Quadzilla (Joe Tarell) analyzes a simple question:
Why Josh Rosen will not be the starting QB in 2020 and beyond:
In the first of a two part series – we are going to see how disciplined our readers are… We want you to hold off on defending Josh in your comments and wait for part two where we will give the flip side of this argument; and yes that means you Kenny! Tell what else you don’t like about him and your opinion on why these factors will hinder his ability to lead the Dolphins.
He has been known to be difficult to coach, his college coach said he would take Darnold over Rosen. He was perceived as arrogant and spoiled rich kid, inquisitive to the point where he appears to think he is smarter than the coach, strong political opinions that might not sit well with teammates. He is known to ask why whenever a new play concept or offensive scheme is introduced.
In reality, Joshua Ballinger Lippincott Rosen might have gotten the “entitled” tag from birth. His great-great-great grandfather is Joseph Wharton, the namesake of the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. His father was a champion ice skater. His mother was captain of the Princeton lacrosse team. Josh was a nationally ranked youth tennis player. He grew up as a child of privilege in a house in L.A. valued at $8 million.
He has shown some immaturity including when he and some friends rearranged a neighbor's lawn ornaments in sexually suggestive positions. Since arriving at UCLA he has set off a social media firestorm over presidential politics, deleted at least one provocative post and been forced to apologize to the school, including after putting a blow-up hot tub in his dorm room and posting pictures on social media. And then there was his quote that in college “football and school don’t go together” and the more he tried to explain it the worse it sounded.
Not the strongest arm, evaluators before last year’s draft were very complimentary of his touch and anticipation but felt he would have trouble fitting the ball into tight windows and making the difficult throws in the NFL, though is somewhat of questionable review to some.
Build is weak and skinny, he has had injury problems in high school and college including a shoulder and multiple concussions, ran 4.92 40 and has shown poor mobility in the past, registering 53 sacks in his college career in 30 games started and 45 in 13 games with Arizona. He completed 42% of his passes when forced to move in college, though he did run for 138 yards at 6 yards a carry last year in AZ.
Started at UCLA as a freshman and they entered the season ranked 13th in the AP Poll, but lost three of their last four and finished unranked at 8-5, including losses in the final two games to USC and Nebraska who were also unranked.
UCLA finished 4-8 in 2016, 3-3 in the games Josh started before injuring his shoulder. He had surgery to repair damage and missed the second half of the season, returning in time to participate partially in spring practice.
UCLA finished 6-5 in the 2017 games he started, Josh sat out the bowl game, after another concussion, but it was never certain if he was still feeling the effects or was protecting his draft stock. The school said it was a 100% medical decision, but Rosen was quoted as saying, “I think players are just starting to realize they have a lot of power and they don't need to be exploited when it's to their detriment". It's just every single situation is unique, and I don't think you can lump them all together." Then later said "I want to do everything I can to play in this game, I love these guys. I would give anything to get another game after this."
His college record ends up as 17-13 in games he started and his coach, Jim Mora was fired before the final game of his final season. He left after 3 years as a true Junior after enrolling early and was 3 classes shy of a degree in Economics.
Rosen’s career statistics in college were mediocre with 61% completions, 59 TD’s to 26 Interceptions and a College Passer Rating of 139.9 with 20 fumbles. To put that into perspective, the career leader all time is Kyler Murray at 181.3 and Rosen would not be in the top 45 of players in last year’s ranking where both Murray and Tua Tagovailoa had 199+ ratings for the season.
His record last year at AZ was 3-10 with 11 TD’s, 14 interceptions, 55.2% completions and 2278 yards for a passer rating of 66.7, which was ranked 41st of passers with at least 100 attempts. He also had 10 fumbles. It was widely acknowledged that the AZ offensive line was weak and David Johnson ran for only 940 yards despite playing all 16 games, but this was a historically bad offense last year when they ranked 32nd in passing yards, 32nd in average per attempt, 32nd in points, and 32nd in total yards.
All of this points to someone who is not the future leader of an NFL franchise. What stands out and what else do you see that might prevent him from succeeding in the league?
