Stressing pressure on Alabama quarterbacks in 2023

Alabama is entering a new frontier at the quarterback position. After having Heisman winner and No. 1 pick Bryce Young under center for the last couple years, Nick Saban is tasked with tabbing a new starter to open the 2023 season. While whoever plays QB will have some massive shoes to fill, the more important development, according to On3’s JD PicKell, is how much the rest of the offense improves.

At times in 2022 it was really the Bryce Young Show. Alabama didn’t have the dominant run game of the early Saban years and took a massive step back in the pass game with how many of their best weapons had departed the year prior. The result was a lot of scrambles and improvisations by Young. More often than not, he would still be able to make something out of nothing, which is why, despite their flaws, the Tide were still a very good team that nearly made the playoff.

Over on the On3 YouTube channel, JD PicKell explained exactly why there will be less pressure on Alabama’s 2023 starter than there was on Bryce Young. Take a look here or read his full comments below:

JD PicKell takes some pressure off of Alabama’s QB

 “If I’m an Alabama fan, we’re gonna be just fine, doesn’t matter who we got back there,” says PicKell, who then acknowledged that it does to a certain extent. You can’t have any old nobody back there. The QB has to be able to take care of all the simple stuff and perform at an SEC level. But what he’s saying is you don’t necessarily have to replace Bryce Young with another Bryce Young to be successful in 2023.

“So it matters in the sense that you better have a guy that can do all those things. I just said you better be have a guy that can check all the boxes for you,” says PicKell. “But at Alabama, man, I’m just saying this: the pressure lies in the brand. I don’t think the pressure is going to lie on what they ask that quarterback to do.

“It’s not going to be ‘drop back, we got four verts, get through four different progressions and find a way to get it done.’ Like, the pressure is going to be on Tommy Rees I believe. So an 8.5 for whoever plays quarterback for ‘Bama is what I see as a a number we’re putting on the pressure scale for them. But it’s not going to be quite as tall a task as we saw last season and what they asked Bryce young to do.”

According to PicKell, expect Nick Saban and the new OC to adjust to create a more balanced offense this fall that doesn’t ask a new QB to be a superhero.