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About the Author: Jon Ledyard

Avatar Of Jon Ledyard
Jon Ledyard is PewterReport.com's newest Bucs beat writer and has experience covering the Pittsburgh Steelers as a beat writer and analyzing the NFL Draft for several draft websites, including The Draft Network. Follow Ledyard on Twitter at @LedyardNFLDraft

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Many NFL Draft analysts believed the Bucs would address the quarterback position as early as the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, with a few even tossing them Jordan Love in the first round of their mocks.

We here at Pewter Report always advised against that thinking, believing the earliest the team would likely address the position was on day three of the draft. Even that didn’t happen however, as the team didn’t opt to draft a quarterback at all, instead standing pat with Tom Brady, Blaine Gabbert and Ryan Griffin until undrafted free agency kicked off.

Signing San Diego’s Reid Sinnett after the draft is a move many will consider simply adding a camp arm, especially considering that Brady will likely get a few maintenance days off this August. There may be some truth to that, but considering that Brady will be 43 in a few months and that none of the Bucs current backups are options as future starters, every young quarterback the team brings in over the next few years will be worth examining to see if they have any developmental potential.

A one-year starter at FCS San Diego, Sinnett made the most of his single season opportunity by completing 67 percent of his passes and throwing 32 touchdowns while running for six more and catching one. At almost 6-4, 230 pounds with some of the longest arms of any quarterback in the class and nearly 10 1/2-inch hands, Sinnett certainly fits the typical size profile of a Bruce Arians quarterback.

There isn’t a lot of Sinnett tape out there, so any conclusion I can draw about his game is going to be somewhat limited. I watched his makeshift Pro Day and his FCS playoff performance against Northern Iowa, a 17-3 loss in which Sinnett threw three interceptions to zero touchdowns.

On his pro day footage, Sinnett looked comfortable mechanically, but may have been over-emphasizing some of that because the ball did not jump out of his hand much. Some passes dipped and were thrown a little late, forcing receivers to stop and work back for them. Pretty consistent ball placement though, which you expect in that setting.

San Diego’s passing attack revolves around a lot of play action throws and receiver screens. For most of the game against Northern Iowa, Sinnett did little beyond the line of scrimmage in the passing game, and almost nothing over five yards in the air. Questionable decisions as both a passer and as a pocket manager littered the game tape.

Pocket presence is a big, recurring issue with Sinnett. While I don’t see panic in his game persay, Sinnett still abandons clean pockets too often, even if he’s often looking to create out of structure. There were several examples against Northern Iowa where his pocket movement made life more difficult for his blockers, or where he needlessly abandoned play structure to get outside the pocket.

On top of the pocket movement woes, Sinnett’s decision-making as a passer is equally questionable. Despite the fact that this defensive end is off the ball pre-snap, Sinnett fails to account for him in coverage and throws an interception right into the defender’s gut.

That’s one of the uglier interceptions you’ll ever see. A little later in the game Sinnett threw another pass that could have joined the one above, but the defender dropped it.

As a one-year starter, some of these concerns aren’t really surprising for Sinnett, whose field vision and decision-making must improve if he’s going to have any shot of making it in the NFL. Misses the tight end wide open down the seam on a blown coverage here.

On top of the concerns from the neck up, Sinnett has just average physical tools and the ball will dip on him when he tries to drive passes into higher degree of difficulty windows. Throwing the deep comeback to the far hash here, Sinnett skips the ball in to his receiver despite perfect pocket conditions.

One of the big mistakes that fans often make when evaluating arm strength in the NFL is applauding whenever a quarterback makes a long throw down the field. It can be an impressive throw, but the mere ability to throw the ball far from a clean platform doesn’t separate a quarterback from most of his counterparts in the NFL, unless we are talking about a Mahomes-like distance. Most quarterbacks in the NFL don’t struggle to throw far, but many struggle to throw with ideal velocity and pace on the ball.

Unfortunately for Sinnett, concerns may lie in both areas. He can throw for distance, but it isn’t consistent and, for a quarterback that didn’t throw deep a ton against Northern Iowa, there are some ugly underthrows.

That’s a clean platform, give-it-all-you-got ball that ends up underthrown and picked off about 55 yards from where Sinnett throws it. 45 yards from line of scrimmage. It’s not the end of the world, but the margin for error is already small as a downfield passer.

In fairness, here’s one that Sinnett drops in nicely on the move. Good coverage, but it’s a money throw.

So Sinnett’s arm is just ok, and he’s well-behind where you’d like a quarterback to be in terms of mental processing, vision and decision-making. What is there to like?

Two things stand out. Sinnett is accurate in the short game, with good ball placement to lead receivers into YAC on swings and screens. If he were forced into action soon, Sinnett might be able to run an extremely conservative game plan and execute the simple stuff ok.

He’s also a solid athlete with a little improvisational ability to his game. Sinnett can get outside of structure and still feel comfortable enough to keep his eyes downfield and find outlets at the last second.

Sinnett does a decent job of feeling edge pressure and stepping up in the pocket while continuing to survey his options. I don’t think he plays scared even though his pocket movement can be questionable. I’ve seen him hang tough with hits coming in the pocket if he knows where to go with the ball.

Sinnett reminds me of Devlin “Duck” Hodges, who saw the field for the Steelers due to injuries this past season in Pittsburgh. Physically average, bouts of almost unbelievably bad decision-making and field vision, that random ability to drop a perfect vertical throw in the bucket and only able to survive in a scheme that is incredibly conservative and asks very little of them as a passer. Right now, anyway. Both are also just gutsy and athletic enough to intrigue coaches despite their other limitations.

The odds are seriously stacked against any undrafted quarterback becoming even a decent backup, so Sinnett clearly has a long way to go to get there. In only one season as a starter he did some good things, but I’m not sure he’s good enough right now to beat out Gabbert or Griffin, and there may not be enough upside in his game for the Bucs to commit to a long-term development. Everyone will be watching Sinnett closely in camp, but the tape suggests keeping the expectations low and hope that the flashes of moxie he showed as a one-year starter blossom into something more.

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