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How much does body fat matter at the quarterback position? Let’s take a look at this and more comments from the media tour . . .
Brandon Marshall continued his extensive media tour with a stop at WFAN to talk with Mike Francesa.
He was asked about Bryce Petty.
“Where he was then and where he’s at today, you can’t even compare it,” Marshall said. “I mean, this guy’s the first one in. He went from probably 20 percent body fat to like 8 percent. He’s chiseled. So his body’s changed. He’s been around Fitz (Ryan Fitzpatrick) for a year now, and where Fitz stands out is his mind. So Bryce got it. Now Bryce needs more reps, and Bryce needs to go out there and continue to get better. This kid, he has an innate ability to learn the quarterback position.”
I thought he was going to stay out the quarterback business.
“I think that was something that made me realize I need to focus on myself and football,” Marshall said earlier this week on his media junket. “I need to do my job. My job is to be a wide receiver. Going into this offseason, that’s all I want to do is be a football player. I’m getting out of the front office department.”
His assessment of Petty has some holes in it.
First of all, what does “an innate ability to learn the quarterback position” mean. Petty is a very hard worker, but did you see a guy improving over the course of his starts?
I don’t necessarily think getting more get reps will make the difference. Aside from beating an awful San Francisco team (in a game Petty struggled for most of regulation), which fired their coach after the season, Petty really didn’t make much progress in his starts. He displayed shaky pocket presence (not sensing the rush particularly well) and didn’t look very going through his progressions.
At the Senior Bowl, I asked a long-time scout about Petty’s struggles and he said, “I didn’t think he was that good at Baylor.”
And let me ask y’all a question – What does Petty’s body fat have to do with his ability to be an NFL starting quarterback? Basically nothing. Kudos to Petty for putting the work in to get his body fat from 20 percent to eight percent. I wish I could do that. But it has nothing to do with pocket presence and reading defenses. Nothing. It’s irrelevant.
The fact that he is chiseled is terrific if he was entering a body-building competition, but Brandon, what does that have to do with being a quality NFL starting QB?
I’m not discounting the import of conditioning, but Brandon is putting too much stock in this. It’s just a small part of things.
Marshall said, “Bryce needs to go out there and continue to get better.”
But he really didn’t get better over the course of his starts.
Look, giving quarterbacks time to develop is important, but if you go in for a stretch of games in your second year, and you show as little as Petty did, how can you be considered a viable starting candidate the next season? I’m not saying he needed to go out there and be Tom Brady, but he needed to show a little more than he did.
I don’t think Petty is a starting candidate for the Jets in 2017. Maybe a backup, but not a starter.
The Jets Week One starting quarterbacks probably isn’t in the building right now.
February 2, 2017
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