When someone said we'd get a 2 maybe a 1 for a Huntley, I said I don't think someone would give up that for him, but he might be worth more than a 2 to US because he let's us keep running our offense and keeps us in games if Lamar is out.
Since those comments we've got another game of Huntley on tape as well as one of Josh Johnson. What I've come to realize (as always if you disagree please let me know, I love to hear your thoughts) is that it really wasn't Huntley that was keeping us in those games. It was a combination of an entirely different set of play calling and outside of the Bengals game, the other team playing really soft defenses.
The point I'm making here is that yes the Huntley teams have been "in the game" at the end of these games, but really it's mostly artificial.
In the bears game, Huntley had to orchestrate a game winning drive against a rookie and backup QB to win a low scoring game.
In the Browns and Packers games its largely the same story but the games are slightly higher scoring. But noticeably both of those teams played soft defense against Huntley.
The Bengals got JJ, but from and offensive production standpoint its not like JJ was a drop off in play compared to Huntley. I think he could be slightly better. Who knows. But the difference here is that the Bengals played aggressive defense.
Now we have the Rams game. They also Let Huntley dink and dump all day showing they have little respect for him. He was able to put up 12 points and is basically responsible for giving the Rams 7 of their points.
I guess in conclusion here, the results with backup QBs seems pretty similar to me no matter if it's Huntley or JJ. The being in the games thing is just an artifact of if the defense will let you dink and dump because they aren't afraid of a deep play and they think they can hold you to punts and field goals, you'll score some points but lose the games.
Now with the tape we have, it's been confirmed Huntley does not have the arm talent to be a starter or even a high level backup. He's very much probably in terms of passing worse than average than your typical backup, he's just got some composure and mobility.
I'm not sure Huntley is worth almost anything to anyone. He will get no draft capital and I'm sure if we found ourselves in a situation where we thought we could upgrade on him, we would.
I think a lot of what you say has merit here, the largest being that we have absolutely no downfield passing game with (a) the QBs that we're trotting out there and (b) no OL to let those types plays develop. Huntley may be completing a ton but they know they can give up these 5 yard dinks and dunks and then button up in the red zone and force them into 3 points. No team wants to give up points but they know we can't score consistently and it's very apparent that teams have been playing us that way.