Oregon fan's take on Herbert

Hey All! Loooooooong time member, who's more of a lurker these days. I keep an eye on the forums, and I'm getting excited about the possibility of Herbert being a Phin, and I think you should too. I've had season tickets to the ducks since before Mariota's freshmen year, and I've seen a lot of QB's come through that program. Let's break it down.

The Good:

1. Leadership - I've seen a lot of people here question Herbert's leadership. They shouldn't. The kid is a leader flat out. He came into the program underrated, with little chance to play going forward, but he did it because he loved the Ducks. The program was VERY termultuous while he was here, and he stayed dedicated to the Ducks throughout. Last season he had the option of leaving and being the likely #1 pick, but he passed it up largely because the program really needed him to stick around. He and Troy Dye were the undisputable leaders of that team. Where Mariota was a super nice guy, he was very even keel. The guys looked up to him for his talent, but he wasn't necessarily vocal. Justin is, and has been. He can lead a team if given the chance to earn the right.

2. Natural Talent - The kid has it in spades. He was a local Eugene kid who hurt his knee his senior year. As a result he didn't get looks from a lot of D1 programs despite having a great pedigree and the physical size. He came into the program small, and beefed up QUICK. The first thing I noticed was that the kid knows where to put the ball. I've never seen a true Freshment drop dimes on fades to the back of the endzone, but the did. He also has a ton of zip on his ball is capable of "pucker your butthole throws" over the middle through tight windows. It remains to be seen if he can do that at the next level when defendes are quicker, but he's put on absolute clinic's for over the middle passes at the D1 level. If you want to see a good game, look up the Cal game from 2018. Marcus had a bit better touch on short passes, and a better deep ball (I'd argue Herbert has an equal arm, it just wasn't part of our offense the past few years), but Herbert had by far the better intermediate passing game between the two. He was always tall, but he got BIG, which really suprised me. His frame didn't look like he had that much room to grow, but he went form a tall slender QB to a QB who is tough to bring down.

3. Smarts - The kid is brilliant. He played for 3 different head coaches, and 3 different offensive coordinatiors in 3 years. He has tons of honors for his brain and will be a doctor if the NFL thing doens't work out. Arguably, this could be a knock on him as he doens't NEED football. The kid has loved football his whole life and has been surrounded by the culture. A huge inspriation and mentor for him was former duck and current Cal coach Justin Wilcox. Wilcox mentored Herbert through high school and help build him into the player he is today.

4. Herbert played on teams that were MUCH inferior to Mariota's. I don't think people realize the talent gap between the teams under Chip to where we were when Cristobal took over. When Chip was coach (Mariota's time) we had some of the best receiver talent we ever had, and a coach that made them much better than they were. I've never seen receivers over-perform like we had during the Chip era. When our WR coach moved on in the flip, I was worreid that we'd see a drop off, but I wasn't expecting how BIG of a dropoff it was. When Chip left and Helfrich took over, the talent on this team cratered. We suffered a few years of it, and when Willy got here the cupboards were almost empty. Luckily the program has rectified that, but damn it was awful. Herbert had a fantastic career at Oregon without a single standout wide receiver. They're not TERRIBLE, but they're average at best. As a result, you'll see games where Herbert has insane stats for spreading the ball around to many receivers. This last season in particular was full of poor WR play. The group was very young, dropped a ton of balls, and had A LOT of injuries. Our top 2 WR's were out for half the season, and it didn't do Herbert any favors.

Criticisms

1. Disappears during games - A lot of people point to this in his scouting reports, and it's true. I've seen it happen a number of times. The thing is, it's really hard to pinpoint whether it's Justin's fault or the fault of the offensive coordinator. Arroyo (the OC) was very underwhleming in his play calls. He rarely got creative with Herbert, and it showed. Our offense has been pretty vanilla, to the point where a lot of people were relieved when he took his new HC gig. It COULD be that Herbert disappears, but judging by how other positions have been run, I personally think it was Arroyo. Herbert can run, but didn't run much under Cristobal and Arroyo...a sharp change from when Taggart ran the team. We came out 9/10 with a run up the middle on the first down of every possession. Honestly the Ducks are retooling themselves to be a smash-mouth SEC team, and I think the conservativeness really held Herbert back.

2. For every game that Herbert had incredible stats for spreading the ball around, he had games where he'd lock in on a receiver and force it. This was glaring in the later part of last season when we had particularly bad WR play, and one reliable weapon. Herbert got it done but it was clear he wasn't necesarily running the system, which go frustrating.

I'm honestly not sure how Herbert's career in the NFL will go, but the dude is brilliant, has incredible athletic tools at his disposal, and I'd really like to see what he can do on a quality team. He came in at the low point of our program, and will go down as an aboslute savior for returning his senior year. He's very unselfish, and universally loved. I'll be rooting for him no matter where he lands, but it would be a blast to see him on the Phins.

P.S. Remember when I said there was a dropoff in talent when Chip left? Look no further than the QB position. The Ducks struck gold with Herbert, but it should be noted that Tua was BEGGING to come to the Ducks. He was a HUGE Mariot a fan, and by extension a HUGE Duck fan. Our coach at the time (Helfrich) didn't like his attitude and didn't offer him, so he moved to Alabama. By the time Helfrich realized he didn't have a QB on the team, it was too late. Tua had moved on, the rest is history.