Bucs Can’t Hide Bad Quarterbacks

May 29th, 2009

The more Byron Leftwich hands the ball off, the better the Bucs should be.

If there is one position the Bucs are deep in it’s quarterbacks.

Granted, when every quarterback on the roster is either a castoff, a has-been, a never-been or someone living off of  his old man’s name, the word “deep” really does apply.

For this reason along, Matt Williamson of Scouts Inc. via BSPN.com claims the Bucs will struggle.

Still, you can’t hide the quarterback in the NFL, and for Tampa Bay to compete in a very difficult division, one of these quarterbacks has to play well. I am betting on Leftwich to win the job. McCown has tools, but he is more inconsistent, takes too many risks and is lacking on game experience, with only 238 passing attempts.

Leftwich has a big arm and is very tough. He takes care of the football much better than McCown and obviously has more experience. But his faults are substantial as well. Leftwich has a very long delivery that allows opposing defensive backs time to get to the ball and exposes the ball during his delivery to pass-rushers much more than the ordinary quarterback’s release. He also is immobile and takes an awful lot of big hits in the pocket. Leftwich has never played 16 games in a season. Lastly, his accuracy is far from ideal; he has eclipsed a 60 percent completion percentage (60.5 percent in 2004) only once in his career. There is a reason why few teams knocked on his door the past two times he was on the open market.

Simply put, if somehow, someway the Bucs get solid play from either Leftwich, McCown or (gasp!) bust-in-waiting Josh Freeman, it’s not out of the question that the Bucs could challenge for a playoff berth.

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