re: NFL GM wonders why NFL teams aren't designing offenses to help spread QBs

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At Baylor, quarterback Bryce Petty was one of the most prolific passers in the country. He led the Bears to two conference championships in his last two seasons on campus and holds 31 Baylor passing records and has the lowest percentage of interceptions per pass in NCAA history.

But NFL teams were wary of Petty. Because Baylor played a “spread” offense that forced defenses to fan out across the field, making them unable to disguise anything, many scouts worried he would struggle to master the NFL game. He had to wait until the 103rd pick before the New York Jets scooped him up. Petty said he was “upset and frustrated that I was thrown away like I couldn’t learn it,” he said. “I’m like ‘you’ve got to give me a chance a little bit.’”

Petty admits to grappling with tasks such as hearing and calling the play, identifying defensive backs in coverage and identifying which player in the defensive backfield was the “mike” linebacker, the central part of the defense whose location teams base their offensive line protections on. “As crazy as it sounds, at Baylor, we did not point out the ‘mike’ linebacker,” Petty said.

Petty was unfamiliar with making adjustments to the play or the formation before the snap.

“Honestly, I wish I’d done a little bit more as far as being proactive to get into a pro style [offense],” he said, singling out the need to decipher fronts or coverages. “It was things I have never seen before.”

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