If this isn’t as good a summary of the NFL’s frustration with the spread offense and its impact on evaluating college talent, I don’t know what is.
The spread offense has become the big thing in college football, but Mike Mayock said this is much to the dismay of NFL executives.
“I think what has gotten a lot more difficult on the evaluation side is the proliferation of the spread offense and what that means to evaluating at this level,” said Mayock, the draft expert for the NFL Network. “It’s not just the quarterbacks. It’s the running backs, their first step is lateral, crossing the quarterback’s face instead of downhill. It’s the tight end that’s never in line as a blocker, it’s the wide receiver that doesn’t run a route tree. It’s every position. It’s the left tackle, Jason Smith [of Baylor], who is in a 2-point stance 98 percent of the time…
Sounds like a problem. But here’s Mayock’s punch line.
So the NFL guys that I talk to on a daily basis are getting frustrated and I’m like, ‘It’s too bad guys because that spread offense is not going away.’”
Personally, I get a great deal of satisfaction out of anything that makes college football less of a minor league feeder system for the No Fun League, but, again, you can’t help but wonder if eventually this will have an effect on how college programs that run the spread in any of its variations attract the top offensive talent that believes it’s destined to play on Sundays.
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UPDATE: SI.com’s Don Banks reports there’s one silver lining – it’s easier to evaluate wide receivers in the spread. Hooray!
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