Josh Rosen’s first NFL work was rough according to Pro Football Focus

After the dust settled at University of Phoenix Stadium in the Arizona Cardinals 24-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the question on everyone’s mind was... Can we get Josh Rosen some help, please?

The Cardinals offensive line was bad, the wide receivers lacked any sort of play making ability and the entire offense looked like a bad team full of rookies.

That’s why when the grades on the game came out from Pro Football Focus, it was a little surprising to see Rosen’s so low.

The idea behind grading is that each player’s grade is independent of those around him and that the grade occurs in a vacuum.

That’s also been one of the biggest criticism of the PFF model from fans and players alike, is that how can you grade something when you don’t know the assignment.

However, Rosen’s work on Saturday was not good, let’s not sugarcoat that at all, but much if not all the blame could fall on those around him.

So, when PFF released their grades for all five first round rookies, it was a bit surprising to see Rosen at the bottom, by a big margin:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-ranking-first-round-qbs-after-preseason-week-1

Rosen’s score is indicative of his play, but even PFF acknowledges that much of that was because he was playing from behind at the start of each snap:

This is pretty much as you’d expect with the possible exception of Josh Rosen. I think he has been given something of a pass because of the issues with low snaps and pressure.

The other odd comment from the article was the question of would Rosen or Bradford see much clean work, where Rosen was above the NFL average, this season:

This was Rosen’s biggest saving grace. From a stable pocket, he was at least above average for an NFL quarterback and ranked third here. The real question is, given the Cardinals concerns on the OL, will he either he (or Sam Bradford) see many clean throws?

Again, it seems like the issue was more the backup offensive lines inability to do any type of quality blocking, and should have no meaning for the work of Bradford or Rosen when it comes to the regular season.

This was an odd article, even if the grading made sense from an on the field stand point.