Meeting the Opponent – Week 5: Alabama Crimson Tide
By Evan Ertel
What about Jalen Milroe does or does not make you think that he can be a championship-level QB for Alabama?
Can he be a championship-level QB? Sure. I think he’s better than Jake Coker and Greg McElroy were, and they won championships. It’s going to require some luck, though, and much better defensive play than Alabama has gotten from their defenses the last 4 years.
Milroe is a bit of a roller coaster.
He’s one of the most athletic QBs I’ve ever seen. In terms of pure speed, he’s probably faster than every running back and most receivers on the team. At 6’3″ 220, that’s terrifying. As a passer, he’s deadly accurate on the deep ball and throws some really, really pretty passes on deep sideline darts.
The problem is that he hyper-locks onto a receiver way too often and has thrown a number of really bad interceptions into double coverage… And even worse, his pocket presence just isn’t great. He doesn’t trust his protection (fairly or unfairly) and often bails to the right, essentially dooming the play to become a 2-yard scramble. And when blitzed, he tends to default to trying to dodge the blitzers before looking downfield to make a pass, rather than just getting the ball out to beat the blitz.
In other words, you get a lot of big, awesome plays… And you get a lot of stalled drives.