John Middlecoff

A lot of times an individual through team is graded and accounted for.

Practices mean something.

OTAs, how you know the playbook, how you handle everything in the line of scrimmage.

Through training camp and once the pads come on and it starts getting exponentially more important.

So what you do the next couple weeks at a practice in the middle of May is important and you're getting judged on it.

But then as you come back from summer break and we go into training camp, you get judged harder.

Pads come on way more intense in live drills where you really separate yourself those in a preseason game.

And if you make plays in a preseason game, it's worth a lot.

But all these decisions come down to really two things.

Who the coaching staff, owner, and GM think is the better player, whether it's short-term, long-term, and the money.

Because if I'm paying this guy $5 million, maybe I keep all three quarterbacks.

Like there's a backup competition going.

but I've already guaranteed the backup $5 million, and the other guy's a seventh-round rookie.

That happened the one year with Purdy.

They couldn't put Purdy as the backup to Trey Lance over Jimmy Garoppolo, even though I think they thought Purdy might be better in training.

They loved him, so they just kept him on the roster.

Now granted, that wasn't even a competition.

He just ran with the threes.

So sometimes you make the team because you play really well,

But you're not even competing.