Let's start my pre-season roster analysis with the most important spot on the roster, QB1. Victor and Micah believe in Jason Campbell, and I want to believe, but I'm going to lay out the facts as I see them, which is that Jason Campbell is fairly average, and at this point in his career has upside but not a ton of it.
Since Mark Rypien led the Redskins in passing for 5 consecutive years in the early 1990s, no Skins QB has led the team in passing for more than 3 consecutive years. To put that awful stat in perspective, The Redskin's NFC East rivals return QBs who are all currently passing or already passed that mark: McNabb (9), Manning (4), and Romo (3). Despite the best attempts of Snyderatto, Jason Campbell is poised to join Patrick Ramsay and Gus Frerotte as QBs since Rypien to lead the team 3 consecutive years.
So who is Jason Campbell?
Campbell was drafted in 2005 out of Auburn, a team widely considered to have been shafted out of the BCS title game despite an undefeated season out of the SEC. Although Campbell came away with many accolades including SEC offensive player of the year and Sugar Bowl MVP, it is difficult to separate his output from that of the team as a whole, which featured 3 future NFL running backs: Ronnie Brown, Cadillac Williams, and Kenny Irons.
Campbell's senior season set the Auburn record for completion percentage, but despite his arm strength and athleticism he didn't excel at throwing deep or moving with the ball. Campbell's greatest strength going into the draft was his talent, raw athleticism, size, and future upside. With that in mind, the Redskins traded up to take him in the 1st round, the 3rd QB taken in that draft.
In hindsight, the 2005 QB class was average at best. The #1 pick, Alex Smith, has been a bust and the only 2 starting QBs besides Campbell in 2009 will be Kyle Orton and Aaron Rodgers, who went 1 pick before Campbell in the draft. Therefore its tough to debate where Campbell was selected or whether the amount of draft picks the Redskins used to trade up to get him.
How is Campbell progressing as an NFL QB?
Campbell has increased his completion percentage, yards, and TDs every season in the NFL. The yards and the TDs are a function of more games and pass attempts, but the increase in completion percentage is a positive. In 2008, he was 15th overall in completion percentage while also limiting his interceptions to 6, tops among all QBs playing more than 12 games. Unfortunately his accuracy and conservative play also limited both his yards and TDs. Campbell finished with the lowest amount number of TD passes for a QB who started every game. In terms of yards per passing attempt, Campbell surpassed only Marc Bulger and Kyle Orton of starting QBs.
Forecasting Campbell for 2009
Campbell's traits such as conservative approach, high completion percentage, good arm, and low propensity for interceptions, combined with his second year in the offense, perfect age and experience in the NFL, plus 3-4 reliable receivers means two things:
This should be Campbell's best year.
Campbell is relatively easy to forecast because his numbers have not been very volatile, good or bad. He is what he is.
So barring injury to him or the O-Line he is probably good for 3600 yards and 18 TDs with 10 Ints. These are serviceable numbers but nothing more than average in today's NFL, particularly because with his low career yards/attempt it will require a lot of passing plays to put up these numbers.
Grade: C
Reasoning: Campbell cannot win games on his own. He needs a decent O-Line, a consistent rushing game, and talent at receiver to improves his numbers. He also needs the defense to play well to keep the score low, because he has not shown the explosiveness to win high-scoring games. At best he could evolve his short passing game into a 2008 Chad Pennington, high completion percentage with low turnovers, while also using his arm strength to hit deep passes every once in awhile, something Pennington struggles at.
