Modern offenses are designed to exploit modern defenses. Modern defenses are mostly emulating Vic Fangio's system. Versions of Fangio's system has taken over most of the league since 2022. The easiest way to exploit Fangio's version of two high in the passing game are timing routes over the middle. Kyler can't consistency throw timing routes over the middle, its his biggest weakness. Kyler's strengths as a passer are mostly taken away by Fangio's system. The league wide defensive shift has mainly gotten media coverage for taking away Mahomes' deep ball and shutting down the original McVay scheme, but the less talked about consequence is that it has completely killed guys like Kyler and Russel Wilson.
The other way to exploit Fangio's scheme is a power run game, with multiple TEs to create mismatches and exploit the holes underneath. This what is what the current staff has tried to do. Now obviously they've also hoped that Kyler would be able to improve the throws he's bad at, but its clear that isnt working. I get why Gannon has held out hope for Kyler, if he could improve his pocket passing he would be the most dangerous QB in the league.
At this point I just don't think its possible to be an NFL QB if you can't throw with timing over the middle. Russell Wilson's career didnt die because of legs slowing down, it died because he couldn't effectively operated the offenses needed to exploit modern NFL defenses. Wilson's stats were fine in 2023, he was winning a decent number of games, but Payton benched him anyways; he wasnt running the offense correctly. Like Kyler, Russell was never good at throwing over the middle. He can still throw his moonballs effectively, but teams are competent enough to take that away. You can build an offense around Kyler's strengths, but I think it would get smashed by a modern defense.
Kyler strengths are perimeter throws, deep shots, scrambling, and unscripted plays. Defenses have been focused on taking the perimeter throws away from him for years at this point, and the goal of modern defense is to take away the deep ball. All he has left is being a game manager of a power run scheme (dinking to set up a deep shot) and trying to create in broken plays. Look at our games from 2024, Kyler had good passing performances against teams that had given up (Jets, 2nd 49ers) horrible personnel (Pats, Dolphins) and one game where his broken plays actually worked (1st Rams). The rest of the time he was a game manger that occasionally made a play with his legs.
I think Kyler's career would have been amazing if he had entered the league in 2010. In the 2010s most teams were trying to emulate the legion of boom's single high cover 3. Kyler's skillset is perfect to exploit that defense, short routes to the sidelines and vertical routes. He could have been a more athletic version of HOF bound, superbowl champion Russell Wilson. I think we saw that his first 3 years, he was just stuck on a team with a horrible roster. Now defenses have caught up, and instead Kyler is just a more athletic version of benchwarmer Russell Wilson.
