The Sports Corner

Why Casey Printers is a bad quarterback

Casey Printers was involved in one of the most interesting seasons in the past 20 years of BC Lion football.

In his second season, I remember going to a pre-season game where he absolutely dominated Edmonton. I thought to myself “damn, it’s too bad this guy won’t even play this year.”

Then something happened that Lions fans would get used to for the next few seasons– Dave Dickenson went down with a concussion. BC Place went silent. I looked around at the distraught expressions on the faces around me in the 7-11 section (at least the ones who weren’t too drunk to pay attention). I tried to tell people that the guy they were bringing in might be even better than Dickenson. No one believed me.

Printers broke tackle after tackle, hooked up with Geroy Simon in the endzone time after time and won game after game. That season ended with Printers winning the league’s Most Oustanding Player award. What was more interesting about that season was that after he was given that award, he didn’t even play in the Grey Cup game he had lead his team to, as Dickenson was healthy enough for the start.

Then, something went wrong. After barely cracking the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs’ practice roster, he came back to the CFL with Hamilton, where everyone expected him to dominate. Maybe he thought he was too good for the league, maybe he got lazy, or maybe someone died, because he was never the same.

Back with the Lions in 2010, fans were expecting big things from Printers, and good times at the temporary Empire Field. But so far, fans have only gotten the latter, as the Lions have gone 0-2 at their outdoor home. A main reason for that? Casey Printers is now a bad quarterback. Here are some reasons why.

• When Printers scrambles after his protection breaks down, he doesn’t keep his eyes downfield, which breaks off his ability to go through his progressions. He instead puts his head down to elude tacklers. A better grasp of good QB footwork would help, but Printers doesn’t have it. Once he puts his eyes back down field, it’s hard to know where the receivers are now, and even harder to time a throw to a route that has most likely been improvised after he’s scrambled.
• Printers throws the ball low roughly 80 per cent of the time. Maybe it’s the bigger ball in the CFL, maybe he’s trying to throw the ball too hard (because of my next point), or maybe it’s something else. This gets even worse on screen-passes which are almost always hitting turf. Sometimes it’s visible that he’s trying to correct the low passes on screen plays, but tries too hard and throws too high.
• Printers falls too in love with his primary option on passing plays. That’s normally Geroy Simon, who’s normally the guy in double-coverage. That would be fine, if Printers could start looking off safeties (something that is taught to high school quarterbacks). Instead, he keeps his eyes on the target the entire time and telegraphs passes. This works out once in a while, when the linebackers have blitzed and left the middle of the field open, but not when linebackers drop back into pass coverage and stare at the eyes of the quarterback. This is a main reason that Printers didn’t make it in the NFL