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Originally Posted by 44 70 chip
I don't agree, everything I've seen supports the conclusion painted by his career numbers. I arrived at the conclusion without ever looking at statistics. I knew he was hesitant the first couple times his coaches got impatient with him for hesitating to throw to an open receiver... And have seen this behavior survive two head coaches, both of whom at one time or another have talked publically about Campbell needing to "trust his eyes" and "take what they've given him"
As far as Tape goes, unless you have access to better broader views than the TV stations typically tight focus give you I don't know how you're analyzing coverages...
Unless you're an archivist for NFL films I'll politely decline to comment.
In the end this isn't even Jason's biggest problem... He has a plethora of poor fundamentals from how he sometimes carries the ball when he moves in the pocket (at his hips in one hand), his ponderous wind up, his tendency to move away from ghost rushers, and get tangled up in real ones, his lack of peripheral vision (AKA ability to feel blind side pressure) his lack of studiousness (he is poor enough at reading defenses that he's not allowed to audible) he doesn't see blitzes (his center calls out the adjustments. Campbell is one of the few Veteran Qb's in the league that doesn't direct his protection), he often looks confused to the point that he forgets and leaves his mouth guard wedged in his helmet about 10-20% of his snaps. You may call that picking nits, but I call it a tell tail of poor habits and consistency. And an inability to change those poor habbits: See: the countless times he's been coached to keep the ball at his chest with BOTH HANDS, but he still can't do it consistently every snap (he has gotten better, late this year in particular), See also: his inability to slide for how many seasons now?.
The fact that he has some problems with his mechanics, some problems with the mental side of the game, and some problems with his fundamentals wouldn't be such a big deal if he could show that he can be coached out of those problems...
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I think, in many ways, Campbell's inability to slide typifies my issues with him as a player. It's not that sliding is a particularly important skill, certainly no more important than establishing the ever-important ability to wear a mouthguard, but Campbell's weaknesses are mostly those small things.
In part, he's an extention of Zorn in that he has all the intangibles, rarely is fooled by the coverage, can make a play with his legs, etc., but I think he has game management issues and it's the quarterback minutae that I think will prevent him from reaching an elite level.
The bottom line is that it's all nitpicking, and if every player on our team did their job as well, but no better than Jason Campbell, we'd be a 9 or 10 win team every season. You might win a super bowl once every ten or fifteen years. The reason we haven't been to the playoffs but twice in the last ten seasons is because hardly anyone on this team has been as dependable as our quarterbacks. Particularly on offense, but the defense has had it's fair share of poor performers over the years as well.