He did have huge incentives to try to get Mark to stay, but that doesn't mean he was wrong. It could be that his own self-interest lined up with what would give Mark the best chance of succeeding in the NFL (or it might not; NFL scouts would probably have a better idea of how much another year of college starting time would have helped him in the NFL.) Personally, I think Mark made the right choice for his own self interest. If you could lock in that $50m contract with $28m guaranteed, you're set for life, period. If Mark had suffered a major injury playing one more year of free football, he would have fallen out of the first round and lost tens of millions of dollars. So it's a no-brainer to declare as soon as possible if you're viewed as likely to be among the top picks overall, at least under the old CBA.
That's what you want to see through 4 weeks of preseason. Him getting more comfortable week by week. Then sit him on the bench until week 14 or so and get him in a blowout or meaningless game. _
It's preseason, and wasn't facing their top personnel...but I liked what I saw. Hopefully he won't get thrown into the deep end barring an utter disaster at QB, but it'll be interesting to see what he's got over the next 2-3 years once Geno is gone (assuming Geno ever plays another down for this team and isn't "gone" already).
He got lucky that a DB dropped an endzone INT and a strip fumble was recovered by us. After that he played well. Looked like he was actually scanning the field and not just locking onto guys. That's so important. If he can learn to read NFL defenses then he's our franchise QB. Go Bryce!
With Geno out and Fitz unlikely to lead us to a SB, I'd start Petty game one. Through away any expectations for the season and let the guy learn by fire. Like Bowles said, Petty ain't learning anything holding the clip board. He'd be light years better next season having played for real this season. Don't laugh.....Geno was actually starting to look like a QB and that would never have happened if he'd been on the bench the last 2 years. Oh wait....forgot we just dumped $50M into a win now secondary. Never mind.
