Jets 2024 UDFA | QB Adrian Martinez UFL MVP Champion

[Music] what's the good word y it's your boy dkb here we are diving into our new UFL MVP and Championship quarterback Adrien Martinez and uh he has a pretty interesting path right uh in terms of going from college to undrafted to the UFL and and how he's gone about working on some of his deficiencies uh you know along that pathway he comes in at 6'2 about 2 120ish pounds 24 years old so you love the youth you love what he's going to bring from from an athleticism standpoint at the QB position one of the more underrated things when you talk about building out and kind of creating a funnel for roster is this is a guy I Peg as a practice squad developmental QB right he fits uh the exact Proto type of kind of what you want there somebody who may not fit that model already on the roster um and you can point the Ty rod and you can still point the Jordan there but for somebody that is going to be healthy for one and not as part of the actual uh game day roster right the 46-man team uh I believe it is so Adrien comes in he can go out there and give you uh uh those looks that you're going to need to when you're talking about facing teams like Lamar Jackson for example not saying he has the same level athleticism but just pointing out some of the the Dual threat guys that we're going to see in the league right former top 100 recruit he had a torn labram coming out of high school his senior year which made it all the more impressive that he still was able to land a pretty big uh um uh or signed to Nebraska right as a pretty big signing spent four years there won Nebraska's offensive back of the year uh consecutively in 2019 and 2020 transferred to Kansas after there using his Co eligibility for a year and then he ended up going undrafted in the 2023 class got picked up by the Lions made it all the way down to Final Cuts and then didn't really get another look so uh got drafted as a rookie by the UFL uh this where the timeline gets a little confusing so when undrafted I think he got drafted as a rookie to the UFL uh to another team then the Lions actually signed him as a udfa made Final Cuts and then he had an official contract from the Birmingham stallions helped lead them to a 9 in1 record and then this is where you really need to dive into what his uh uh his year spent with the stallion has actually been cuz you're going to see all the headlines just like I have on my video right UFL MVP um he led the UFL in rushing um and then of course you you talk about you know him being a 47 game starter coming in all those kind of things looks good but took the starting role from Matt caral former third round pick in the NFL so when you're just doing the surface level thinking you start to say okay well this definitely feels like an NFL level quarterback right now not to say there's you know that's not the case or anything but Birmingham and Skip Holz the head coach there very interesting team skip Holtz has kind of already gotten the the moniker of quarterback whisper for one which does a a huge favor for Adrien Martinez here but he ran a a dual quarterback system right so like the first three first two games or so Adrian Martinez and Matt caral were switching out every couple possessions then there was a game that only AJ Martinez started only a game that Matt caral started before Holtz felt comfortable giving the starting role officially to Adrien and then even from there when you take a look at the playoff halfth for them there was a point where skip ended up benching Adrien Martinez in favor of Matt caral in the second half after he threw a couple interceptions with them being down I think it was 1812 uh and maal helped lead a comeback skip b m felt comfortable continue to give the starting opportunity to Adrien for their Championship win over the brahmas who was our UFL all guard signing Cole Lavato so I'm sure there'll be some fun uh you know banter there from those guys but this isn't just a a consistent I walked in I earned the starting role I led the team the entire way this was definitely uh for the entire team cuz Skip Holtz talked about uh he feels he has adequate depth at every piece along his roster this was definitely a bunch of great wins by committee and then you can separate the stretch of games that uh Martinez here just ended up starting by himself as a whole other ordeal but so things I really liked quick enough release a dual threat right we talked about this a little bit earlier much better Runner than passer and I think that's still True to this day even though I couldn't get into a ton of film from uh the the Birmingham stallions I got to see some highlight plays from him I didn't walk away overly impressed but it did highlight a lot of what you love physically from Adrien um and again that's kind of expected right the highlights are it's not true film study uh but the lower body explosion you see it on film and again he's much faster than quicker right so where you can see Lamar Lamar Jackson take off he only needs a step or two uh to really get the beat on anybody it's not the same game that Adrien Martinez has but he kind of has this like long striding you know Mac pickup truck kind of speed where you're going to see guys bounce off him you're going to see some guys that are going to try to to make a business decision and he's not a Cam Newton but uh you can feel the him picking up steam and that it's going to be a tough time for guys uh in in the the back half of the defense trying to take him down you pair that with the fact that he generally looks to run first and you know my uh uh estimation on what I've seen from the highlights he not as comfortable being able to go through his progressions and his which I think is a huge piece of that but an underrated part of his game that I think you'll see people potentially kill him on is that uh his pocket presence and it feeds into him kind of being a run first guy but you can see him scanning on one side of the field get a feel for a free rusher that comes by or just somebody that gets cleanly beat uh off to his right and you can see him take a step and then he's looking to take off right it's one of the other pieces I don't really so it's kind of in tandem right that piece I love because it speaks to the fact that he can move around the pocket well enough it's just something that you got to hone in on the second piece though is you would love as part of him taking off to run still keeping his eyes downfield to look to make a big play that's the benefit of being a dual threat quarterback is that uh if that pocket collapses or even if you're doing a you know um uh uh RPO type play that the defense they have to to account for you right the eyes have to be very disciplined the SEC the the coverage in the secondary has to be extremely tight otherwise when they're looking to come up to make a play there's huge plays all over that could be made so he does use his athleticism to help with creating plays in an improv role when things break down uh but I wouldn't say that's his bread and butter and then his arm strength literally every blade of grass needs to be covered with him it's not legendary level uh but but no plays dead until he goes on the ground or he ends up you know running out of bounds the play is dead whatever that guy can toss the ball last minute and he can get it to only where uh you know his wide receiver can go and get it back into the pylon uh cross the field across his body right so that kind of stuff really impressed me uh cuz when you think the play is over he can make things happen kind of you know uh big bines uh type ability there but as mentioned decision making uh not a strong suit and I think more of that has to do with progression uh and maybe the talent that He had around him um you love again to see him so the distinction I think here is that when you see him step up and he's taking off as if he's hitting the A or B Gap he's not looking to pass whatsoever he's taking off and he's going to try to get a first down and he generally does do that if he's going outside of his tackle right outside of his uh pocket that is offensive line creates and he's drifting left or right then you can see him look to scramble and he may try to you know pick up the eyes and see if there's anybody that he can fling the ball to um a back foot thrower is one of the things that I've seen consistently enough even on the highlights where uh he doesn't get his feet set consistently at all you'll see him try to drift and because he knows that arm is a cannon he's going to try to rocking some things in there and um between the the if he had a lead or even above of average ball placement consistently I would say you can get away with that but it's not like he is uh you know a DOT thrower either so he has the rocket arm you got to figure figure out a way to uh configure and and and calculate dial up that accuracy for him a little bit more and you know you he's going to get tagged with the same label like the Josh Allen of the guys with the big arms who can maybe find a way uh with the right coaching staff to improve on something like that but ultimately I take a look at him and I I do walk away impressed enough to say that he should make the practice squad and he could be a interesting developmental option paired with Jordan Travis to continue to make uh some strong competition heading into next year right this isn't a guy that we're going to need to rely on at any point in 2024 um so when I look at training camp I take a look at taking a chance on a guy like Adrien Martinez here it does feel like a plus he feels like he's capable of beating out Andrew Peasley who's had a shaky training camp so far uh or at least within the last practice it's been pretty poorest for him um so if he can do that I I think it's almost a given that he'll be on the practice squad you hope that he doesn't show enough to where somebody's thinking they can carry him as their third QB uh but that'll be the same conversations the Jets are having depending on what this true tra uh Jordan Travis timeline for his recovery ends up looking like so let me know what you guys ultimately think though I'm not sure if any of you guys really dived into the UFL and paid attention and whatnot drop any gems uh comments questions Etc that you guys have and I'll catch you again peace