Breakout or Fluke? What history tells us about Case Keenum's 2017 season

The big question as Case Keenum starts his tenure with the Denver Broncos is if he can reproduce his breakout season from 2017 with the Minnesota Vikings.

If there’s one factor that might suggest his career year in Minnesota wasn’t a fluke, it starts with the spread out air-raid attack he came from in college. After all, it’s far from newsworthy to say that quarterbacks who come from spread attacks take longer to adjust to the pro game, requiring more patience.

Just consider the quarterbacks in the two conference championship games from a season ago, sure you had Tom Brady in there, but then it was Keenum, who’d been written off years ago, Blake Bortles and Nick Foles. Outside of Brady, all came from spread attacks, and all had prematurely been written off too early. 

Quarterbacks are different in the way we evaluate them coming from college and in the time they take to develop as pros. In the “Not For Long” NFL, patience is rarely a virtue that teams have, fans even less so, so while it’s easy to write off quarterbacks as busts, it’s important to remember that adapting to the toughest position in sports at the highest level takes time. 

Look at the NFL’s leader in quarterback rating from a season ago, Alex Smith, and he, too, was written off early after being the first overall pick in San Francisco. Smith would be a great example for how Keenum’s best football might be ahead of him, as he only started to show signs of life in year seven—Keenum’s breakout season in 2017 came in his sixth season—and in his 13th season had his best year yet.

Another spread QB who took time to develop and only blossomed in his sixth season is one of the all-time greats Drew Brees, who was doubted at every turn early in his career and, like Keenum, had to change teams before he could truly blossom.  

There are several more cases like Aaron Rodgers who was slowly developed behind Brett Favre and didn’t bust out until year four. While Rodgers came from a less-than-typical spread attack—with lots of spread concepts none the less—that time in adjusting to the NFL game was invaluable, a luxury that the journeyman Keenum was never given. Jimmy Garoppolo also fits the mold as he, too, came from a spread offense and took some time to develop before breaking out in the final stretch of the 2015 season.

A commonality here is that all these players, like Keenum, aren’t your typical athletic spread QBs. Athleticism plays a big part in this, as players who were less reliant on running the ball in their collegiate offensive systems are more likely to succeed and find success long term. 

Keenum checks off all the boxes, and all despite having been moved around from team to team, forced to learn a new offense seemingly every season, factors that would stunt anyone’s development.

Yet the NCAA’s leader in passing yards was able to overcome those obstacles and take advantage of the opportunity given to him in Minnesota last season. 

Following the model laid out by Alex Smith seems like a reasonable future outlook for Keenum, who last year was one of the NFL’s best in some of the most important areas for a passer—in the red zone, on third down, and under pressure. Being good in one of those areas could be seen as a fluke, being good in all three isn’t.

He also had to overcome a poor offensive line with less-than-stellar tackles, inheriting in the process an offense that ranked in the bottom half of the league in yards per game and points scored. With Keenum, the Vikings were among the top units in both categories, a reason for optimism in Denver where a similar jump will be required. 

The system Keenum came from in his college days at Houston, on its own, isn’t a reason for optimism, as spread systems have also produced an endless number of QBs who’ve never panned out. But few have had to overcome what Keenum has early in his career, and even fewer have had the success he had, all be it in one season, before failing. 

The strides the Broncos new quarterback took a season ago are very encouraging and as long as the offense around him can be developed, all signs suggest that his best football has yet to be played.

With the start of OTAs around the corner, we’ll be able to start gauging if Keenum’s 2017 season was just a mirage. However, with the quarterback landscape quickly changing in the NFL, if Denver’s new QB can still improve, there’s no telling how good the Orange and Blue’s new signing could be.