[Quesadilla Joe]

From Albert Breer...

Spoiler!

1. I would not ignore DeShone Kizer’s strong spring in Cleveland. My sense is he’s proven to be the most talented quarterback on the roster and is right in the thick of the competition to be the team’s Week 1 starter.




With that in mind, I checked on Trubisky, Mahomes and Watson after six weeks in their teams’ offseason programs. Here’s what I found …

• Trubisky: The Bears rookie’s strides through May and June came in learning a lot of the basics. Through no fault of his own, Trubisky arrived with relatively little knowledge of defense in general or coverage in particular, and so he’s gotten a crash course in those areas and has made strides there. The other area of improvement came in the basics. At North Carolina, Trubisky got play calls from the sideline, didn’t take a single snap from center and never huddled. Early in OTAs, that was apparent. By the end, he was getting the hang of calling plays in the huddle and taking snaps. And he’s impressed with his accuracy and his movement skills—he doesn’t just run 4.6, he plays at 4.6, which should ease his growth once he gets on the field.

• Mahomes: Coming from Texas Tech, Mahomes probably had the furthest to go of these three, and so the best thing I heard about him out of Kansas City was something pretty simple—he doesn’t make the same mistake twice. Like Trubisky, Mahomes had to learn how to spit out a play call in the huddle, and towards the end of spring it was clear that he was starting to see the calls in a way where he could be thinking about the defense, rather than his own verbiage, as he broke it. And he’s done good work learning not only progressions, but also the why’s behind where he’s going with the ball based on what the defense is throwing at him. We said a few weeks ago that Mahomes won’t even be a consideration to play until he leaves the huddle thinking about the defense and not the offense. So these steps he’s taken are good ones.

• Watson: Tom Savage will enter camp as the Texans starter, but Watson is, as I understand it, way ahead of where the team expected him to be at the post-spring break. He’s made leaps over the past two months in his knowledge of the system, and ability to call plays and protections. Watson also has shown accuracy, arm, smarts and instincts in his on-field work. Another thing that’s been consistent coming out of Houston is that the quarterback room is a much healthier place than it was a year ago. Watson’s worth ethic has impressed and he’s easily fit in with Savage and Brandon Weeden, while pushing Savage in certain ways. The Texans don’t need their quarterback to be a superstar, so Savage still makes sense as the starter. But Watson has absolutely done all he can to affirm his spot as the team’s quarterback of the future.

So it’s easy to say in June, but so far, so good for those three. And if things are good for their teams, all this work these quarterbacks are doing will continue to happen in the background, which would be quite the departure from recent history.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/22/c...nfl-free-agent