The Big Leap

Russell Wilson arrived at the Senior Bowl last year and began wowing NFL executives and coaches with a combination of athleticism, poise and preparation that forced them to look beyond his 5-foot-10 inch shortcoming. Few people outside of NFL front offices noticed.

Two of the most impressive young quarterbacks in the NFL launched their careers in Mobile, where more than 100 college seniors endure a grueling week of practices and interviews in preparation for Saturday’s Senior Bowl all-star game, as well as the upcoming draft process. The practices are open to the public and televised on NFL Network. The players are made available for dozens of media interviews when they are not being cornered by coaches or scouts. There are plenty of opportunities for draftniks and armchair scouts to spot the next big thing. Yet no one really noticed Wilson or Kaepernick.

Ryan Nassib does not look comfortable. His passes sail high, beyond receivers’ fingertips, during 7-and-7 and full-squad drills. When he throws while rolling out, the pass tails toward the sideline. He keeps making some of the little mistakes that scouts harp on, the ones that push the football a few precious feet off target: over-stepping with his feet, dropping his arm.

As the Tuesday morning practice wears on, however, Nassib settles down. He connects with Alec Lemon, his Syracuse teammate, on a pretty pass up the sideline. He finds tight end Jack Doyle with a pair of tight passes up the seam. Tuesday’s gains disappear on Wednesday, as Nassib again spends the early drills of practice overthrowing receivers.

Quarterbacks have it rough at the Senior Bowl. They arrive on Sunday, receive a bare-bones playbook, meet most of their receivers for the first time (Nassib at least knows Lemon), and are expected to throw perfect passes by Monday morning. The resulting overthrows and miscommunication can be mistaken for ineptitude; a quarterback who threw for 9,190 yards and helped turn a major program around (as Nassib did) can suddenly look like he is stepping onto the field for the first time.

Coaches and team scouts want to see the quarterbacks adjust and improve as the week goes on, and how they handle the demands is judged just as carefully as how they throw the football. “How do they carry themselves behind the scenes?” asked Oakland Raiders/North Squad coach Dennis Allen, explaining the off-field evaluation process. “We’re looking for leadership qualities.” The Russell Wilson story began not with rocket passes on a practice field, but with a take-charge attitude in the meeting rooms. A player like Nassib can erase Tuesday memories with poise and precision on Wednesday; Nassib did not quite step backward, but he did not take the leap forward that teams want to see.

Scouts like a lot of what they saw from Nassib at Syracuse, where he displayed a good arm, sound management skills and enough running ability to make read-option strategies a viable once-in-a-while weapon. He was getting first-round grades before Senior Bowl week (the Buffalo Bills, coached by former Syracuse coach Doug Marrone, possess the eighth pick in the draft), and a few overthrows and mechanical lapses won’t change that. Inconsistent practices left Nassib unable to put the exclamation point next to his qualifications.

The successes of Wilson and Kaepernick, plus Robert Griffin and Andrew Luck, could be seen by a prospect as increased opportunities. The days of two-year mentorships appear long gone, and a capable quarterback can have success right away. It can also be seen as increased pressure. Nassib is not looking that far into the future. “I’m not really sure,” he said, when asked how the success of other young passers affects his expectations.

Nassib is sure that he could help a team with both his arms and legs if called upon. “That’s something I’ve done in the past and feel I can do,” he said about the option tactics that helped Kaepernick vault the 49ers into the Super Bowl. His sense of timing, however, sounds a little old-fashioned for a league where a third-round pick can find himself in a playoff duel for the ages and a quarterback’s 10th career start can be in the Super Bowl. “It’s going to take some growing pains, some time to learn,” Nassib said about the transition to the NFL. “You’ve got to do that whenever you go to a new football team.”

Manuel threw for 3,392 yards for Florida State last year, but he also rushed for 310 yards and four touchdowns, with much of that production coming on designed plays. Manual executed an up-tempo, high-tech offense for the Seminoles; game plans contained everything from conventional I-formation sets to elaborate shotgun options.

A few years ago, success in such a system would be a red flag: the scrambling, gadget-dependent quarterbacks would face a tough adjustment to the NFL. Now, the NFL is adjusting to the quarterbacks. Florida State’s offense looks, superficially, like the Seahawks offense, and as collegiate tacticians like Chip Kelly take NFL coaching jobs, the opportunities for all-purpose quarterbacks like Manuel increase.

It’s the Senior Bowl script that has become an anachronism: strict limitations are put on formations and game plans, and the realities of assembling 50 guys from around the nation and getting them to play as a unit limit how much exotic stuff coaches would dare put into a game plan, even if they were allowed. For Manuel, that means only being able to show a fraction of what he does well.