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with his talent, he has a very high ceiling. Many don't agree with that. It is debatable, but what is not debatable is Buchner's history with injuries.

Fluke injuries are still injuries and when they happen year after year, the guy does have an injury problem, until he PROVES that he doesn't. In Buchner's case, he needs to learn not put his body in bad positions unnecessarily so often. For example, In the bowl game, for all the nice things he did, there were at least two times I can recall, when he put himself in bad positions unnecessarily (one resulted in a turnover, the other resulted in an incomplete pass instead of a 1-2 yard loss by him throwing the ball away while horizontal to the ground and about 2 inches from the ground landing on his throwing side).

This is a great way to do to his throwing shoulder what happened to his other shoulder to start last season. And for what, risk knocking yourself out for a game or half a season for a virtually meaningless play. A starting QB has to understand his biggest value to the team is ON the field. Yes it's a dangerous game and yes there are critical times when the QB has to risk it because the moment calls for it. Intelligent QBs manage these situations and know when to call a play over for the betterment of the team, but also know when to be more daring for the betterment of the team.

I, someone who likes Buchner and has defended him against numerous 'he's garbage' type attacks, from what I have observed, do not think he grasps this piece of the puzzle. Some just aren't wired this way (my youngest for example). I wasn't there to see what happened, but to me a high level athlete who misses an entire spring not because of playing basketball or baseball or even football practice, but going down the stairs, he probably isn't wired to think about consciously putting his body in smart positions to avoid injuries.

When you add this into his track record it kinda just fits. Going back to 2018 in high school:

•2018 Buchner tore his ACL in a non-contact injury on a fake punt four plays into his sophomore season

•2019 Buchner stayed healthy and had a monster Junior season

•2020 no senior year during to covid

•2021 as a Freeman only used in certain situations, Buchner was hurt multiple times throughout the season and was unavailable for several games

•2022 Buchner sprains ankle going down stairs and misses entire spring.

• 2022 Upon return in second game of the season gets knocked out for the season

While the covid year doesn't count against him, it doesn't count for him either. For all we know that protected him from having a season ending injury again...maybe not, we'll never know. What we do know is that since 2018 in seasons where he played football there was only one season not significantly affected (or ended altogether) by injuries. Sorry, there is just no glossing over this, until he PROVES otherwise and it starts with being smarter about the positions he puts his body in, as we certainly saw in the bowl game it has nothing to do with mental or physical toughness. He has that in Spades!