The Drive

Sam Bradford has not had too many defining moments in his career so far.  In fact, he has probably had more moments he would rather forget than moments  he would like to hold onto.  Against the Buffalo Bills, he had one to hold onto, and it was amazing to witness.  Coming into this season, Sam Bradford had put together exactly 1 game winning drive coming against the Cleveland Browns last season according to pro-football-reference.com.  This season, Bradford has already engineered three of these game winning drives including today’s and another drive in San Francisco to score a touchdown and put the Rams ahead before the 49ers answered with a field goal and forced overtime.

In his first game winning drive, Bradford threw only one pass for 7 yards and benefited from a Browns’ special team fumble before Josh Brown converted a 34 yard field goal.  Hardly the type of drive to be impressed by, but it was a start.  This season, Bradford has engineered an 80 yard drive against the Redskins although most of the drive was completed in the third quarter without the pressure of the clock winding down.  Then there was the drive in the first 49ers game where Bradford drove the Rams 81 yards for a touchdown with 1:13 left in the 4^th quarter which relied on a 19 yard completion from punter John Hekker and only 50 yards passing by Bradford.  Although this game obviously didn’t end up in a win, it could be seen as the start of things to come.

Against the Bills today, Bradford graduated to quarterback of a full blown clutch drive to win the game.  When the Rams received the ball on their own 16 yard line, Sam Bradford had only 141 yards passing in the game before that time, not exactly the type of performance which seemed indicative of what came next.  Sam Bradford drove the team 84 yards while throwing for 68 yards on 5-of-8 passing including 2 3^rd down conversions and a 4^th down conversion before Bradford threw an 11 yard touchdown pass to Brandon Gibson which ended up being the winning score.  During the drive, Bradford threw to 5 different receivers and benefitted from an amazing catch by Chris Givens to convert the 4^th and 1 play, but he showed more than enough poise and ability to be impressive. 

Sam Bradford still has a long way to go before he will be compared to Joe Montana, but we have been watching the evolution of a quarterback who could be able to be counted on at the end of a close game.  There are going to be many more opportunities for Bradford to grow and expand his talents if the Rams are going to continue to win games.  It is exciting to see a young and talented player grow, and who knows, if his offensive line could hold things together (and Rodger Saffold could manage to be carted off the field less than two times a quarter), this team could actually go somewhere.  It should at least be exciting to  watch.