A good way to predict emerging trends in the National Football League has always been to keep an eye on Saturday afternoons. More often than not, the college game is a preview of what the NFL will look like in two or three years. After Darren McFadden and the Arkansas Razorbacks revamped the Wildcat formation so successfully in the mid-to-late 2000's it started popping up all over the NFL on Sunday afternoons.
Just yesterday, we glimpsed both the past few years of quarterbacking in college, and the future of the pivot position in the NFL. Quarterbacks who not only have have rockets arms, but could easily trade cleats and line up at wide receiver are becoming a lot more commonplace than the occasional Mike Vick. Players like Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, RG III and Cam Newton have taken the NFL by storm over the past two seasons with both their remarkable athleticism and their early contributions. Formations like the Pistol and schemes like the read-option are making their way back to Sundays as Offensive Coordinators tailor their playbooks around these new weapons.
Whether it's taking off for chunks of yardage when pressure collapses the pocket, or buying time for their receivers to get open, these freakishly athletic quarterbacks are giving defensive coaches nightmares with their ability to escape the pass rush.
And it isn't just NFL coaches that are popping Advil while poring over game tape of these guys. CFL personnel people are going to have to start looking even further afield to discover that overlooked NCAA gem. Players like Wilson that were once considered too small to play the quarterback position are being given every opportunity to prove themselves on the field. It used to be that quarterbacks shorter than about six foot two were considered undersized and the belief was that they would have trouble seeing over their behemoth offensive lines, and fall victim to deflected passes by their much larger defensive opponents.
However Wilson in particular has shown that not to be the case.
The five foot eleven quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks dropped back to pass 549 times this season (regular season and playoffs) and had seven of those batted down, or one every 79 attempts. His speed and mobility completely eradicate the notion that smaller quarterbacks can't function in the NFL. Much to the chagrin of CFL general managers.
