Is the NFL QB Position Evolving or Dissolving? Experts Debate

I gotta get your thoughts. Yesterday we had Warren Moon and Phil Simms on and John Gruden had made a comment this week saying that the game is not evolving, it's dissolving at the quarterback position and he's referencing quarterbacks not being prepared to read the complex defenses of today. As a guy who's been an offensive coordinator on numerous teams, a former NFL head coach, do you agree or disagree with that statement on where the game is today with the quarterback position? Well, the term dissolving also can be evolving. In John's case, it sounds like it's evolving or digressing. I don't think it is. I think it's as great a game as it's ever been. When it comes to the quarterback position, what you'll hear more about is progression reading as opposed to reading coverage and I think what you're seeing in a lot of places is I've always taught the quarterback that there's certain pre-snap and post-snap identifiers that can get you to the weakness of the coverage. A lot of coaches feel like the coverage is so complicated that there's no way for quarterbacks to read them but they give them progressions and when they give them progressions, the guy who might be wide open is the guy who's number four or five and the clock just runs out and I think that the teams you see progression read oftentimes are the teams with the most sacks and the object of the game is to get the quarterback to complete a throwing motion as fast as he can and you see that from the Bradys and the Montanas. You go back and the people, we had Gannon, the ball's gonna be out fast because we can find the weakness right away. I still believe you can just watching tape. That's why there's, when it's 11 on 11, there's exponential and variations that go on forever but I think that's where it all starts. Defense, the athletes are better, the speed of the game is better. It's harder to give the quarterback a quiet space to complete a throwing motion and really that's the object when it comes to the passing game is how can I get my guy to get the ball out as fast as he can and if the weakness of the coverage is number five in the progression, that makes it a little more difficult but that's where a lot of quarterback coaches have gone and it works for some and for others, they have different ways of doing it but I don't think the game's dissolving. I think it's just a beautiful game and you stand behind the quarterback in today's game, it just, as I say in the book, it just leaves you breathless. Do you agree that in what Warren Moon said yesterday, Warren said back in the day, one of the reasons that the completion percentages weren't where they are today is because the game is played more in space today. Back then, it was more of a vertical game. He thinks now because, like you just said, Coach, getting the ball out on time, checkdowns, being able to have, look at Tom Brady, he made a complete career out of those checkdowns, not with deep vertical passing. Are we in just in a different place today? Just the environment has changed for the quarterback. Yeah, I mean, it's all about how fast can he get the ball out of his hands and over the last generation of teams and the game of football, the bubble screens have just been overwhelming in terms of how many times a ball is thrown on or near the line of scrimmage. There just seems to be, and I can't, I don't have the data for it, but there just seems to be more and more of this going on that increases the percentage, but it's still zone coverage. You ought to be in the high 60s, maybe low 70s, in man coverage. If you convert 56, 57, 58% against man coverage, you're a high-end quarterback throwing the ball on the black of the plate.