the same coverages as the group he had last year.

Here's what I think you'd see if you had a "candid" film session with Brewster: Weber missing reads; Receivers running the wrong route; Weber & Receivers reading the defense differently; O-Line blowing protection schemes; bad throws; dropped balls; good defensive plays; and, of course, a fair number of completions.

I don't think the offense is anywhere near "getting it". It's disappointing, but not surprising - I've seen it take almost two full seasons for an offense to really understand to the point where the "drive killer" mistakes subside.

Last thing - if Gray was better than Weber in practice, he'd be playing more. A coach's only job security is to win games; "politics" isn't going to keep a lesser player on the field.

 

[Rick Mons]

If Weber were not "local", I believe he would have been benched weeks ago. It is political.

Absolutely! the Mounds View Cabal© was credited with securing Weber the job of QB in his first RS-Fr year and we have maintained the political pressure on Brewster since then. We've not threatened but simply promised Brewster wonderful future payments of frankincense and myrrh (the price of gold has risen scandalously since then) to keep Adam in his rightful place.

We formed a Cabal© with the King of Envelopes, Mother Radio, the Heffelfinger family and the Triad Commission (not to be confused with the Trilateral Commission). We call it the MacCrosFinger^3 within the Cabal©.

It's all political. Why, you can bank on it. ...

 

[Schnoodler]

I knew it.

 

[Rick Mons]

You ever watch Weber trot onto the field? He doesn't run like a good athlete. He kind of minces. He's not fluid. His passing has never been that good. Just in the general area of the receiver. He's rarely a right in their outstretched arms kind of guy.

I've watched Weber run onto the field for seven years now -- you have more imagination than vision, I fear.

Maybe it's your advanced age, Halsey.

 

[bankonit]

I meant it's political in the fact that benching a local kid, who is a 3 year starter, who is a team captain is a very hard and delicate thing to do. Yanking Tarvaris Jackson's ass out of a game was very simple. If you are going to yank Weber you better be damned sure it is the right thing to do and there is no turning back, you can't make him starter again if it does not work.