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I feel one of the best resources available to fans in order to get a decent feel for a QB's personality is Gruden Camp. If you go back to past episodes and rewatch the QBs who made it, you start to see trends. 1. They are dominant and gain the respect of Gruden in one on one conversation. People think Gruden is just chewing the scenery but I think he messes with the QBs on purpose to see how they respond. The best example of this was Cam Newton. You'll find the biggest busts are the ones that automatically become submissive to Gruden, like Gabbert or this year Petty. This is not a knock normally since Gruden is a very dominant guy, but as a QB you need to be one of the most dominant guys in the huddle in order to command attention and respect. To add more to this, Russell Wilson is not a dominant personality per se, but you'll notice he was completely unaffected by Gruden's. Luck was the same way. They were not intimidated by him at all. No trouble holding eye contact. You see that this year with Winston and Hundley. 2. Fast processing skills and decisiveness. The best was clearly Andrew Luck. Knew every single passing concept instantaneously. No "umms" or pauses, just immediately started writing on the board. You also saw his decisiveness in little things like "let's do this in trips formation". Gruden didn't tell him which formation or even tell him to pick one, he just immediately chose one. All these little things come through on the field. Grayson on the other hand clearly takes a few moments to think, says "umm" before doing anything and just overall clearly second guesses himself a bit. QBs need to process fast and make immediate decisions. 3. Talking to the players in the huddle. At the end of this video http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12469292Hundley is telling 3 receivers what to do in the huddle. You can see immediately that he's the alpha male there but the way he talks, his firmness, his command of their attention, and how two of the guys look down when he talks. The players must be ready to give everything for their QB, and they won't do that for a QB they don't take seriously. Going by this, Hundley and Winston made the best impression on me. Winston took over the show completely with his charisma, but Hundley was just very eager and confident. Last year out of all the guys I was impressed by Derek Carr for his unwavering confidence and self-assureness, and he turned out to be one of the best. We have access to all the game film and the physical abilities are broken down by everyone. Everyone agrees intangibles are the most important thing. Well I think Hundley's the guy for us if we take one this year. I'm actually kind of hoping we avoid Petty and Grayson.

Just be creative. Give them difficult computer games and see how long they keep trying compared to the average person. It's really not that difficult to come up with ideas. They have computer tests for ADD, so concentration tests would be easy to do. What's the pain in trying? The NBA is open-minded, why do we have to be stubborn about changing the tiniest things? You are arguing semantics. Of course, they are all related. I didn't exactly write out a thesis on this before writing my post, simply threw out important characteristics off the top of my head. Nobody is determined at everything, but an NFL football player needs to be determined to be a successful player in order to be successful, do you agree or disagree with that? If you were a physics major and were not determined to do well on a test, then I'm going to pass on you during the physics draft. You are also beginning to grasp that if you are not interested in something, you won't be determined. Testing their actual interest in having a successful career would be another solid characteristic to test. See we're getting somewhere. However, even if you did want to pass the physics test, but you were prone to play video games while you studied and make other poor choices, I would want a way to test that. To make it simpler, if you wanted to do something, I'd like a way to test how likely you are to achieve it, and how much adversity you are willing to go through to achieve it. I believe that's what separates the success stories in the NFL, from the busts. Just like it separates the success stories in every other field on Earth, to the other guys. How could we create a combine test to sniff out a Justin Blackmon type who screws up a bunch of times, gets repeatedly suspended, and then decides to just quit the NFL rather than work hard and try again? Does that sound like the kind of guy who quits after a lot of adversity? It does to me. What about a Derrick Rose type who keeps coming back from injury and not giving up mentally and still playing at a high level? Are these "worse ideas than the Wonderlic"? I really really really really really disagree with you on this being a bad idea. I just don't think you understand how important these characteristics are to a professional athlete. FAR more important than some tricky multiple choice logic puzzles. Not that the Wonderlic is useless, I just think the flaw is having that be the only mental test they give them (besides interview questions). When the NFL bust rate is as high as it is, it means there is something fundamentally missing in professional scouting. They have absolutely mastered watching film and physical measurements, but are absolutely clueless when deciding who will make it and who won't. What other industry has a bigger strike out rate than professional sports during the draft? Especially with the time and effort they put into it. There are major discoveries to be made here, and frankly we're arguing about some 50 question IQ test that is proven to tell us nothing but who's book smart and who's a little dumb at school. Why not test for everything we possibly can and then look back on the correlations? Add an extra day to the combine where they do nothing but different mental aptitude tests. One day we'll look back and start seeing patterns.

If they're going to give a personality test to predict future success, intelligence should only be 1 of many different testing variables. They need to test for persistence, determination, positive or negative attitudes, expectations of success or failure, confidence, decision making in stressful situations, desire to succeed, ambition, concentration, etc. No wonder there are so many busts. They could cut that number in half just by testing for the things I listed above. For example, will power is far more important than intelligence. Persistance and faith in your ability is nearly equally important to skill and intelligence.

Good for him. Seems like an intelligent investment.

That's the one thing I don't like about Whaley. He puts what makes him look good ahead of what's best for the team sometimes. I suspect that was the root of many of the Marrone problems.

Sometimes you just have to look at the big picture.

When I watch the show I'm less interested in Gruden and more interested in the QB's personality and how the QB interacts with Gruden, rather than visa versa. For example, Cam Newton was extremely confident and even authoritative around Gruden. That was the only time I saw a QB who didn't automatically bow his head to Gruden. On the other hand, I felt like Gruden was having fun messing with Blaine Gabbert. Look how those QBs turned out. Not saying it's the most important thing, but I feel like it's a potential predictor of future success. Another guy who impressed me last year was Derek Carr with his steady, yet not cocky, confidence. Again, it paid off on the field. Character is very important indicator in the QB position, but again there's always exceptions.

I have a good feeling about Harvin. He's been underperforming by his standards the last few years and from what I've heard from Pegula, Rex, the WR coach, now Harvin himself, and our loaded receiving corp, I think he really might breakout this year. He could have visited other places, flashier places, but for some unexplained reason signed with us on his first trip despite reports of his inner circle trying to persuade him to visit other teams. Something about us appealed to him. I keep thinking about Pegula telling the story about Percy having a long conversation with Pegula's daughter on the private jet. Usually hearsay from owners and management is BS but sometimes when you read between the lines you can get a feel for things. My intuition is Percy has matured a lot and is ready to be a professional. Percy might know it himself and that's why he said what he said. Maybe he signed with us not just because of Rex's charisma, but because he wanted a quiet place to put his head down and get his career back on track. I've been totally nailing fantasy picks the last few years based on my gut so hopefully I'm right about Harvin this year.

I mean, I agree with the mistakes point. Knowledge is a necessary component for confidence. Anything that will improve Manuel's knowledge will make him more confident. However confidence does not always lead to leadership. It's a bit of a Venn Diagram between those two qualities. But it's true players in the huddle are more likely to listen to you when they see you doing your job correctly. I think the OP came to the conclusion that Cassel learned how to be more of a leader from watching Brady for several years, and he will bring what he learned to Buffalo and it will hopefully rub off on Manuel. There's a lot of speculation here, but I'd argue reasonable speculation. It's become a bit of a cliche but Cassel will raise the floor on the team's QB position. Tough to prove all the OP's points but I still generally agree with him. Manuel could use mentorship from a veteran QB and Cassel brings good qualities to the fold that Orton might not have had.

I've met both kinds of people in the workforce. I assure you the ones that are afraid of losing their jobs to the younger people eventually do. That karma comes back around.

I thought the OP showed original insight, which is so rare on message boards I personally believe it should be respected whether you agree with it or not. Maybe I just overvalue original insight. I took from the OP the reminder of how valuable learning from a solid pro can be. I've gone into many businesses with no mentor and made so many dumb mistakes and gone down so many wrong roads that I never would have went on if I had somebody to shadow or ask questions to. Mentors give you direction in your field because they've been there. This is not just pertaining to the QB position in the NFL, but to nearly every scenario in life. The OP's point about the value of a mentor is inarguable to me, even if a few exceptional QBs made it without guidance. I can tell you that I ended up making it in a few of those businesses through trial by fire, but it was a lot more difficult than it had to be. It's one thing to be told what to do by some coaches on the sideline, and another to watch a guy go out there and actually do it. There were definitely things Manuel could have learned from Orton and I'm sure he did. He would have to be stubborn not to and he has never come off that way to me. One thing Orton lacked seemed to be character and courage, and character is something that Manuel seems to be great in already. Courage can be taught, I've seen cowards turn into fearless people with my own eyes. I'm not calling Manuel a coward by any means, but he can definitely use some courage to throw the ball into tight places.

Dalton had a good first two years for a QB, especially a 2nd rounder. People were really optimistic on him and now all of a sudden he has a bad year and this "Dalton is the epitome of an average QB" narrative came out and now it's supposedly a fact. Recent history shows that these "Player X SUCKZZZZ" narratives have sometimes very little basis in fact. Remember when nobody would touch Randy Moss with a 10 foot pole when he was in Oakland? I remember fans saying "I don't care if NE gets him". That's a true story. I see no reason why a QB that has been to the playoffs several times is not good enough for the Bills. Zero. Also, I live in Miami and watched Tannehill lots of times. He's going to be a top 7-10 QB in this league for a long time, probably starting in 2015.

This is a really good point. However, even though those guys are going to be on the latter part of their primes, the rules are setup so that they last far longer than they have in the past. Expect to see Roethlisberger, Rivers, Manning, and even Brady for another 3-5 years.

Can you give some recommendations? I'm serious, there's so many hacks I don't know who to read to get original insight.

Good point. You're right. The previous poster just made such an absolute negative statement that I had to say something.

A statement like this makes me question how much you know. I recommend you watch some of EJ's college videos here: http://draftbreakdown.com/players/ej-manuel/ They are not just highlights, but every passing play he was involved in. You'll notice that running is actually one of his (relatively few) strengths. I normally support Marrone on a lot of things he did, but he and Hackett overreacted to EJ's injuries. They trained him to avoid contact which led to his scared running last season. EJ is strong at escaping the pocket, running the football, size and strength, short and intermediate throws, not causing TOs. When you take one of his strengths away from him (running), he becomes a less efficient QB. He has improved his muscle definition in the right areas since his rookie year to prevent injuries, this means he can start running again. If he does not, he will never reach his full 2016 potential, much less his career ceiling.

Perspective doesn't exist on message boards.

I lost a lot of respect for Tomlin that season. You can see that he could not handle the reality of a losing season and decided to play dirty in order to win. I've met people like this in real life and they are the worst. I remember there being other shady things he did that year that I can't remember off the top of my head. What he did deserved a 6 game suspension at least. A head coach of all people cannot do something that affects a play in a game, much less a TD scoring play. They kept the punishment to a minimum because he's a Steeler. The Pats get away with everything because Bob Kraft is in the league's pockets. I imagine he has as much dirt on the NFL as they have on him. I'm usually the first to roll my eyes at punishments for off-field mistakes, but I am very stern about on-field cheating. Browns and Falcons should be punished.

I'm a big stats guy and I've worked with data analysis for a pretty large company before, so I don't 100% disagree with you. Stats are very EASY to manipulate. Everytime somebody provides stats to prove something, somebody will jump in and says "you can make stats say anything", which is true, but it is giving the assumption that stats should have zero credibility. That's is a very unfortunate thing to think. Data can tell you incredible things and point you in unexpected directions. It can also be red herrings or it can make you a victim of selective attribution. But to say that all "stats lie", is a very incorrect conclusion. I know that might not be totally what you meant, but I'm just seeing that opinion a lot when somebody disagrees with data presented without actually analyzing the data. Data should be analyzed on it's own merit, not just dismissed immediately.

I don't see the gradual increase in passes though. I see passing remaining static (as well as the conversion rates) while runs going down (with higher conversion rate). This is data that definitely has an interesting story behind it. The problem is there are a lot of variables to go over.

Football is just too complex a game with too many variables to use a simple table like that and get too many conclusions from that data. What the data tells me is that running on 3rd and short is attempted less, but has become much more successful. What this data needs is to be segmented further to find out WHY running on third and short is converting better even with passing attempts on 3rd and short staying the same. With so many variables, I wish you luck on finding the answer, although I'm sure it's very possible to find out. Very interesting though. Maybe coordinators are getting smarter.

What happened to the hotel, entertainment park, and championship golf course? Also, read what Deacon Jones said about his old team on the next page. Can you imagine the news if a player said that now? And people get annoyed about Lynch. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

Yes, but I get the sense he did it AFTER taking abuse from fans. And he always got it worse than anybody else because he was a reach, held out in training camp, and talked to the media a lot and fans liked to take their frustrations out on him. I always felt the fans were just as responsible for Whitner's bad behavior as he was. It's called karma. In McGahee's case, he was a spoiled brat after Miami who was humbled only temporarily. This guy was hanging out at strip clubs with Shockey and the rest of the hotshot Miami crew back when he was still in college. He was going to be a top 3 pick, a future superstar RB. Yet he was never grateful to Buffalo for taking a chance on him in the 1st round. You could argue Donahue reached that year. Then he says what he says on the way out. Pure trash lowlife move. I'm normally the first to get annoyed with Bills fans when they talk crap about former players (like some on this board recently did with Stevie), but in this case McGahee totally deserves it.

Normally this is correct, but in this case McGahee said some pretty bad things about Buffalo and our women as he left town. Things that got picked up by the national media. He deserves it more than say Whitner or Byrd.

What you are doing is convincing yourself we can't win before we even get out on the field. You should never stop believing. It's the ones that don't listen to statements such as "teams without great QBs don't win the big one" that go on to win the big one. Every rule can be broken. If the Bills go on to win a Super Bowl or even just make it to the Super Bowl, every team without a good QB will copycat our system. I also disagree that a rookie and sophomore Sanchez is better than a veteran Cassel and 3rd year Manuel. Another ridiculous statement.