Avalanche, mosh pit, Frogger on a major highway: What it feels like inside an NFL pocket

INDIANAPOLIS When NFL head coaches, general managers and decision-makers of all flavors walked the wide halls of the Indiana Convention Center at the NFL combine, they passed room after room of products advertising their potential to provide a competitive advantage.

INDIANAPOLIS — When NFL head coaches, general managers and decision-makers of all flavors walked the wide halls of the Indiana Convention Center at the NFL combine, they passed room after room of products advertising their potential to provide a competitive advantage.

There was Gilman Gear, featuring good ol’ blocking sleds and tackling dummies. A company called BrainLit Alven touted something it trademarked as Energizing Athletes, lighting “that supports better sleep, higher alertness and increased cognitive performance.” Businesses sold everything from data solutions to brain injury evaluations.

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But the thing every evaluator really needs and truly covets was nowhere to be seen in any of the convention center’s 71 rooms.

It would be something to behold, straight out of Dr. Seuss, with large speakers blasting decibel levels outlawed by OHSA and walls that close in on all sides like the Death Star trash compactor. You would need a spritzer simulating the sweat flying off 300-pound men in fistfights all around you and obstructions swaying in and out of your field of vision like trees blown by a strong wind. Plus a neural processing component measuring how the synapses respond to it all, of course.

This creation might mimic what a quarterback sees and hears and feels inside an NFL pocket — and it would revolutionize the way coaches and scouts evaluate the most scrutinized position in sports. Getting an accurate read of a player’s response could be the best way to reduce the number of highly drafted quarterbacks who operated just fine in college but can’t cut it in the NFL.

We could call it the Bust Beater.

For the uninitiated, the “pocket” is the space in which a quarterback works, the area behind the offensive line that opposing pass rushers try to penetrate, encircle or crush in order to get to the passer. On any typical passing play, an NFL quarterback must scan the field, avoid defenders and maneuver into position to rifle off a throw while the pocket moves around and often lunges in at him.

And for the builders of our Seussian simulator to even sketch out a blueprint, someone is going to have to explain exactly what it’s like inside.

“The hardest thing to mimic is an NFL pocket,” said Falcons offensive coordinator Dave Ragone. “I don’t know if I’ve heard anyone describe it in any way that can help anyone who has never been in it. It’s a feeling which you can’t mimic. It’s a surreal feeling.”

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“It’s like playing ‘Frogger’ on a major highway,” said ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky. “You have to make these split-second decisions, you have to see three, four or five different moving parts at the same time. … And if you make the wrong decision, it’s going to hurt.”

T.J. Yates made 25 appearances over seven NFL seasons, including 12 starts for the Texans. He now coaches the Falcons’ wide receivers, but he vividly remembered what it was like to stand in a collapsing pocket.

“You ever been in an avalanche?” Yates asked.

“There’s something about the feel and the noise and just the pressure you feel when you know the pocket is caving in on you,” he said. “When you feel it coming over the walls, it’s not a good feeling.”

Plus, those walls — large people being breached by other large people — are constantly moving, forward and back, side to side.

Orlovsky played in 26 NFL games for the Lions, Texans and Buccaneers, starting 12. He specifically recalled the soundscape.

“You’re hearing your grunts, you’re hearing everybody else’s grunts, you’re hearing the helmets hitting, you’re hearing it all,” he said. “It’s like a mosh pit. You hear straining a lot. It’s 2.5 seconds of guys straining their tails off. You hear every word you can imagine.”

“Pocket presence” is the catch-all phrase for the trait that separates the quarterbacks who look great throwing routes against air during combine and pro day drills in the spring from the quarterbacks who lead touchdown drives in the fall. Learning how to work inside the pocket is as vitally important as it is frustratingly indefinable — even to the people who have lived in it.

“It’s stressful. It’s chaotic and it can be all-consuming,” Orlovsky continued. “That’s one of the major differences between being OK, good, really good or great, is how you can handle that place.”

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Ragone was a three-time honorable mention All-American at Louisville, throwing for 74 touchdowns from 2000-02. After being selected by the Texans in the third round of the 2003 draft, he attempted 40 NFL passes before being waived three years later.

“If I had pocket presence, I’d probably be on a beach in the Bahamas somewhere,” Ragone said. “Because I didn’t have pocket presence, I’m here answering questions about pocket presence.”

Former NFL quarterback T.J. Yates likened the pressure of a collapsing NFL pocket to an avalanche: “When you feel it coming over the walls, it’s not a good feeling.” (Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)

NFL evaluators measure how fast quarterback prospects run and how fast their throws travel. Teams will test how well they “know ball” by standing them up at whiteboards and peppering them with questions. What the scouting process cannot do, has never been able to do — and probably never will be able to do — is determine how well those quarterbacks will apply all their talents from an NFL pocket.

Everyone talks about professional players being bigger, faster and stronger than their college counterparts, how the game moves more quickly. But quarterbacks coming into the NFL, even those coming out of pro-style systems, have to be aware that the space in which they will operate is going to change.

“The pocket is going to be smaller,” said Jordan Palmer, who played in five NFL games before embarking on a career in coaching.

NFL Media draft analyst Lance Zierlein has discussed the difference with his father, Larry, an offensive line coach for more than 10 years at both the college and NFL levels who most recently served as the Cardinals’ assistant line coach from 2013 to 2017.

“The edges collapse in on you so quickly because of the speed-to-power (rush ability) of pro prospects,” Zierlein said. “In college, a lot of these big-time quarterbacks, they have NFL (linemen) protecting them, so they can operate with a lot more confidence from the pocket. They’ll get in the NFL, and all of a sudden before you know it, that left tackle or right tackle is in your lap.”

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“It’s the NFL, man … there are pass rushers everywhere,” Yates said. “The dudes on the other side of the ball are very good, and the ball has to come out fast.”

Marcus Mariota won the Heisman Trophy in 2014 at Oregon before being drafted second by the Titans in 2015. He started 74 games over eight NFL seasons but was benched with both Tennessee and Atlanta.

“From college to the NFL, I think it’s the biggest challenge young quarterbacks have to face,” Mariota said. “In college, it feels like you have all day back there and it feels like you have plenty of space.”

The types of throws quarterbacks make in the pre-draft process — where they can set their feet and take full strides with a full range of motion — account for fewer than half the passes in an NFL game, Mariota said.

Ragone believes at least 40 percent of the pockets in pro games are “dirty,” and that quarterbacks operating inside of them must learn how to desensitize themselves to the surrounding chaos.

“It’s an unnatural thing,” Ragone said. “As a kid you probably grew up and played tag. Anybody’s coming at you, what’s your natural reaction? Look at them and then get out of there.

“But in the pocket, if you look at them, you take your eyes off the coverage and receivers … the defense has you and you’re basically toast.”

Orlovsky remembered watching the play that convinced him Joe Burrow should be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, one snap against Ole Miss during which Burrow handled a tight pocket with no panic.

“That’s the separator,” Orlovsky said.

At the other extreme, Zach Wilson illustrated the dangers of not properly evaluating how a quarterback will perform in a professional pocket. The second pick in the 2021 draft, Wilson was benched nine games into last season. In two seasons, he has thrown 15 touchdowns against 18 interceptions while completing 55.2 percent of his passes.

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Wilson displayed an NFL-caliber arm while passing for 3,692 yards and 33 touchdowns at BYU in 2020. But for Ben Solak, an NFL draft analyst at The Ringer, the gaudy college numbers came with a caveat.

“You’re watching (Wilson) make all these throws and all these trick shots, but not because he was pressured, just because that’s the way he plays,” Solak said. “You had a clean pocket, but he was behaving like it was a dirty pocket, and that’s always a scary sign, when a guy doesn’t know how to play within structure and maximize the space that he’s got.”

NFL decision-makers would ideally be able to evaluate how a prospect handles pocket pressure from an abundance of college clips, but with college offensive emphasizing spread and quick-throw concepts, that’s getting harder to do.

“The NFL is going that way a little bit,” Yates said. “But when it’s third down in the playoffs in the NFL, you’re going to have to sit in that pocket. There’s really no way out of it.”

Jeff Christensen, a private quarterbacks coach from Illinois who worked with Patrick Mahomes and Jimmy Garoppolo, said the handful of “dirty pocket” reps a quarterback faces each year can be helpful, even if they are scarce.

“There are little indicators that I believe are valuable in terms of how he overreacts or underreacts in chaos,” he said.

Christensen is currently tutoring 2023 draft prospect Aidan O’Connell out of Purdue. He said he has a system for training prospects for the reality of that pocket, but he won’t share it. “That’s all I do,” Christensen said. “That’s the secret sauce.”

Palmer, now the XFL’s director of quarterback development, was a private coach for the likes of Burrow, Josh Allen and Deshaun Watson after his playing career. He would casually back into his quarterback’s space during random throws to see how they reacted.

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There are less subtle methods.

“We will throw things at guys,” Ragone said. “You do try to make those guys uncomfortable with things coming at them, but at the end of the day, they know in these drills that they are not getting hit.”

And there’s the problem. That fear factor is a key component of pocket presence, even if it’s not one coaches or players want to talk much about.

“I would have said you can’t get to this point if you’re scared,” Palmer said. “But I think there are some guys in the NFL who are scared to get hit.”

Ragone had to confront the subject when his 13-year-old son, a middle school quarterback, asked him how to not worry about getting hit.

His answer? You can’t.

“You make a decision when you decide to play this position that you’re going to sit in there and you’re going to take the hit,” Ragone said. “There are some cool things (that come with playing quarterback), but that’s part of it. If you don’t make that decision, you can’t play.”

With our Bust Beater still only a dream, evaluators inside and outside of NFL buildings will fall back on old — and frustratingly unproven — scouting practices to determine which of this year’s prospects can survive the storm of an NFL pocket.

Zierlein sorts his scouting clips by play types. For quarterbacks, the first plays he looks at are pressured throws. “I can get right to the messiest pockets,” he said.

But without a quantifiable measurement, the current methods result in the typical eye-of-the-beholder variance. Take Kentucky’s Will Levis, a potential top-10 pick in next month’s draft.

Solak characterizes Levis as “a tough son of a gun.”

“He’ll sit in there and take it and make good throws in (a dirty pocket),” said Solak, who pointed to the regression of the Wildcats’ offensive line in 2022 as a benefit to evaluating Levis. “Pockets got a lot more NFL-ish for him in 2022, and he did a nice job with it.”

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Zierlein disagrees, calling Levis “not very poised in the pocket.”

“He takes sacks he shouldn’t take,” Zierlein said. “I think that’s a concern.”

According to Zierlein, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud threw from so few dirty pockets in college that it’s a guessing game whether he’ll be able to handle them in the NFL. Alabama’s Bryce Young faced more, but not many more, and Zierlein said he liked what he saw from those reps.

Zierlein pointed to Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker as a potential sleeper prospect because of his ability to handle chaos around him, saying Hooker has “the calmest feet in the whole draft.” That trait alone could make Hooker a lot of money in a league where 70 percent of throws will be affected by the too-cozy confines of a shrinking pocket — and where assessing a player’s ability to navigate that space largely remains the product of guesswork.

“It’s part of the process and it’s part of the evaluation,” Yates said. “You’re going to have to make a determination about whether or not a certain guy has it. If there’s not enough film in college of it, you’re going to find out one way or another.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos of C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young: Kevin C. Cox, Rich von Biberstein / Getty Images)

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