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Nothing is settled as I remember watching Stroud play the Pats in preseason and Bellichick totally schooled the kid and had him confused. Then he faced the Ravens and struggled against them too before he took off.
But I've been saying two things that remain true. Caleb struggles to run a normal offense from the pocket and has relied heavily on freelancing and backyard football. And to me that is because firstly he struggles to read defenses and secondly he's only six foot, so I believe the freelancing is because he may not be able to see over his line sometimes and that's why he holds the ball so long.
The warning signs were there in college in the Notre Dame game and many others. Once he gets behind and loses confidence, it can go downhill quickly. Pat was used to getting punched in the mouth in college and having to battle. Caleb was very much a front runner who pulled off his tricks when up big or against ovetmatched teams. That's why you saw him crying to his mom in the stands because he wasn't used to getting a reality check.
This preseason the signs were there. I'd often look at reports from camp on bears twitter just to see what's happening and Caleb was struggling big time but the excuses was "he's going against an elite defense". But the Bengals game against second and third stringers was a wakeup call as he was terrible but the media hyped up one throw and scramble for a td.
I'm sure he will grow the more he plays but the hype was way too much. Pat's debut was with backups on the road in snowy Denver facing Vonn Miller and co. And he looked a million times better than Caleb does right now.
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