Sunday Football Vid: Trent Edwards Video Day

by Brian Galliford on Jul 6, 2008 2:14 PM EDT in Events

Note: Apologies for the lack of... well... anything here at Rumblings over the past couple of days, folks. Over the past 30 or so hours, I've had Internet for a glorious 20 minutes. Luckily, the fine folks from Time Warner made a Sunday trip to the casa de Galliford, and voila, we're back up and running. Again, apologies for the blog's stagnance over the weekend; we'll resume regularly scheduled posting right now!

Let the Sunday countdown continue: including today, we have nine more Sundays without regular season NFL football. That means nine more Sundays of YouTube videos to get us through the afternoons. Today, we'll dedicate our videos to Buffalo's starting quarterback, Trent Edwards.

First up: I'd never seen this before (though I'm sure some of you have) - it's NFL Network's live coverage of the Bills' selection of Edwards in April, 2007:

In our second Edwards video, it's a nice little highlight montage from Edwards' rookie season...

Finally, here's an NFL Network interview of Edwards from earlier this off-season; our quarterback discusses the upcoming season...

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Losman vs. Edwards

Brian, I like the video montage. The evaluation from Mike Mayock of Trent coming out of college really showed true in those highlights. I also liked the Losman vs.Edwards video on YouTube. It amazed me how all of Losman highlights showed him throwing bombs to Evans while Edwards highlights showed him throwing to multiple receivers. I can’t wait to see the offense operate this year. It’s going to be exciting!

by the Skycap on Jul 6, 2008 2:58 PM EDT 0 recs

ughhhh

rain again at wimbledon! Crazy Brits and their endless rain. I just want to watch some tennis!

But this break does give me some time to dig up some stats that make Edwards look like he had a pretty good rookie year.

People have questioned Edwards’ arm strength, which I will admit is merely adequate. Trent did a solid job of getting the football down the field last year.

There were 17,101 passes attempted by the 31 teams that aren’t the Buffalo Bills last season. That counts sacks, but doesn’t count when QBs scrammble for positive yardage.

There were 1,307 completions of 20 yards or more. That means that your average QB completed a 20+ yard pass 7.64% of the time they dropped back to pass.

Trent attempted 281 passes. He completed 21 passes of 20+ yards. So 7.47% of Edwards pass atempts were 20+ yard completions. All things considered, that is pretty impressive.

There were 233 completions over 40 yards last year. That is 1.36% of passing attempts league wide. Trent’s 4 completions over 40 yards gives him a succesful bomb on 1.42% of his pass attempts.

by kaisertown on Jul 6, 2008 3:32 PM EDT 0 recs

Man, you’re fast on the stats. You’re like ESPN, except not dumb.

by Brian Galliford on Jul 6, 2008 5:32 PM EDT up 0 recs

Edwards and his arm strength

“People have questioned Edwards’ arm strength, which I will admit is merely adequate.”

I don’t get this statement. I heard many like it all off season. What is the evidence that he lacks arm strength? If anything, I’m inclined to believe he has above average arm strength, imo.

by krytime on Jul 6, 2008 8:09 PM EDT up 0 recs

People cite his over-reliance on the underneath game as evidence of his “weak arm”; I, too, think it’s crap. It’s not a weak arm; it’s just being ultra careful. He’s got the arm strength; can he hone his deep ball skills? Sure. But I, too, get sick of people selling Edwards short in the skill department.

by Brian Galliford on Jul 6, 2008 8:34 PM EDT up 0 recs

Thank you Brian..

I’d rather hear Randy Cross talk about anything then listen to Edwards’ “weak arm” babble babble.

He didn’t throw long balls last year because Fairchild and the defensive schemes they faced wouldn’t let it happen.

by krytime on Jul 6, 2008 8:47 PM EDT up 0 recs

Gotta love the numbers...

Something to consider with the 40+ yard completions is whether they were long passes or shorter ones that went for 40+ yards. For example, Edwards threw a dump off pass to Jackson (Redskins game?) who took it for about 40 yards. He also put the ball on Evans’ hands on a long pass. If memory serves, Edwards was standing on the 25 and hit Evans in stride on the opposite 25. While he doesn’t possess the cannon Losman has, Edwards is strong enough to get the job done. Plus, he may be stronger now that he’s put on some more muscle.

by Ron From NM on Jul 6, 2008 8:10 PM EDT up 0 recs

good point

that Jackson completion went over 50 yards I think.

There are two ways to look at that.

One way is It wasn’t Edwards who got the 40 yards and that those kinds of completions don’t help predict his ability to effectively throw downfield in the future.

The other is that it doesn’t matter how far he throws it, just how many yards the team gains. A forty yard dump off is just as helpful as a 40 yard bomb.

Both make sense to me. I’m not really sure what to think.

by kaisertown on Jul 6, 2008 10:54 PM EDT up 0 recs

Edwards' arm strength

I’m not trying to rip his arm strength. He can make all the throws, but his arm strength is below average for an NFL starting QB. If you lined up the 32 guys who will be starting next year and told them to all to throw a bunch of routes, Edwards’ passes would get their slower than most.

At the combine, they clock how fast all the QBs throw the ball. Edwards had one of the weaker arms. Trent threw 55.2 MPH. It was slower than every other drafted QB at the 2007 draft. Granted Kevin Kolb only threw a tenth of an MPH faster, but he isn’t known for arm strength either.

Edwards has decent touch on his deep ball, but he has to put a lot of air underneath it, which causes the ball to get there a little slower than you would like. It won’t hurt him too much, but might lead to an extra pass break up or two on deep balls. Most importantly, his average arm strength forces him to lead his WRs more and read defenses better than someone with a stronger arm.

Since when did saying somebody has a “merely adequate” arm is looked at as some big knock. There are only 32 starting QBs in the NFL and if you don’t have one of the 10 best arms in the league, you have average arm strength. If you don’t have a top 20 arm, you have adequate arm strength. Sorry, but that is where Edwards is. He has plenty of other tools to help him excel despite his just OK pass velocity.

by kaisertown on Jul 6, 2008 10:50 PM EDT up 0 recs

Interesting point

When people say that he has a below-average arm strength, that’s compared to the 32 starting quarterbacks… not below-average for all QBs in football. (adding in CFL, Arena, college, etc.)
And don’t forget, Culpepper is probably still in the top 10 QBs for arm strength – and he doesn’t even have a team! Arm strength alone certainly doesn’t get you the job.

Come to think of it, that top 10 arm strength list may still have Brett Favre in it; and he’s not playing either this year.

by Krenn on Jul 7, 2008 1:39 AM EDT up 0 recs

So is Jeff George

by Ron From NM on Jul 7, 2008 8:44 AM EDT up 0 recs

More importantly

Can he throw through the wind in December and January.

by Joe P. on Jul 7, 2008 10:12 AM EDT up 0 recs

Edwards

How can there possibly be a glowing montage of the most inept QB in the league last season as far as producing TD drives goes? Hopefully after next year, he’ll deserve one, but Buffalo’s starting QB played some of the worst QB the Bills have ever seen in 2008. Save the tribute videos for when he proves he’s better than Todd Collins.

Never forget 56-10. Revenge.

by SuperFan82 on Jul 6, 2008 4:19 PM EDT 0 recs

a) Edwards wasn’t the most inept QB in the league last season as far as producing TD drives goes. He shares that honor with J.P. Losman.

b) The tribute videos aren’t exactly “tributes”, save the highlight video.

c) Relax. Optimism is allowed, even for you. :)

by Brian Galliford on Jul 6, 2008 5:31 PM EDT up 0 recs

John Beck was worse than either

He played in five games, and produced two TD drives – both in the fourth quarter of the last game of the season. And he had two fumbles returned for touchdowns against him…

Even when you throw in field goals, he only had four scoring drives all year out of 42 total drives.

by Krenn on Jul 6, 2008 7:56 PM EDT up 0 recs

Beck's a fair point...

...at least the Fish gave themselves a fallback plan by drafting Henne. We, on the other hand, ignored Edwards’ poor play and our fans put up tribute videos about his 4-games-started-with-a-TD-out-of-9 rookie season…optimism is fine as long as there’s some honest facts becking it up. All the honest facts in Edwards’ case point towards it being a major accomplishment if he develops into mediocre next season…hardly anything I want to see set to music.

Never forget 56-10. Revenge.

by SuperFan82 on Jul 7, 2008 8:35 AM EDT up 0 recs

Glad to see your still alive Brian,

thought we had lost ya for a minute. I like the vids on Sunday. It pumps me up.

The bloggerformelyknownasBigBaddBubbaJ

by NYTXFAN on Jul 6, 2008 9:59 PM EDT 0 recs

He forgot about the jets!

did anyone notice how he was talking about the team in the AFC East and he forgot that the jets were in the division? he was trying to think of the 4th team but he forgot! haha that is great. I am the same way. I

We finally got a QB who can read a defense, take a hit, and doesn’t make too many mistakes. Lets go Buffalo! If we can get Marshawn Lynch involved in the passing game this team could go 11-5 or even 12-4

by buffaloboy90 on Jul 7, 2008 4:34 PM EDT 0 recs