As they should be, all eyes were on first round rookie quarterback Josh Rosen. Today I’ll be reviewing Rosen’s performance against the New Orleans Saints. On his second throw, it felt like a good performance was on the way. You don’t usually say that on an incompletion. The ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage. Rosen reached out and batted the ball down. It was a heedy play by the rookie and a sign of things to come.

Throw 1: Rookie makes it look routine

On his third throw, Rosen made a routine play that many young quarterbacks would panic in a similar situation. On a play-action drop back, Rosen had “color flash” off of the right side of the defense. Some quarterbacks might drop their eyes and panic even with a clean pocket in front of them.

Rosen keeps calm, climbs the pocket and delivers a strike to Chad Williams.

Throw Two: the Touchdown

On the touchdown pass to Christian Kirk, there was a lot to like by Rosen. Again I’ll preach patience here. You can see him scanning the field waiting for someone to get open. Nobody was open.

So Rosen threw Kirk open. There’s some zip on this throw. There’s even more accuracy on it.

Throw 3: the UCLA special

With more throws as the game goes along Rosen looks so much more decisive than he did a week ago. This next throw is something he was very good at during his tenure at UCLA. Manipulating the safeties with his eyes. Below the defense is in Cover 2 and the Cardinals run a classic Cover 2 beater, 4 verticals. Rosen knows where he wants to go the entire time.

Rosen looks left, holding the safety, and once the receiver clears the linebacker he bounces back right and hits Holmes in stride just before he gets to the safety.

He had a similar throw down the seam in the two minute drill just before the house. Rosen was dealing. I thought yesterday was so much better than last week. Rosen was avoiding sacks, not putting the ball in harms way, and just in better rhythm all-around. I didn’t think there was a reason for Rosen to play any more. He showed everything you’d want to see in the second quarter. Rosen was superb on Saturday.