r/OhioStateFootball • u/lhcvg • 20h ago
General Is the talk about Sayin getting rattled under pressure overblown?
SImilar to the "System Quarterback" critique, I've long had an issue with hand-waving a QB into the bucket of being somehow less capable because they get rattled under pressure, in that it seems WAY overused, even if true.
To my mind, I think of a QB getting rattled in the old-school sense of what they used to call "hearing footsteps", or else where the guy just melts at the slightest whiff of anything but a pristine pocket around him--no qualms there, and examples abound at all levels of course.
On the other end of the spectrum, you then have the guys who give zero F's and will stand there to make the throw like they enjoy getting hit and the challenge--a small group, I'd say, but sure I grant the point.
But then you have what I think is the bast majority of these guys, where at some point all of us will end up crumbling a bit when we detect a 1,000-odd pounds of meat coming straight for us like we're a miscellanous ungulate caught on open ground by a group of hungry felines somewhere--one sympathizes! Point being, my comp has long been Brady in Super Bowl 42 against that NASCAR Package: he had guys in his face all night long, was screaming at his line the whole night, and could barely get anything good going, BUT I fail to see a whole lot he could have actually done differently across the whole game.
My sympathy for Sayin is that I feel like the times he get pilloried for crumbling are when his line either gets circumvented or breaks down, and he's got nowhere to go, where of course it's not going to be perfect back there. When I see these games where Sayin struggles, I keep going back to him not having any great answers open to him in the moment.
Or am I an apologist for something I'm discounting?