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Owners just need to show patience

Staff photo by CLIFF McBRIDE

Freeman, who at 21 years, nine months and 26 days, will be the youngest quarterback to start a game for the Bucs.

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By ROY CUMMINGS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 8, 2009

TAMPA - It was' in the wake of a typically long day at the scouting combine several years back when Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh sat down to talk football with a small audience of young NFL executives.

After a while, the subject matter turned to quarterbacks, and in due time Walsh was asked his opinion about how long a team needs to get a true evaluation of a quarterback's ability, particularly one drafted in the fist round.

Walsh's answer: 18 starts.

After 18 starts, Walsh reasoned, a pattern is established and a team can usually tell whether its quarterback has the ability to win consistently or is the kind who will forever make the crippling mistakes that result in mediocrity.

It is a theory that has proved out time and again over the years, and it is worth noting today, because this Throwback Sunday is the day the Bucs embark on the Josh Freeman Era.

Freeman makes his first start today, and while the Bucs and their fans are as eager to know what they have in Freeman as they are to see him play, Walsh's philosophy suggests it will be next year before they will know for sure.

It is apparent that the buzzword that should accompany Freeman into the lineup today is patience, and that point certainly has not been lost on anyone inside the Bucs organization.

During one interview last week, Bucs coach Raheem Morris used the word patience three times in response to questions about Freeman, who is clearly the key to whatever the future holds for the team.

"The whole thing with him is just patience," Morris said of Freeman, who at 21 years, nine months and 26 days, will be the youngest quarterback to start a game for the Bucs.

"It's a matter of letting him develop into that guy that he's going to become," Morris added. "You really just have to let him go through the process."

It will be an interesting process, of course. There will be times when the process is agonizingly painful, times when Freeman may look nothing like the answer to the Bucs' problems.

That's all a part of it, though. At least it was for the likes of Peyton Manning, Eli Manning and Troy Aikman. Each of them struggled with consistency during their earliest starts.

Freeman will no doubt do the same. That's why Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is one who believes that 18 starts might not even be enough to accurately judge the abilities of a quarterback like Freeman.

"I'm not saying he won't play well (early on), but if you look back at guys like Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman, you'll see that their third year is when they really started to play well," Rodgers said.

Third year? That will require serious patience. Do the Bucs have it? It seems that they do. The development of a franchise quarterback like Freeman is something the Bucs' owners have been calling for in the past years.

In fact, they fired former coach Jon Gruden earlier this year in part because he never would take a plunge like this. Now that Morris and General Manager Mark Dominik have, look for the Glazers to exercise the necessary patience.

And not just with Freeman. Being patient with Freeman means being patient with the people who are grooming him and with those who have entrusted the Bucs' offense to him. We're talking, of course, about Morris and Dominik.

Both have made some big mistakes this year. More are sure to come. But until the Bucs know whether Freeman is indeed a franchise quarterback, it would be an even bigger mistake to pull his support staff out from under him.

Because beliefs, philosophies and systems usually change under such circumstances, promising young quarterbacks are sometimes ruined by an owner's desire to make changes in the chain of command above them.

That's the last thing Freeman needs. Don't be surprised if the Bucs' owners exercise the same amount of patience with Morris and Dominik that they exercise with Freeman.

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