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Another Martinez Thread

Hville

Hville

Blackshirt
5 Year Member
I know I know I know. Been plenty of threads on this already but in this case I'm addressing what appears to be a continued human nature response to hearing a narrative so much that you start believing it. I was reminded of this in another thread where it was insinuated that we are stuck with AM for a couple more years unless we are lucky enough to have him have a breakout year next year and go pro. WTH. We are insinuating we want him to have a pro like year so he leaves early and gives other QB's a chance? The constant narrative is that Scott Frost and AM are stuck at the hip and AM is undeserving of being the starter.

Fans need to get a clue and get off your "the back up QB is always better" monologue. The bottom line is AM is by far and away our best QB. Logan Smothers was nowhere close to challenging Luke last year and Luke was a disaster being rushed in as a full time starter. This attitude that "well we don't know if you don't at least give him a few series" wreaks of fans not having a clue. Coaches and players know. To continue this narrative that SF has somehow stuck with AM because of promises or guarantee's is ridiculous. If anything SF is guilty of giving into fans calls for a new QB and rushed LM in last year and look at that disaster. The sooner fans wake up to the fact that our QB is the "LEAST" problem with our offense right now the sooner they can start seeing the real problems. OK I got that rant off me. :Biggrin: Sorry
 
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Two things.
If your backup is ready, play him without jeopardizing him and the team.
You have to put your backup in in position to win, and the supporting cast has to be good enough to make that happen as well.
They always say, you get better the most from game one to game two, that didnt happen with LM, and he wasnt ready, and his support wasnt that good.

I agree, we were weak in our run game, and we couldnt spread the field because our wideouts werent up to snuff and that weak run game.
 



Hville said:
I know I know I know. Been plenty of threads on this already but in this case I'm addressing what appears to be a continued human nature response to hearing a narrative so much that you start believing it. I was reminded of this in another thread where it was insinuated that we are stuck with AM for a couple more years unless we are lucky enough to have him have a breakout year next year and go pro. WTH. We are insinuating we want him to have a pro like year so he leaves early and gives other QB's a chance? The constant narrative is that Scott Frost and AM are stuck at the hip and AM is undeserving of being the starter.

Fans need to get a clue and get off your "the back up QB is always better" monologue. The bottom line is AM is by far and away our best QB. Logan Smothers was nowhere close to challenging Luke last year and Luke was a disaster being rushed in as a full time starter. This attitude that "well we don't know if you don't at least give him a few series" wreaks of fans not having a clue. Coaches and players know. To continue this narrative that SF has somehow stuck with AM because of promises or guarantee's is ridiculous. If anything SF is guilty of giving into fans calls for a new QB and rushed LM in last year and look at that disaster. The sooner fans wake up to the fact that our QB is the "LEAST" problem with our offense right now the sooner they can start seeing the real problems. OK I got that rant off me. :Biggrin: Sorry
Click to expand...

Whenever players struggle, we're going to hear those kinds of comments. When we're losing, the QB is almost always the first target.

On McCaffrey, you have to admit he looked good against Ohio State in the packages he was given, hence the optimism. I don't know why we didn't do more of that throughout the year. It worked against a pretty good defense and likely would have worked to some degree against the rest.
 
CrabHusker said:
Whenever players struggle, we're going to hear those kinds of comments. When we're losing, the QB is almost always the first target.

On McCaffrey, you have to admit he looked good against Ohio State in the packages he was given, hence the optimism. I don't know why we didn't do more of that throughout the year. It worked against a pretty good defense and likely would have worked to some degree against the rest.
Click to expand...
And you could adopt more to it
 
Martinez needs to start playing like the 4th-year starter he's going to be--protect the ball, complete passes downfield with greater consistency, etc. And I would doubt his draft status would skyrocket with a break-out year next year and that he'd be gone to the NFL. NFL scouts and execs would want to wait to see if he could actually do it again--there are just too many other QBs out there who are more NFL ready. We need to see "2nd Half vs Rutgers" Martinez the majority of the time next year. He frustrates the hell out of me because he's seemingly the least-improved three-year starter I've ever seen.

McCaffrey was a serious reach . . . and we saw just how much of a reach he was as a passer when he got pressed into service. Yeah, it may have been earlier than planned, but it was clear that he just wasn't going to develop into a P5-level passing QB in a couple years. You either have "it" as a passer or you don't. Frost and Verdu put their eggs in one basket for an heir-apparent QB and now they're scrambling because Martinez is so inconsistent three years in and nobody else is ready.

Hurts a ton to lose LM as an athlete. But having Frost's hand get forced with him leaving may be better long-term, if he can start winning just enough and survive. Stop looking for lightning-in-a-bottle sleepers with blazing speed and questionable passing for an offense than relies so much on passing. You need QBs who have strong passing skills and instincts to start with and who can run well enough. Maybe that's Smothers and Haarberg . . . we'll find out soon enough, I guess.
 
there only a few spots that even only 1% of fans can tell is struggling..... QB, RB, CB, K/P, you cant tell if receivers are struggling if we dont throw to them cause their not open, surely cant tell about guards, tackles, DL, DE.....

My thought is, its very easy to see and critique the QB, but there's also plenty going on affecting the qb, that we cant see. and would be very hard to critique. Running back missing a block, WR missing a block, TE missing a block, poor footwork by OL allowing penetration and pressure, thus affecting qb footwork enuf to push him into a 13/30 passing day rather than a 21/30 passing day. Enuf pressure to force our OL into 2-3 more penalties than usual, by holding or jumping the snap. A TE who is allows a LB to get pressure because they missed an assignment. Poor WR assignment blocking, so our running backs are averaging 1.5 yd/carry LESS than usual..... these are just a few of the unseen prob that affect a qb game plan, and make him look worse than he really is. Most of which truly isnt directly his fault.

Of course its easy to sit here and write it, much more difficult to get out there and execute it.

AM has shown more good than bad, and has so much experience now, after what.... 1500+ college snaps. Lets hope he can and the others can tighten it up a bit, eliminate a few of the penalties, turnovers, and execute the offense with even just enuf efficiency that generates another 3 first downs per half. That equates to about 40 more yards per half. That doesnt sound like much. And its not really, espec if you cut the turnovers and penalties in half.

GBR
 




Hville said:
I know I know I know. Been plenty of threads on this already but in this case I'm addressing what appears to be a continued human nature response to hearing a narrative so much that you start believing it. I was reminded of this in another thread where it was insinuated that we are stuck with AM for a couple more years unless we are lucky enough to have him have a breakout year next year and go pro. WTH. We are insinuating we want him to have a pro like year so he leaves early and gives other QB's a chance? The constant narrative is that Scott Frost and AM are stuck at the hip and AM is undeserving of being the starter.

Fans need to get a clue and get off your "the back up QB is always better" monologue. The bottom line is AM is by far and away our best QB. Logan Smothers was nowhere close to challenging Luke last year and Luke was a disaster being rushed in as a full time starter. This attitude that "well we don't know if you don't at least give him a few series" wreaks of fans not having a clue. Coaches and players know. To continue this narrative that SF has somehow stuck with AM because of promises or guarantee's is ridiculous. If anything SF is guilty of giving into fans calls for a new QB and rushed LM in last year and look at that disaster. The sooner fans wake up to the fact that our QB is the "LEAST" problem with our offense right now the sooner they can start seeing the real problems. OK I got that rant off me. :Biggrin: Sorry
Click to expand...
I think I disagree with all of this except the part about being promised he’d be a 4 year starter. I agree that whole line of thought is crap.

As for Martinez, he has not been good for the past two seasons. Some will argue he had a good competition percentage in 2020 and that’s true and gives me some hope, but his inability to get the ball downfield hurt this offense. Some will say that was on the WRs and we certainly didn’t have great deep threats but when we did have guys open downfield he missed them, either visually or physically. That said, my hope is he will spend the off season working on that part of his game and he will certainly benefit from the bigger receivers he will have available in 2021. That alone will improve this offense.

The other problem I’ve had with Martinez that boggles my mind is that he doesn’t have a winner’s edge to him, at least we don’t see it enough. Too often he has played us into losses with bad decisions and bad play. That has to change. On a positive note, I did see some progress at the end of the season. But this issue is still TBD.

Lastly, the narrative about the backup QB as it relates to 2020 is old and tired and completely wrong. 2019 and early 2020 Martinez had proven that he was not playing winning football from the QB position. He wasn’t getting it done. Even Frost commented on his lack of competitiveness after the 2018 season. He needed to take a seat on the bench if only to light a fire under his azz. I praise Frost for making the decision to bench Martinez. Recall that even some of his teammates publicly said Luke added a spark when he was running the offense. So it was a no brainer. Martinez needed to sit. And if you look at his performance when he returned to the starting role, it appears that the move had the intended benefit. I think he played with more intensity in the latter part of the season. Sometimes QBs benefit from a little bench time, and Martinez certainly did. My only complaint with that series of events is that I wish Frost would have put him back in late in the first half of the Illinois game, or at least the start of the second half. It was clearly needed at the time. That’s on Frost.

So, I think we’re seeing some historical revisionism in the OP. But going forward I agree that our best chance of winning in 2021 is with an improved Martinez pulling the trigger. He has to improve his mental game, and he has to improve his downfield passing (I think he will), and we need to keep him healthy. I still question how much of his issues are due to an accumulation of injuries over several years, and question whether or not his body is capable of being what we need him to be at this point. I don’t know. We had better have a plan B in place in case he’s not physically capable of being the QB we need in 2021.
 
ramsker said:
Stop looking for lightning-in-a-bottle sleepers with blazing speed and questionable passing for an offense than relies so much on passing. You need QBs who have strong passing skills and instincts to start with and who can run well enough.
Click to expand...

Couldnt agree more. We need a passer that can run, not try to convert a runner into a passer. Find a kid who seems to be proven, rather than a hidden gem, that no else recruits. Train and coach a kid into 65% completions and 20 tds and 7 ints.
 
AM leaving for the NFL early is actually not on my Top 100 list of things to worry about. It would be great if he played so outstanding this fall that this becomes an issue. But that would probably also mean an outstanding win/loss record for the season. I could live with that.
 



Power of Corn said:
there only a few spots that even only 1% of fans can tell is struggling..... QB, RB, CB, K/P, you cant tell if receivers are struggling if we dont throw to them cause their not open, surely cant tell about guards, tackles, DL, DE.....

My thought is, its very easy to see and critique the QB, but there's also plenty going on affecting the qb, that we cant see. and would be very hard to critique. Running back missing a block, WR missing a block, TE missing a block, poor footwork by OL allowing penetration and pressure, thus affecting qb footwork enuf to push him into a 13/30 passing day rather than a 21/30 passing day. Enuf pressure to force our OL into 2-3 more penalties than usual, by holding or jumping the snap. A TE who is allows a LB to get pressure because they missed an assignment. Poor WR assignment blocking, so our running backs are averaging 1.5 yd/carry LESS than usual..... these are just a few of the unseen prob that affect a qb game plan, and make him look worse than he really is. Most of which truly isnt directly his fault.

Of course its easy to sit here and write it, much more difficult to get out there and execute it.

AM has shown more good than bad, and has so much experience now, after what.... 1500+ college snaps. Lets hope he can and the others can tighten it up a bit, eliminate a few of the penalties, turnovers, and execute the offense with even just enuf efficiency that generates another 3 first downs per half. That equates to about 40 more yards per half. That doesnt sound like much. And its not really, espec if you cut the turnovers and penalties in half.

GBR
Click to expand...
Well spoken sir. Frankly .... this is and always will be fundamentally true of any football team not just ours. Even the three losers of the playoffs can say that and they are the upper crust of the nation. They could’ve said all those things and would have been true.
 
One of AM's biggest problems is that Frost oversold him. Remember, we had just witnessed a miracle season led by Frost at UCF led by a high powered, up-tempo offense. Frost practically boasted that he was going to bring that Formula 1 to NU and Martinez was going to be his driver--the next McKenzie Milton. Expectations were high and after AM's first year, most people (myself excluded) were convinced he was The One and after a couple of years experience was going to be a bona fide star QB. For whatever reason, AM never took off his 2nd year, had a ho-hum 3rd year and has consequently failed to meet some pretty high expectations since that first promising season.

Frost needs to temper his comments about incoming players and talk about all recruits/signees/current players with equal enthusiasm.

(Sidebar: I suspect injury was in large part AM's problem in 2020 and will be in the future as well. I b elieve he's injury prone. Hard to know for sure since Frost is quiet regarding injuries.)
 

I suspect Adrian is a wonderful practice player. In the volleyball world, I have witnessed athletes that looked like Olympians in practice, but couldn’t do squat in actual games.
 
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