The quick yank of of Heck is laughable. Like you said, we have such MUCH WORSE, long-term horrific QB play forever around here. Heck puts up an ineffective quarter and a half, and now we'll never see him again. Brown has been trash and very bad against every non-high school team we've played, lucked out on the only 2 TD drives vs Mich.
I also look at Hank's lack of pocket awareness in terms of sensing backside pressure.
He has to see/recognize that and have a clock in his head at the very least if he's not already checking pre-snap what could be coming.
It cost us right away against Ohio State, and it cost us multiple times against Minnesota.
He just stood there, no foot movement and took the hit.
You can't do that at any level.
On the reverse side, when he actually does see pressure coming, he's shown some ability to slide around in an out of the pocket to avoid sacks and get free to make a play or throw the ball away. The Michigan game being a prime example.
But his locking on targets downfall gets him trouble too often, and yes, some of that can also be attributed to the routes he's looking to throw to.
We need more crossing routes and willingness to put the ball in the middle of the field on short and medium routes.
I think the coaches lack confidence in us putting the ball over the middle, and that's an issue that doesn't get talked about enough.