Thurman#1

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.

Who was it who posted the romantic girly emo with the hearts? And now are telling me to phone and calling me endearments? Oh, yeah, you. And yup, I talked about you. Specifically, how your record shows with specificity and extreme efficiency that you know absolutely nothing about the QB position except how to be consistently wrong about it. Yup, I talked about that and will continue to do so. It was you who went so very far about putting everyone on record about QBs. You kept posting polls and telling everyone they should go on record. And then when someone calls you on that record you're all surprised and butt-hurt. You brought this on yourself. I'm finished with this for now, but yeah, when you start to act like you know something about QBs again, I'll bring up the inexhaustible proof you lavished on this board for three years that you don't know squat about them.

I agree it's early and he still has a lot to prove. But he brought in Matthews (who was injured and couldn't play but looked like a good pickup) and Gaines, who was a terrific pickup. And as for why he hadn't brought in many, how could he? By the time he came to Buffalo the draft was over and the FA market had been open for more than a month. His pickups this year, in Lotulelei and Murphy as you say look pretty good.

Too early to say. So far he's done it all right. And the Bills did the opposite of tanking. So far Beane's been great. But it is really early. We'll see how the draft turns out in a few weeks and maybe have a better idea then. EDIT: Oh, I see, you're a troll. Got it.

Worth scrolling to the bottom and seeing this: "Her posts are a compilation of short stories that may or may not be figments of her imagination." I hope this is one of the ones she's at least partially imagining. My best to both of them.

Answer to question about Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Rivers and Carson Palmer: They all sat the bench for their first year. Or more. And that's a pretty good list.

Consider yoga, meditation, or perhaps massage. There ain't a player in NFL history who came with a guarantee or a refund, and yet players like Wentz and many others weren't acquired without giving up major draft booty. And no, I wouldn't mind a bit if they gave him a year on the bench. The higher you get a guy the more you need to develop him correctly and carefully. Quick question: who are the elite QBs in the league right now? Brady, surely. Brees? Rodgers? Philip Rivers? Carson Palmer last year? Can we agree on those? Wanna leave Rivers and Palmer out? What do they all have in common?

Yawn. OK, here goes. Yeah, so crazy good that if they're all talented players we'd have to let four or five of them go when it's time for their second contract. Yeah, thye need quality young talent at many positions. No, they don't need it right now. How many times do people have to hear what their goal is? It's not to be better next year. It's to consistently be competitive for a Super Bowl title. That's a long-range goals that's only achievable with a franchise QB, a top ten or twelve QB. Once you get him you're in position to get that. Without a QB you fill in those positions you're talking about and you end up winning maybe 8 - 10 games and being right on the edge of the playoffs but a one-and-out team, again and again. But you also have a low draft pick and can never get high enough to get one because of a lack of high picks. In other words, you become the Cincinnati Bengals. That's not their goal.

Yeah, it's me obsessed with you? Is it me calling you cute? And filling in with the femmy little emos? It's you obsessed with me, dude. But yeah, when you talk QBs as if you knew about them, I am indeed going to remind people that your record says just the opposite, and you yourself set the knobs to 11 on your spectacularly, consistently wrong take on our QB situation. For three long severely dumb years, you spent thousands of posts telling everyone how wrong they were when they said he wasn't a franchise QB, when they said he couldn't throw to the deep and intermediate middle, when they said he didn't throw until he saw guys open and when they said he was obviously going to be gone before the 2018 season and all the other correct things that people said and you denied over and over and over again.

The faster the better, but plenty of great QBs started with teams that were pretty poor (that's why they had the #1 pick or close) and took a few years to get started. It's better to do it faster, of course, but the crucial thing is to get physical protection in terms of a decent line quickly. After that, fill in as can be. Look at the WRs in Brady's first years. He was no great QB early in his career, but he did well with a pretty limited group. I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. Yeah, you have to support your QB. You have to put a team around him. They've never done that in San Diego with Rivers, for instance and it's wasted him. And Rivers is a hell of a QB.