Rodgers wasn’t drafted in the top half of the first round, either.
Yeah, Rogers was drafted 24th.
Varlos only said first round in his most recent post.
Ok. Some data: QBs taken in the first 16 picks, 2002 - 2006, with college starts and pro rating, all taken from Wikipedia (some start numbers are best guesses). Anyone who wants to extend this, feel free. Quick glance says the big hits were all over 30 starts; the busts are mixed (partially depending on what you think of Cutler).
2002 - #1 David Carr, 26 starts, 74.9
#3 Joey Harrington 28 starts, 69.4
2003 - #1 Carson Palmer, about 40 starts, 87.9
#7 Byron Leftwich 36 starts, 79.6
2004 - #1 Eli Manning, 37 or so starts, 79.3
#4 Phillip Rivers, 51 starts, 97.3
#11 Ben Roethlisberger 38 starts, 92.5
2005 - #1 Alex Smith, 22 starts, 70.2
2006 - #3 Vince Young, 32 starts, 75.7
#10 Matt Leinart, 39 starts, 70.8
#11 Jay Cutler, 45 starts, 83.9
Heh, yeah, it isn’t a hard & fast rule, and I said “top half of Round 1” initially just to limit it to QBs who might have been in the mix for the top few overall picks like Luck is (while allowing for some kind of sample size to work with). We can find guys with few starts who’ve succeeded and guys with lots of starts who’ve failed, but the numbers have been run (yes, by Football Outsiders and associates), and success for highly drafted QBs is pretty strongly correlated, on average, with college games started and (to a lesser extent) completion percentage. The method has performed less well recently than in years past – Brian Brohm projects as great by this method (if you want to dig into the 2nd round to include him), Brady Quinn comes out as pretty good, Matt Ryan comes out as just ok. But it also tells you things like Peyton Manning and Philip Rivers being spectacular, and Ryan Leaf or Kyle Boller being huge stiffs. So, you know.
Aaron Rodgers is probably a good counter-example, all things considered (he was certainly expected to go in the top half of Round 1, and up until a few weeks before the draft he was very much in the running for #1 overall). Michael Vick is more of a freak of nature, who really wasn’t very good until now, so who knows if he goes into the “success” or “failure.” Etc.
I’m looking at it and saying “small sample size”. I found 11 in 5 years; you could maybe get 10 more by going back another five; and I’m not sure it’s any less valid to say “don’t draft any quarterbacks named A. Smith at the top of the first round”.
Wouldn’t a more fair analysis include those quarterbacks that weren’t taken in the first round, but given their performance in the NFL probably should have been, such as Brady.
Feel free to look them all up yourself.
Possibly. But doesn’t that still beg the very question you’re trying to answer here: to what extent is college performance by a QB a good indicator of future NFL performance?
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Actuallly this is exactly right, one should simply compare College starts with Pro performance. I suppose you could run a simple regression, I suppose if you wanted a quick and dirty analysis.