Thurman#1

If anyone had actually said that because we picked a QB at #1 or #2 it guaranteed success, you'd really have a point. But what people say - absolutely correctly - is that picking a QB at #1 or #2 is the best place to get a franchise QB. Not the perfect place. Just the best place. That that's the way to maximize your chances. Sure, there are other ways to get a QB. None of those other ways have percentages of success anywhere near picking an early guy. And by the way, it's easy to make things look terrible if you only look at the bad QBs. If you'd also included the Andrew Lucks, the Carson Wentzes, the Philip Riverses, the Eli Mannings, the Matt Ryans, the Marcus Mariotas, the Carson Palmers, the Goffs and Jameises and Newtons, then all of a sudden it doesn't look anywhere near as bad.

I'm with Jay, this is really unclear. But all the people saying you can't do many things, you can't build a whole team ... that is utter nonsense. Of course you can. But it takes time, probably three or four years. So you adjust your expectations and you make your first priority the one thing that is both absolutely crucial to team success and only available occasionally and somewhat unpredictably. Which of course is getting a franchise QB. Anytime you have a chance you do it. Even if you have to sacrifice other things. Then after you have your guy, you develop him, maybe from the bench. And you build your team, making protecting him an early priority. And before you know it, 2- 4 years down the road, you've got the best chance possible of having a team that will compete for the Super Bowl.

There are many oranges here. Therefore China is at high altitude.

Didn't happen. Winning the Super Bowl isn't about winning one game, the actual Super Bowl. If it were, the Bills would have had roughly a 50% shot at doing so this year. It's about making the Super Bowl ... and then winning it. With the making it being infinitely harder. But I agree with most of your point. Except that "not flying quite as high" is underestimating the effect they'd have suffered if they didn't have Wentz. They might well not have made the playoffs if Foles had been their QB for the whole regular season.

Very much agree that if Richie actually is gone that OL will be bumped up the list. But not past QB. Yes, it is indeed a great idea ... assuming it is a guy who they believe have a good shot at becoming a franchise QB.

Doubt it.

The rumor is that the Giants want Darnold and if they can't get him will be open to trade back. So that's huge for the Bills if the Browns go Allen. If that happened, QBs would probably go 1-2-3 and after that teams would be desperate. You could easily get Denver picking a QB or trading back to allow another team up. Assuming Allen goes first, Denver would probably see Mayfield or Rosen available to them. They could very very easily take either guy. It could easily mean the difference for Buffalo between trading up to two for their choice of anyone but Darnold, or being shut out of the top four guys unless Cleveland trades down with us from #4, and I think they might want Barkley too much to do that. Nothing's sure, it would be too fluid, but this could have a big effect at OBD. Yup. Good point. Fair enough. That's definitely possible.

Anything's possible. Including the Browns picking Allen. And also including Allen possibly being terrific. Dunno whether either will happen, but both are possible.

Didn't happen. What happened is a team that had a QB who was a serious MVP candidate (after his team traded a king's ransom to get up to #2 and pick him, hint hint) went 11-2, putting them in incredible position to not just make the playoffs but to have home-field through them. Then after that, the backup QB went 2-1 for the rest of the regular season ... beating the 3-13 Giants, the 6-10 Raiders and losing to the 9-7 Cowboys. And still managed to have home-field through the playoffs, which was huge in them winning it. They don't even make the Super Bowl, much less win it, without Carson Wentz on that team.

Yup, out of the roughly 20 teams every year that have sucky QBs, one will win a Super Bowl roughly once every 10 years. So out of every 200 teams with sucky QBs over ten years, one will win a Super Bowl. Is that really the model you want to follow? Seriously? Or would you rather go with the 10 or so teams that do have QBs, one of whom will win the title roughly nine out of ten years, making your odds closer to one in 11 or so? This is a no-brainer. Build around the model that gives you a much much better chance to win Super Bowl over the next ten or fifteen years or so.

No, David Carr should be studied for how to do a ****ty job of building around a franchise QB. Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw and Peyton Manning should be studied for why you get your QB when you can, and you then build the team around them, and that as you build you pay attention to the OL. That was the problem with Carr. They brought him in and then completely neglected the OL for the next four years. It was borderline criminal. But the lesson isn't get the QB after you've built a team for him. Build a good team and you'll be drafting 20th and won't be able to get a good QB. Saying you should build a good team before drafting a QB is like saying you should save a million bucks before starting your business, so you won't risk being be driven out of business quickly. Sounds nice but in fact if you wait till you have that million bucks, you won't ever be able to start that business, or not till close to retirement age anyway. You start your business cheap, with very little money and if you have a good plan you'll have your million before too long. When the team's good, you have to rely on pure luck as to whether a good QB will be available that year and you're not likely to be able to pick him even if there is one there because you're picking too late. When there's one key element and it's rare, you get it whenever you have a shot at doing so. No exceptions. And if it's faulty, you try again as soon as you can.

David Carr didn't sit behind McCarron as the new guy is likely to do. And David Carr was indeed destroyed by being pummelled unmercifully but it took three or four years of them simply not building an OL for him for the damage to get done.

Without question. Get the QB first. Fill in later.

Situations that good young QBs go to usually suck. Those are the environments you go to, generally, when you're picked by a team that gets a pick in the top two or three, or can get that high.

Over? We weren't going to be competing for a title anyway. Yeah, it hurts, assuming he stays retired. Saw he has till Sunday to change his mind. Yet another hole to fill over the next few years as we build towards a consistently competitive team.

Agreed, certainly that accuracy correlates. But accuracy when throwing to the wrong targets won't help you. The key skill, IMO, is going through progressions very fast and making the right throw. That's a really rare skill. Composed, informed information processing and decision-making at a high speed. There are some successful guys without Brees-like accuracy. Newton and Roethlisberger for two. There is absolutely a minimum necessary level, but you don't have to have a laser-sight. (Don't get me wrong, I"m an accuracy fan. I hope the Bills get somebody who's accurate, but sometimes it's not all that clear who's where on the scale. Has Allen's accuracy improved with Palmer's coaching and work on his mechanics? Yeah, it's improved throughout the whole offseason. Will that stick? Ah, there's the rub? Who knows. Will a year or more of time on the bench to make sure those mechanical changes become part of his muscle memory? IMO the odds improve and maybe quite a bit. I'd rather have any of the other top four guys than Allen, myself. But I'll understand whoever picks him and what they're thinking. Tom Brady has lost something off his arm, this year in particular, but he has had a strong arm. He improved his arm strength a lot after college working with a QB coach. And yeah, most people in college are within the range of what can succeed. But many are within that part of the range - below 6'1" or so - that succeeds a good deal less frequently. Being Mayfield's height makes the game more difficult. You've got to be much more cognizant of and dependent on throwing lanes and lanes of sight. It's still possible to succeed and even to have extreme success, as Wilson and Brees show. But it adds a layer of complexity, and that's never good.

I really doubt we'll see tanking. The coaches and the players are invested in winning. If they play or coach badly their salaries and job security go directly downhill. There have always been full rebuilds. There will continue to be. But tanking is against the self-interest of many of the participants.

I guess I disagree. Looks to me like there's a pretty large correlation. Out of the franchise QBs in the league now, how many are 6' 1" or under? The percentage is low. How many of the franchise QBs have weak arms? The percentage is non-existent. There's a minimum. And how many franchise guys who play outside, especially in the north, have stronger than average arms? The percentage is a bit higher because cutting through the wind is a factor. How come Pennington looked elite or near-elite until his surgery reduced the strength of his arm? There's a clear correlation. And while having experience in pro-style offenses absolutely is NOT a requirement, does having a pro-style background increase your odds of success, same as being taller does, same as having a quick release, same as having had more progressions to go throgh in college? Probably, and it definitely increases your chances of fitting pro-style offenses in the pros, making it easier for a team to incorporate you in their offense without too many changes. Certainly there's no exact correlation, on anything at all. But some things help and some things hurt. There are correlations. But if people were so obsessed with these three things, how come Mayfield seems likely to go in the top six or seven? IMHO if we are starting to get a larger number of guys succeeding, it is because teams are more willing to deeply change their offenses to coddle the new QBs. And I'm not sure how well that will work out down the road. But it's an interesting thing to watch.

Gotcha.

Well, yeah, if "you" is your inability to get anything whatsoever right about quarterbacks over a long three year period, yeah, I'm talking about "you." And will continue to do so. You haven't been wrong sometimes. You've been wrong virtually without exception, due to your wild Tyrod obsession.

Great QB evaluators or great QBs? Or neither? Yeah, it's really hard and it's also hard to separate guys who never had a chance from guys who might have but were handled badly or botched their own careers by themselves. Nice post. Interesting. Great comparison between the '74 and '75 Steeler drafts.

Yup, it's fair. And worth adding that as bad as the NFL is at evaluating QBs, nobody is better. It's not that the NFL is awful. It's that evaluating QBs coming out of college is unbelievably hard.

Ah, the troll again.

Nah. If at all possible, do what you came to do, Beane. And in Braveheart, Wallace's "hold" wasn't about changing plan, only about not starting to execute his plan too early. The Scottish simply waited to do the thing they'd planned. Every move Beane has made has been calculated to getting up into the top QBs. He might not be able to accomplish that. But if he holds, it'll almost certainly be to make that tradeup.

Yup, this. Probably Brady, Brees and Rodgers are the three best in the league. Each got a year off, minimum, to learn and watch and figure things out. Nothing wrong with needing development. It's not ideal, but if a guy becomes a franchise QB, that he needs a year on the bench to do so is all but inconsequential.