Pats run their version of it to perfection.

I posted some thoughts similar to this recently in another thread. I will just cut and paste them here as they touch on some of the things you have mentioned.

I agree that spread offense guys "have proven" to be disasterous in the pros, I think its over-stating it to say "it’s very simple, pro style offense QBs in college make good pros QBs". It’s not that simple at all. There are no hard and fast rules or laws about how this works. If a team ran a spread correctly at the pro level, a spread college QB would be much more likely to succeed in it. Nobody used the wildcat until Miami had the nerve to try it and now everyone uses it. The NFL’s standard offensive philosophy has changed many times over the years, and it will change again. Let’s face it, many of the best high school athletes are being recruited into spread programs. The NFL risks losing a lot by writing them all off and only seriously considering the dwindling few who played in Pro style systems.

Sorry if I didn’t pay attention to your previous posts but we do in fact seem to have similar thoughts. The way I see things and correct me if I am wrong , is that Indy seems to run the closest thing to a spread offense and they seem to be quite effective in doing it. I agree that it is wrong to some degree to assume these players cant play effectively in the NFL. One name the keeps creeping in my mind is Dan Lefevour from CMU. He seems to have similar attributes to Tebow in leadership qualities and intangibles, as well as being used to playing in cold weather.
I guess what got me thinking about all this was finding a decent prospect in rounds 2-4. I fear all the busts at QB that have crippled franchises for years. Other positions seem to be less devastating when they don’t realize their supposed potential but QB ssems to be devastating to an organization when wrong.

You may be right on and I grant that the QB running in that offense is not ideal by any stretch. What I am thinking about is that the trend in college is towards a spread offense but that has not, up to this point been a good thing for these kids in the NFL. I would think there would be a way to facilitate their development in the NFL.
 Alot of these kids can play football but need teams to take advantage of their skills. Even QBs in a traditional offense that come into the league are “given” 2-3 years to develop, why is there no way to grrom these spread QBs as well. There just seems to be a lag time as the NFL figures out a way to take advantage of these players skills and integrate them into the NFL.

such as the way that the Pats run it. The problem with most college spreads is that the QBs tend to take the vast majority of their snaps from the shotgun and virtually none under center, which just won’t fly at the NFL level. Chase Daniels was taking snaps 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage at the 1 yd line and would typically struggle in any sort of short yardage situations at MO. Having seen him on a regular basis living in St Louis, he’s not going to amount to anything more than a journeyman backup.

The athletes are so much bigger and faster in the NFL and the blitzes and coverages more complex, it makes for a larger adjustment for strictly spread/option QBs transitioning to the NFL. Ultimately, it boils down to what’s between the ears and whether you have the physical gifts necessary to succeed in the NFL.