Why the 49ers Replaced Rich Scangarello with Brian Griese
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Quietly, the 49ers replaced quarterback coach Rich Scangarello this offseason with former NFL quarterback Brian Griese, who never has coached in his life. Now, Scangarello is the offensive coordinator at the University of Kentucky.
Why did the 49ers make the switch?
Scangarello went on a podcast with Greg Cosell this offseason and explained how he evaluates draft-eligible quarterbacks. Here's what Scangerallo said. Tell me if he sounds like someone who wanted to coach Trey Lance:
Q: What properties in a college quarterback are teams looking for in the NFL?
SCANGARELLO: "Bottom line is do they have the toughness to stand in the pocket when they're getting hit and deliver when it matters most? If you cannot do that, and you cannot show me that on your college tape, I find it very difficult for you to be a top-tier quarterback in the NFL. I would say that's where most people in the evaluation process run into problems when they don't really take that one trait, in a contested pocket, how a quarterback plays a game in college football, and really evaluates those moments in a guy's career."
Q: In college football, there are lots of quarterbacks who don't work out of muddy, noisy pockets very often. You and I talked about Trevor Lawrence last summer, and in going through all of his tape, there were just 34 plays in which he actually worked through a muddy, noise pocket, and that's obviously not a large sample size to make a judgement about his ability to do that at the NFL level.
SCANGARELLO: "If you evaluate someone how they throw on air, or if they're in a system in college where the coach is telling them where to throw the ball before the snap and they know a small amount of plays, what's good against certain coverages, those things don't really mean anything to me in the evaluation process. If you're watching a (Pro Day) workout that a guy has been through 20 times and his coach has taught him the routine and you think that is going to determine his value in this league, I think you're going to miss a lot of the time. That's not real football. And these kids have been doing it since they were 15-years old and know how to master those things. There are no variables -- they're just throwing on air. You show me a guy, all his clips throughout his career, where they take it in the chin and not turn it down and make good decisions, or when the pocket is pushed on them -- that's the league. That's what it takes in the NFL. If you can't do that, you're not going to get that overnight in the NFL, and that's always going to be where you miss on a guy. If you can't see that in a player and there's not a lot of it on tape -- let's say Trevor (Lawrence) for example, and there have been other guys, Dwayne Haskins comes to mind, I think he was touched like 18 times in his senior year. It was ridiculous how few times he was in a contested pocket. If you're going to overlook those things, then you're going to have a huge margin for error with a miss on a guy."
Q: How do you evaluate quarterbacks who went to smaller schools such as Josh Allen and Trey Lance?
SCANGARELLO: "One of my favorite things about quarterbacks historically, the mid-major to smaller Power 5 schools -- those over the history of time have been some of the best players in this league. And when you can take a quarterback who's a multi-year starter at a mid-major for example, and he can take them a level that they've never season -- let's say they're an average program, and then all of a sudden for two years they're winning conference titles or competing for it -- that tells me that quarterback has the ability to raise the level of everyone around him. For Josh Allen at Wyoming, the two years he was there, they won more games than probably ever in the history of that program. They had never had eight-win seasons. I think they'd had one or two in the whole history of the program. That tells me the guy is a winner and he has the ability to elevate the people around him. Those things are important to me."
Q: What other quarterback traits are non-negotiables for you?
SCANGARELLO: "If you have any aspirations of playing a guy Year 1, he better have been a multi-year starter in college. To me, the experiences and taking the snaps and what you do when you're in charge and banking those reps are so important. You come out, you're a one-year guy, it's very difficult for you to just jump in and play in the league. You just haven't played enough football to hone your craft. So I'm always looking for guys who have a lot of starts. Do they take care of the football in those moments when it could go sideways, or do they create positive plays? Do they make smart decisions in critical situations? How do they play in two-minute situations? There are guys I've evaluated in recent drafts where they're on such good teams at Ohio State or these other schools where maybe they don't even have a two-minute situation that really matters in their entire career. Give me a guy who has played a lot of one-score games and found a way to win, and show me in those situations how he is under duress."
Q: What do you think of Kenny Pickett?
SCANGARELLO: "You could throw him in the Mac Jones mold. He's a multi-year starter, he took Pitt to some real high-level play, he has been very good with the ball, he's tough, he's good under duress, he won big games in the clutch -- all those things bode well...What is the elite trait? Do you want a guy who throws it hard and 70 yards or a guy that runs really fast, or do you want a guy who throws with anticipation, on time, allows Y.A.C., processes, a natural leader, those qualities?"
Let's summarize what Scangerallo said he values:
1. A quarterback who faced heavy pressure in the pocket during college and wasn't a Pro Day wonder (i.e. not Lance. North Dakota State had terrific pass protection, and he had a phenomenal Pro Day).
2. A quarterback who elevated his program (i.e. not Lance. North Dakota State is the best program in the FCS. They compete for championships every year no matter who their quarterback is).
3. A quarterback who was a multi-year starter (i.e. not Lance. He started at North Dakota State in 2019, then played just one game in 2020 due to the pandemic, then he declared for the draft).
4. A quarterback who thrived in two-minute situations in college (i.e. not Lance. He famously had zero two-minute situations at North Dakota State).
5. A quarterback such as Mac Jones or Kenny Pickett (i.e. Not Lance).
It seems clear that when Scangarello talked about highly-drafted quarterbacks who fail, he was describing Lance. And if Scangarello truly believes Lance will be a bust, then the 49ers needed to get rid of Scangarello and replace him with someone who thinks Lance can be great.
It's too bad the 49ers wasted the first year of Lance's development under Scangarello's pessimistic watch.
