Sorry, I had missed “if he slips to the second round.” I suppose I could live with Locker at #54, but there is zero chance he lasts that long. I’m not at all sold on Vick as a long-term starter, and I’d like an alternative, but I don’t think Locker is it.
The differences I see between the two situations are that McNabb already had a history of injuries, while Vick does not (meaning the need to replace was more pressing); and that Kolb was a far more accurate passer in college than Locker was.
And I’m not sold on the idea Andy Reid can teach anyone accuracy. Another way of looking at McNabb’s stats is that aside from the T.O. season, it took McNabb 9 years get his completion percentage over 60%. Maybe that’s coaching, but it’s awfully slow if it is.
I think you’re missing the point. Teams may or may not like Newton or Gabbert, but if they do and they take him and he doesn’t work out it’s not because they drafted a QB. It’s because their scouts failed them.
Saying a team should draft lineman and defense first and a QB later is one argument. Saying a QB was a bad player is another. If the QB is good you take him, regardless of other needs. Of course the difficulty in projecting QBs doesn’t go away but that’s not a strategy error, it’s a scouting one.
I’ve got the same hope for the Bears. There are about 6 guys in the draft that I like for the Bears who have any chance of sliding to them at 29. If none of those guys are available I hope the Bears are the team that trades back with a Tennessee or San Francisco to nab Locker, Ponder or Dalton.
I never said they drafted them in the first round. I said they were forced to make do with these QBs because they drafted linemen and defense every time they had a high pick.
I’m not advocating not taking a QB in the first ever. There are certainly QB’s well worth a very early pick, the latest being Sam Bradford. If a team thinks Newton will be a better pro than Dareaus or Miller or Peterson, then they should take him. They’re stupid and wrong, but at least they’re internally consistent.
Fine; they still don’t fit. McNown and Henne were high picks for bad teams. Tarvaris Jackson and Kyle Boller were high picks for a good teams. Orton was a fourth-round development project who was intended to back up the highly-drafted QB the Bears already had.
Cassel is the closest to your thesis; Brodie Croyle in the third in 2006 was their last QB drafted. But they weren’t a team with “all the pieces in place” drafting late; they were a crappy team obtaining a highly-valued free agent.
I’m not saying your thesis is wholly without merit, but the examples you’re giving don’t support it.
Sorry for the hijack again, but as the only football thread going, just wanted to mention that Hillis and Vick won the semifinals for the Madden 2012 cover contest.
I have to imagine that there were a whole lot of retarded green bay fans voting for hillis to try to divert the magical curse fairies and their regression to the mean fairy dust. Still, awesome.
Plus I’m sure EA would be pissed off if a small market, bad team ended up putting a player on the cover when they surely wanted to see either Rodgers or Vick, and that alone is worth it.
Cassel was drafted in the 7th Round by the Patriots, not a very good example of having to pick a QB high because they’d used too many picks on defense.
Fair enough. I agree with you on Newton. I actually like Locker more than Gabbert and probably wouldn’t take any of these guys before the 20th pick or so. However, the whole point is that you need to draft a QB based on his credentials. The quality and stability of other parts of your team can’t play a role. Saying you shouldn’t draft a QB until your lines and defense are set isn’t realistic or practical. That’s the only argument I have, speaking in general strategies and not about specific players in this draft.
As for Martez Wilson, it’s probably a cop out but I’ll say he’s both. He underachieved at Illinois but he was expected to be a 3 time Butkus Award Winner, Needless to say the expectations were a little over the top based on his athletic skills and hype. He still is a athletic freak and it’s unclear how much of his performance was limited by the Illini’s changing defensive schemes. Playing MLB behind Liuget he was pretty good. He’s not a banger, he’s more of a speed guy, but he can go sideline to sideline and get into protection better than anyone in this draft. I’m not sure if he can add the bulk to be a run stuffer or not so he might be scheme limited. He’ll probably devour TEs and is a great fit on the strong side and in a Tampa 2 system he’s a great fit for the Middle because he has the speed to get back into coverage. I think he’d get caught in the wash if a scheme called for him to spend too much time down in the box and he lacks great pass rushing moves. He can blitz, but he can’t beat a blocker straight up like a 3-4 OLB needs to.
I would love the Bears to draft him as a Sam to replace Hillenmeyer and Tinoisamoa with an eye to moving him to the Mike or Will when Urlacher and Briggs hang it up. In the Bears system that values speed over power Wilson is ideal. As Wilson’s stock has risen I’ve somewhat given up on this hope. Originally he was going to be available at the end of the second round at the highest, now it’s looking like he might go at the back end of the first round. I think he’s appropriately valued somewhere in the 50-60 range, he’d be over drafted in the 20-30 range. That said, if the 6 players that I like for the Bears in the first round are gone and they can’t trade back I wouldn’t hate reaching for Wilson if they are confident that a DT will be there in round 2. There aren’t many 4-3 LB prospects in this draft as a result Wilson will be over drafted, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be a good pro.
The discussion started about the value of taking Newton or Gabbert in the top 7 picks or so. Effectively drafting the 1st tier of QBs in a draft. That’s how I’m defining early pick. McNown is the only guy who’s close to being in that class but he was the 5th QB taken in a QB crazy draft and he was a guy the Bears settled for instead of taking Culpepper when they could. Henne, Jackson and Boller were drafted as “good enough” guys well after the elite guys in that class were gone. Other teams took cast offs and retreads in the aftermarket to make do. You need a QB in this league and you can’t pass on one when you have the opportunity regardless of what the rest of your team looks like.
For rebuilding teams, it most certainly can. Or, more precisely, if you do “have to” draft a QB, don’t start him until he has a least enough talent around him to give him a chance to develop. Otherwise, I think you’re wasting your pick. Rare is the QB who can be successful in a shitty situation. A large part of why guys like David Carr, Joey Harrington, Heath Schuler, Tim Couch, and Alex Smith flame out while guys like Mark Sanchez, Matt Ryan, Josh Freeman, Aaron Rodgers, Phillip Rivers and others find success is because the latter ones were in better situations with more talent around them and/or they were given time to develop. That, and the QB class next year, is a major reason why they shouldn’t draft and start a QB early this year.
I guess I see what you’re getting at now; but in most all those cases, to get up to the top 7 or so, those teams would have had to trade up.
Hell, I have time. Ten years of QBs in the first two rounds:
Tim Couch #1
David Carr #1
Carson Palmer #1
Eli Manning #1
Alex Smith #1
JaMarcus Russell #1
Donovn McNabb #2
Joey Harrington #3
Akili Smith #3
Vince Young #3
Matt Ryan #3
Phillip Rivers #4
Byron Leftwich #7
Matt Leinert #10
Jay Cutler #11
Daunte Culpepper #11
Big Ben #11
Cade McNown #12
Chad Pennington #18
Joe Flacco #18
Rex Grossman #22
Brady Quinn #22
JP. Losman #22
Aaron Rodgers #24
Jason Campbell #25
Patrick Ramsey #32
Kevin Kolb #36
Drew Stanton 43
Kellen Clemens #49
Shaun King #50
Brian Brohm #56
Chad Henne #57
Tarvaris Jackson #64
In the third round we had Matta Scahub and a bunch of shmoes.
Guys in red are ones I’d call successes. My conclusion: I think you have a point, but the sweet spot is not in the top 7, but more like the top 15-20. The success rates of the guys who were consensus top QBs isn’t all that much better than the guys who were upper-first-round-but-not-elite; but it falls off a cliff after that.
Sure he does. The Chiefs didn’t have a QB because they never drafted one, they spent all their high picks on lineman and defense. When they had some pieces in place and were “ready” to get the QB of the future they were stuck in no mans land. They ended up trading for Cassel, and giving too much, for a guy who’s basically a stopgap. They had a lot of relatively high picks and never considered QB and they are now stuck with Cassel’s limited ceiling.
Rare is the QB who can be successful…period. QBs flame out at a high rate and it has everything to do with the talent in the QB not the talent around him. The guys you cited who failed are bad players, end of story. The guys who succeeded were not in demonstrably better situations across the board and when those teams had talent around them it’s because those organizations evaluated talent well. Teams that draft shitty QBs tend to draft poorly at other positions too. Teams that draft successful QBs scout well and draft quality players.
Rodgers didn’t succeed because he was drafted to a winning team with good WRs and a solid defense or because he sat behind Favre for a few years. He succeeded because he’s a hell of a talent with all the intangibles and the Packers recognized that. The Packers had guys like Driver, Jennings, Grant and Finley because the drafted well…the same scouts that identified Rodgers identified those guys.
Tim Couch didn’t fail because he was drafted early onto a bad team. He failed because he was a bad player that an expansion team felt forced to draft. The same expansion team that proceeded to draft the likes of:
2005
1 - Braylon Edwards WR Michigan
2 - Brodney Pool DB Oklahoma
3 - Charlie Frye QB Akron
4 - Antonio Perkins DB Oklahoma
2004
1 - Kellen Winslow Jr TE Miami (FL)
2 - Sean Jones DB Georgia
4 - Luke McCown QB Louisiana Tech
2003
1 - Jeff Faine C Notre Dame
2 - Chaun Thompson LB West Texas State
3 - Chris Crocker DB Marshall
4 - Lee Suggs RB Virginia Tech
2002
1 - William Green RB Boston College
2 - Andre Davis WR Virginia Tech
3 - Melvin Fowler C Maryland
4 - Kevin Bentley LB Northwestern
4 - Ben Taylor LB Virginia Tech
4 - Darnell Sanders TE Ohio State
2001
1 - Gerard Warren DT Florida
2 - Quincy Morgan WR Kansas State
3 - James Jackson RB Miami (FL)
4 - Anthony Henry DB South Florida
2000
1 - Courtney Brown DE Penn State
2 - Dennis Northcutt WR Arizona
3 - Travis Prentice RB Miami (OH)
3 - JaJuan Dawson WR Tulane
4 - Lewis Sanders DB Maryland
4 - Aaron Shea TE Michigan
1999
1 - Tim Couch QB Kentucky
2 - Kevin Johnson WR Syracuse
2 - Rahim Abdullah LB Clemson
3 - Daylon McCutcheon DB USC
3 - Marquis Smith DB California
Couch failed because he sucked. The Browns constantly drafted bad players and Couch was one of them. He didn’t fail because he was forced to start too early or because he didn’t have a team around him, the same bad scouting and decision making the got him drafted also got him his supporting cast. Had the Browns waited on a QB or let Couch sit for 2-3 years they’d have still had a crappy supporting cast and probably would have ended up drafting Carr of Harrington.
I’m not contending there is a sweet spot. I’m contending that you draft a QB who your scouts LOVE regardless of circumstance or timing. It’s probably impossible to prove statistically, but you can tell when a team is drafting a QB because they have to. Teams that draft guys in the 15-20 range like you cite are teams who tend to be drafting based on opportunity as opposed to pressure. There are a lot of top 3 picks in that list in both categories, the difference between the two, with the exception of Palmer who seems like simple good luck and timing, is that their teams simply scouted well and seized an opportunity. Those teams drafting in the top 3 were terrible teams, but the teams that installed good management and started a sustained run of good drafting not coincidentally drafted the good QBs.
Teams need to scout QBs in a bubble. Evaluate them well and valuate them well. Ignore everything else. Ignore the “situation”, ignore the media pressure, ignore the other needs, ignore the system. You need a great QB to win. Get one at all costs. If you have a shabby line, repair it in free agency to protect the asset. If you have no skill players, draft them next year since the QB takes time to develop anyways. If your defense sucks, plan on scoring some more points and hope you draft well late. Nothing else matters unless you have a strong QB. If you like one draft him regardless of all other factors. You might be wrong…but you can’t simply wait for a ideal situation to arise.
They didn’t get Cassel out of desperation, they got him because they “liked” him. They traded for him a couple months before the draft, when they were picking 3rd. He also was a Pro Bowl alternate last year.
Some do, some don’t, but I think it’s myopic to think that it is only the QB’s talent that determines whether they succeed or not. Outside of guys like Camili, I mean Akili Smith and Jamarcus Russell who clearly died on their own, the situation a QB comes into has a big influence on how they develop.
That might be the case. The Chiefs and Cassel were a bit of a weird situation. They might have really liked him or they might have just wanted to go with the devil they knew. Tough to know really and I don’t recall what the scoop was in that draft as far as QB goes and I’m too lazy to look it up. Supposing they did their research and hated the rookies they could get at #5 and Cassel was simply the safe choice that might make sense.
If this were true I think we’d have more examples of QBs who put together a good career in their second chance. If all these rookies thrust into bad situations would have been successful if they’d have gone to a better team and/or sat on the bench and learned for a couple years then there’d at least be a handful of examples where the kid moved on somewhere else and revitalized his career. I can’t think of a single one this second. Maybe Steve Young. Maybe Kerry Collins but he sorta did that to himself and was actually drafted to a pretty good situation.
Cam Newton with Jon Gruden. I’m not really a fan of Gruden, but in his discussion with Newton about the “verbiage” in the NFL was interesting. Apparently, Newton, at Auburn, was rarely in the huddle and didn’t have to deal at all with learning how to call a play, or adjusting reads, etc. I think the team that picks him will either adjust to him or regret selecting him.
There’s also videos of Gabbert, Locker, Mallet and Dalton (who Gruden practically asks to sleep with). It’s interesting, although I put little to no stock in Gruden’s opinion.
It is definitely the case; it was pretty much Pioli’s #1 goal upon arriving in KC.
Looking over the list above, most of the cases I remember as being reaches driven by “need” involved teams that were just lousy and needed help all over. I remember people saying that Alex Smith was a desperation pick; but I also remember a whole lot of people saying Matt Ryan was a reach.
I think Rivers, McNabb and Cutler are examples of what you’re getting at: teams that didn’t need a QB nonetheless taking one high because he was just that good. But there’s other examples of teams that didn’t need a QB that took one, and it blew up in their faces: The Lions had drafted Charlie Batch just 3 years earlier, but they loved Harrington; the Titans had a still-functional Steve McNair but loved VY; the Bengals gave up on Jeff Blake to take Akili Smith; the Jags had both Brunell and David Garrard but loved Byron Leftwich. As you said the, scouts are wrong a lot. That being the case, I don’t see the sense of taking their word for it on a top pick if you have much greater needs.
In the same way, the picks driven by need seem to me just as likely to work (Roethlisberger, Flacco) as not.
I’d add Vinny Testaverde, who probably was never a bad QB, but just looked like because he was stuck on the worst team in the league.
But I think Hamlet’s point is more that being stuck in a terrible situation can actually disrupt a player’s development in a way that makes him miss his chance, and I think he’s right. Even if you finally land in a good situation at age 28, it’s hard to unlearn bad habits, or to make up for lost development time when you’re no longer an invincible 22 year old. The context into which a player is drafted plays a big role in the extent to which he meets (or exceeds) his perceived potential.
Mike Tanier had a great piece about this two years ago (it’s the third section, titled “The Development Secret”). I especially like his discussion of the difference for a pass rusher in being drafted by either the Lions or the Steelers.
Nothing but excuses in my view. Players on bad teams don’t get their development stunted, too many QBs have developed into Hall of Famers in that situation for me to put any stock in it. Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, Sam Bradford, Matt Stafford, Drew Bledsoe are all guys thrust into perhaps the worst situations possible on teams that were shockingly barren. The jury is still out on Bradford and Stafford, but it’s safe to say they aren’t looking like they’ve been stunted by being one historically terrible teams. QBs who fail either didn’t work hard enough or simply didn’t have the skills in the first place. The situation accounts for a tiny, tiny fraction of that equation.
