It's mechanics. It's not that he doesn't know it's an issue. He's aware of it. But whenever he gets pressured he reverts back to his "habits". Much like anyone who has bad habits that they're trying to break, he's worked on it and struggles with it. I've seen him check down to receivers, I think it's a combination of locking on some but also LSU has a lot of quick passes that involve going straight to 1 WR. I will say this, after watching the Saints game today I feel a lot better about Lee. Even Drew Brees makes bad throws sometimes. And that Jag's QB looked horrible. I think Lee is playing about as well as can be expected of him. He's gonna be off some games, which is why it's doubly important that WR's catch the passes that hit them in the hands. I'm just glad his off night was against Kentucky. Hopefully he can be coached up from this point.
This is all that needs to be said about Lee's throwing mechanics. When he steps up, he fires rockets. When he throws bombs, usually under pressure, they're underthrown with too much air under them.
How much diffrent would this conversation be if the six or seven passes that hit receivers right in the hands had been caught? What about the twenty yard strike that hit shep in both hands and passed straight through? I remember in one of sheps first games, maybe his first as a receiver, he caught the ball across the middle of the field. It was short crossing route. He was hit hard and cut damn near a flip. The anouncer said either welcome to college football or welcome to the sec. I remember it well. I think that has stuck with him. When he's in traffic he stiffens up expecting the hit. He dropped four with atleast two being first downs. As far as lee throwing the ball, you're right, when he steps up in the pocket he throws a tight , accurate pass. When he rolls out he throws the ball before setting his feet. Sort of reminds me of the pass farve made aginst the saints that was intercepted on their superbowl season. Lee didn't seem to have the time, or he didn't feel he had the time, last Saturday. When he's pressured he rushes his passes. He throws the ball without being set. He needs a short dump off outlet every throw so he feels he has an option to get rid of the ball. Maybe that would help him.
I was given a lot of flack last week for bringing up some of JL's "flaws" at QB. He played well saturday. He had several passes droped, but did not throw them in the ideal spots either. However, our entire Offense, including the OC and playcalling, looked like they were asleep. The passing game worries me IF our OL does not block well and JL comes under consistent pressure. However, my biggest concern is how long it took our running game to develop in the UK game. UK stacked the box, like everyone else will, and challenged us to throw. Our OL definately lost the battle in the first half. From what I saw Saturday, Florida is going to be even stouter in the run defense and has the athletes to apply pressure. JL is the starter and I don't mind inserting JJ if he really can help the team, but I do not like how we change the offensive package when he comes in. We immediately went to 1 RB, no FB, and started that option garbage. Our offense has been vanilla enough that JJ can run the same package/offense that JL has been running, yet use his legs if the pocket collapses, which is JJ's advantage. UF is a different monster defensively than we have seen all season and could cause us a lot of problems if the offense starts as slowly as they did against UK.
Could have been a number of things. Anxiety. The wind. Over-compensating for wind. Or simply, he just had an "off day". Tom Brady said it best last night in an interview on ESPN: (on having an "off day" passing and on INT's) "No matter how hard you work during the week, sometimes you just have an off day....when you throw the ball enough times, you're bound to get picked off. It happens."
Yeah. He does have a bad habbit with it. I mean, sometimes you can't help it (i.e. when you're under pressure, etc.) and some QB's throw off their back foot if throwing a fade/drop it in over the top in the corner of the endzone... but yeah, I'd like to see him stepping into more of his throws.
This is what I am hoping for. When even my wife noticed that Lee was looking more like his old self, I said to her, "Every QB has a bad outing" and hopefully saturday was Lee's. You dont have to throw 2 or 3 int's to hava bad game. So hopefully, Lee just had a bad game. I will say that things could have been different without all the dropped passes, but at the same time, I saw a different Lee saturday than I saw the first 4 games. Again, hopefully that WAS his BAD game.
I agree, I saw a little more of the "old Lee" vs the new and improved JL. I hope it was just a case of having a bad day at the office. I do NOT think it was because JJ was back on the team and probably going to receive PT. JL should be able to handle the competetion as a 5th year senior and having JJ back should make JL focus more and he should worry less about JJ, since Miles already said JL is the starter. I also like the idea of having an outlet for him, however, that would require him to consider throwing the ball to someone other than his primary receiver.
