Q1) What type of player is Blaine Gabert? Strengths and weaknesses?
A1) Weaknesses: I see a few holes that even Gabbert’s favorable pro day script could not hide. The worst of these was his footwork. Gabbert had mediocre footwork in college. Since his pro day workouts, it seems to have gotten even worse. He occasionally left his feet while releasing the ball when dropping back from center, but he very constantly released the football with both feet in the air when he rolled out from under center. When he rolled to the left, he’d occasionally keep his center of gravity too low, and it would look awkward when he straightened up to throw the ball. Additionally, Gabbert dropped his center of gravity too low on rollouts to the left, which forced him to take longer to throw the football. Although he had a nice spiral and velocity on his passes, he threw them with such a high arc that they sometimes took too long to get to the intended receiver. This is a problem because it gives defenders more time to get to the ball and knock it down. Additionally, on the deep passes, receivers often had to stop to wait.
Strengths: First and most obvious is that you will never have any questions about Gabbert’s arm strength. Also, he has always had good straight-line speed, but that speed was often negated by slow acceleration. Gabbert displayed an improved speed on his rollouts, which suggests he will have an easier time taking off with the ball than he did in college, where he was often brought down before hitting full speed. If he can continue to accelerate well, he could be a Tim Tebow-type runner from the backfield when necessary. However, the Tebow comparisons end there. Gabbert is much more accurate than Tebow was, and throws the ball with a better spiral.
Q2) What was his best game you seen him play and what happened?
A2) The best game I’ve seen Gabbert play was against Oklahoma this year. The defense kept rolling a safety over to help blanket T.J. Moe, and Gabbert exploited the simplified defense all night long.
Q3) The one concern that some draft experts have made about Gabbert is that he’s coming from a spread offense. However, the Bills do seem to run a lot of 4-5 wide looks. Do you see that helping him?
A3) More and more teams are using a lot of spread looks these days. Plus, football intelligence is football intelligence, regardless of the system a player comes from. So I don’t think the spread is an issue for Gabbert. I think the bigger issue would be that Gabbert never really went through progressions in college: he locked in on the top receiver and never looked away from him.
Q4) Do you think Gabbert should start from day 1 or does he need to ride the bench for a year?
A4) if Gabbert goes to Buffalo, he should definitely sit for at least a year. Ryan Fitzpatrick is good enoughto get the job done for at least another year or two, so Gabbert should just sit back until he’s ready to start.
Personally, I don’t see Gabbert in Buffalo. They already have a decent quarterback, and have bigger needs elsewhere. Gabbert isn’t a sure thing like Matt Ryan or Sam Bradford, either. Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback that came out says he sees the Bills taking Von Miller. I think they need to go that route and worry about a quarterback in the later rounds, or even wait another year or two.
(Next up, Patrick Peterson Q&A)
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