The Panthers, Titans, Jaguars and Vikings all have the same problem at the moment.
All four teams jumped into the quarterback pond during draft weekend, and all four did it at the top of the first round.
Now all four have to figure out a way to get a player ready at the most difficult position for a rookie to start in the NFL, without the benefit of a traditional offseason to do it.
It means the likelihood of Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert and Christian Ponder opening the season as his team’s starter decreases, and quickly, with each passing day of the labor woes.
Without some one-on-one time with coaches, workouts with receivers and formal 11-on-11 minicamps, chances are those four teams expended their top picks on quarterbacks who will watch and learn for a bit if there is no resolution soon about the offseason schedule.
There is a reason quarterbacks usually held a clipboard for several years — back when offseason work was rare, before “organized team activities” and minicamps were the norm. There simply isn’t enough time to get up to speed in training camp and open the season with a rookie behind center.
It was one of the factors every team had to consider when looking at quarterbacks in this draft, that getting them to play here and now was going to be far more difficult in the current labor climate. Using the first pick to get one could mean a team that needs help right now wasn’t going to get it.
They were taking prospects whose development may be stilted this year if no labor solution is imminent.
With the league and the players still fighting it out in the courts in the battle for an edge in the next collective bargaining agreement, part of this offseason has slid by. By this time last year, most teams, the Broncos included, would have had their offseason conditioning program going full speed and had their rookies in for a short minicamp following the draft.
Last season, the Broncos also had a seven-day passing camp spread out over the last two weeks of May and team workouts scheduled over the first two weeks of June.
This is all development time that could be missed or severely curtailed in the coming weeks without some directive from the courts about this season.
Some teams with more established rosters may not be too concerned if their rookies can’t get up to speed if there is limited, or no, offseason work, or if training camp is just a couple of weeks.
But others, like the Broncos, grabbed draft picks with the intention of making them starters almost as soon as they get playbooks. That gets more difficult without a little time on the field.
The problem is only greater for those teams who selected quarterbacks of the future with the idea that the future is now.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
