Another example why not to draft a QB in the first round...

[bbb]

Clearly you are insane. However, let me just bury you now.

 

There have been 460 playoff games played between 1939 and 2009.

This means 920 QBs starts at 2 starters per game.

Of those 920 QB starts, 195 were by different quarterbacks.

 

40% of those 195 QBs were drafted in the first round.

 

Let's break it down further:

 

677 QBs have been drafted in the NFL.

 

1st Rnd: 136 have been drafted.

64 of them have started at least 1 playoff game (47%)

15 started at least 10 playoff games (11%)

 

2nd Rnd-Undrafted:

541 drafted/unsigned.

131 have started at least 1 playoff game (24%)

12 started at least 10 playoff games (2%)

 

All this might be too confusing for you, so let me make it simple:

 

You have roughly a 1 in 2 chance of making at least one playoff game with a QB drafted in the first round.

You have roughly a 1 in 4 chance of making at least one playoff game with a QB drafted outside the first round.

 

You have a roughly 1 in 10 chance of making 10 playoff games with a QB drafted in the first round.

You have roughly a 1 in 50 chance of making 10 playoff games with a QB drafted/signed otherwise.

 

To suggest taking a QB in the first round is a waste of time...is idiotic.

 

/close thread.

 

Adding onto my earlier point, now with your numbers. You are taking a pool of 136 vs. 541. So, you have 4X as many chances of hitting in round 2-6 as round 1.

 

I actually kind of agree with Mike Schoop. He said this week that he would pick 3 QBs every draft, because the position is so important......I think that I actually would do that until I landed my franchise quarterback.

 

Seeing as that will never happen, I like our scouting staffs chances much better if they get to pick one of the consensus top QBs than them coming up with a diamond in the rough.

[shrader]

And if we're going to base this whole decision off of one guy, why don't we mention our current struggling non-first round pick starting QB?

[BillnutinHouston]

You cannot just dismiss QBs from the first round just because of risk. Risk is always a factor and there are busts at all positions. QB is the toughest position to draft but do not exclude round one or you may miss out on the next Peyton Manning.

 

Remember Elway, Kelly, Marino, ...

 

This is the correct answer.

[Bob in STL]

Sharper - you do realize that you are talking about a numbers game? To make this fair, it would be to compare round 1 vs. only round 2 or any other such round. Otherwise, you have the 3-6 quarterbacks from round one vs. all the other quarterbacks in every other round plus free agents......Of course, you are going to have a Unitas, Montana, etc. in your pile - your pile is huge compared to the round one pile.......And, yet round one is still at 56%.

 

I wonder what the Hall of Fame looks like. Are there more round one QBs or more round 6?

 

 

Too funny. Give him a math lesson next.

[bbb]

Too funny. Give him a math lesson next.

 

I think Sharper has left the building...

[sharper802]

Clearly you are insane. However, let me just bury you now.

 

There have been 460 playoff games played between 1939 and 2009.

This means 920 QBs starts at 2 starters per game.

Of those 920 QB starts, 195 were by different quarterbacks.

 

40% of those 195 QBs were drafted in the first round.

 

Let's break it down further:

 

677 QBs have been drafted in the NFL.

 

1st Rnd: 136 have been drafted.

64 of them have started at least 1 playoff game (47%)

15 started at least 10 playoff games (11%)

 

2nd Rnd-Undrafted:

541 drafted/unsigned.

131 have started at least 1 playoff game (24%)

12 started at least 10 playoff games (2%)

 

All this might be too confusing for you, so let me make it simple:

 

You have roughly a 1 in 2 chance of making at least one playoff game with a QB drafted in the first round.

You have roughly a 1 in 4 chance of making at least one playoff game with a QB drafted outside the first round.

 

You have a roughly 1 in 10 chance of making 10 playoff games with a QB drafted in the first round.

You have roughly a 1 in 50 chance of making 10 playoff games with a QB drafted/signed otherwise.

 

To suggest taking a QB in the first round is a waste of time...is idiotic.

 

/close thread.

So less than half of the QB's are first rounders. Thanx for pointing that out and proving my point further. What you fail to realize is you could draft a QB every year in the later rounds like Green Bay did under Ron Wolfe and have a better chance of finding the great one instead of drafting one QB in the first round and hoping he pans out in the next 3-5 years.

As you and others have pointed out, it is a numbers game and the numbers favor drafting them lower and more often.

 

Adding onto my earlier point, now with your numbers. You are taking a pool of 136 vs. 541. So, you have 4X as many chances of hitting in round 2-6 as round 1.

 

I actually kind of agree with Mike Schoop. He said this week that he would pick 3 QBs every draft, because the position is so important......I think that I actually would do that until I landed my franchise quarterback.

 

Seeing as that will never happen, I like our scouting staffs chances much better if they get to pick one of the consensus top QBs than them coming up with a diamond in the rough.

The same consensus that ranked Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russel, Heath Shuler, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, JP Losman.........

 

Sharper - you do realize that you are talking about a numbers game? To make this fair, it would be to compare round 1 vs. only round 2 or any other such round. Otherwise, you have the 3-6 quarterbacks from round one vs. all the other quarterbacks in every other round plus free agents......Of course, you are going to have a Unitas, Montana, etc. in your pile - your pile is huge compared to the round one pile.......And, yet round one is still at 56%.

 

I wonder what the Hall of Fame looks like. Are there more round one QBs or more round 6?

It's more than numbers. It is what happens to your franchise when you swing and miss. The JP Losman pick set the team back 3 years. What did Ryan Leaf and Tim Couch do to their teams for years?

You can all hope and prey Jake Locher can turn into a pro-style QB. When he doesn't you can do it all over again three years and $60 milllion later.

[BillyBaroo]

Adding onto my earlier point, now with your numbers. You are taking a pool of 136 vs. 541. So, you have 4X as many chances of hitting in round 2-6 as round 1.

 

I actually kind of agree with Mike Schoop. He said this week that he would pick 3 QBs every draft, because the position is so important......I think that I actually would do that until I landed my franchise quarterback.

 

Seeing as that will never happen, I like our scouting staffs chances much better if they get to pick one of the consensus top QBs than them coming up with a diamond in the rough.

Man this is incredible - do you work for a sports data company or something??

[disco]

So less than half of the QB's are first rounders. Thanx for pointing that out and proving my point further. What you fail to realize is you could draft a QB every year in the later rounds like Green Bay did under Ron Wolfe and have a better chance of finding the great one instead of drafting one QB in the first round and hoping he pans out in the next 3-5 years.

As you and others have pointed out, it is a numbers game and the numbers favor drafting them lower and more often.

 

 

The same consensus that ranked Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russel, Heath Shuler, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, JP Losman.........

 

Haha. I can't argue with someone that doesn't understand what a percentage is.

 

Also, if you're going to argue with someone who knows football, come prepared.

 

1. His name is Ron WOLF not Ron WOLFE.

2. Ron Wolf was the GM from 92-2000. During that time he drafted SIX quarterbacks outside of the first round.

3. NOT ONE OF THOSE QUARTERBACKS STARTED A SINGLE GAME FOR THE PACKERS.

 

He did however, have one Quarterback that started during his time in Green Bay.

His name was Brett Favre.

He traded a FIRST ROUND PICK to get Favre.

 

oh no! schooled again! post again! please! this is to easy!

[bbb]

So less than half of the QB's are first rounders. Thanx for pointing that out and proving my point further. What you fail to realize is you could draft a QB every year in the later rounds like Green Bay did under Ron Wolfe and have a better chance of finding the great one instead of drafting one QB in the first round and hoping he pans out in the next 3-5 years.

As you and others have pointed out, it is a numbers game and the numbers favor drafting them lower and more often.

 

 

The same consensus that ranked Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russel, Heath Shuler, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, JP Losman.........

 

 

It's more than numbers. It is what happens to your franchise when you swing and miss. The JP Losman pick set the team back 3 years. What did Ryan Leaf and Tim Couch do to their teams for years?

You can all hope and prey Jake Locher can turn into a pro-style QB. When he doesn't you can do it all over again three years and $60 milllion later.

 

I see your point about it setting the team back with a miss. And, if the Bills actually did draft 2-3 every year until they found the franchise guy in the 2nd round or lower, I'd be fine with that.

 

Regarding your consensus comment, if I had the time, I'm sure I could list hundreds of non first rounders who the consensus obviously was that they were not first rounders, and they did absolutely nothing, either. My point there is that the Bills drafting has sucked since Butler left, so I like my chances better if they are increasing their odds of picking the next Peyton Manning, etc. instead of picking the next Tom Brady.

 

Man this is incredible - do you work for a sports data company or something??

[Orton's Arm]

So less than half of the QB's are first rounders. Thanx for pointing that out and proving my point further. What you fail to realize is you could draft a QB every year in the later rounds like Green Bay did under Ron Wolfe and have a better chance of finding the great one instead of drafting one QB in the first round and hoping he pans out in the next 3-5 years.

As you and others have pointed out, it is a numbers game and the numbers favor drafting them lower and more often.

 

 

The same consensus that ranked Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russel, Heath Shuler, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, JP Losman.........

 

 

It's more than numbers. It is what happens to your franchise when you swing and miss. The JP Losman pick set the team back 3 years. What did Ryan Leaf and Tim Couch do to their teams for years?

You can all hope and prey Jake Locher can turn into a pro-style QB. When he doesn't you can do it all over again three years and $60 milllion later.

There are several points I'd like to address here, so I'll start with the one you made in your opening salvo of this thread. You wrote that Brohm illustrates the danger of picking a QB in the first round, and that you hope the Bills use next year's first round pick on a LB or an OT. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that the last time the Bills used a first round pick on a LB they got Aaron Maybin, and the last time they used a first rounder on an OT they got Mike Williams. The point here is that there's no such thing as a risk-free first round pick. There's going to be a chance of a bust no matter which position you focus on. (To forestall debate about Maybin: there may still be a chance of him living up to his draft position--but it's very far from certain that he will do so.)

 

Now onto my second point. Of the quarterbacks you listed, not all were consensus first round picks. Dave Wannestadt, for example, said that he wouldn't draft Losman with the last pick of the seventh round. Other NFL men eventually came around to his point of view, which is why Losman ended up in the UFL. The warning signs were there, Wannestadt saw them, and TD didn't. But even in TD's case--he tried, unsuccessfully, to trade up for Roethlisberger before ultimately drafting Losman. So even he knew that Roethlisberger had the better chance of being a good QB; although he clearly overestimated Losman's chances.

 

Nor was Losman's case unique. During the Manning/Leaf debate, Manning was described as a more polished passer, more NFL-ready, and so on. However, Leaf supposedly had better "upside" due to his greater level of physical gifts. More generally, first round QB busts were often the result of NFL GMs overemphasizing physical gifts while placing too little emphasis on accuracy, intelligence, fast information processing, and other mental traits. The solution here is obvious: if you need a QB, don't be afraid to use a first round pick on one. But pay less attention to physical "upside" than the Bobby Beathard-style GMs typically do. There's still going to be a chance of the QB becoming a bust--as would be the case for any other position you chose to address. But by emphasizing accuracy and mental traits well above physical upside, you're significantly reducing your chances of drafting a bust.

 

One last thing: Drew Brees was the 32nd overall pick of the 2001 draft. In today's NFL, the 32nd overall pick would be the last pick of the first round. But back in 2001, the Houston Texans did not yet exist, so the first round only had 31 picks. (The Texans first appeared--and first drafted--in 2002.) The Drew Brees problem could be solved by substituting the cumbersome phrase "quarterbacks drafted in the top 32 picks" for "QBs drafted in the first round."

[disco]

Man this is incredible - do you work for a sports data company or something??

 

yeah i used to do something along those lines. Now I use those resources to argue with middle schoolers on the internet. ug.

 

One last thing: Drew Brees was the 32nd overall pick of the 2001 draft. In today's NFL, the 32nd overall pick would be the last pick of the first round. But back in 2001, the Houston Texans did not yet exist, so the first round only had 31 picks. (The Texans first appeared--and first drafted--in 2002.) The Drew Brees problem could be solved by substituting the cumbersome phrase "quarterbacks drafted in the top 32 picks" for "QBs drafted in the first round."

 

fantastic post! thank you! Excellent point about other positions not necessarily being a sure thing, as exhibited by Buffalo's draft history.

[Orton's Arm]

Just to add to my earlier post: back in the '90s, Kurt Warner tried out for the Green Bay Packers. However, he was unable to make the final roster cut. After his rejection, he stocked shelves in a grocery store for a while, in addition to playing for various non-NFL football leagues.

 

Eventually he got another chance at an NFL career, with the St. Louis Rams. Clearly, the Packers made a very serious mistake in cutting Warner. They should have kept him around for a year or two to learn the offense and adjust to the NFL. Once he was ready to play at the level he did for the Rams, they could have traded away Favre in his prime for what would have been a king's ransom. By way of comparison, the Broncos got two first rounders for trading away Jay Cutler. One can only imagine the price Favre in his prime would have fetched.

 

Under Ron Wolf, the Packers were one of the best teams in the league at evaluating QB talent. There were a number of times when the Packers were able to draft a QB, keep him around as a backup for a few years, and then trade him away for a better pick than the one they'd used to get him. The Packers' decision to release Kurt Warner is clearly not reflective of any deficiency in the Packers' front office's ability to evaluate QB talent.

 

The reason the Packers released Warner was because they had only had him around for one training camp. Clearly, that was not enough time for the Packers to make a good decision. To give a guy a fair chance, you need to give him the chance to learn the offense; and then to show what he can do in the preseason. Warner is almost certainly going to be a first ballot Hall of Fame QB, so he clearly would have done very well had he been given that chance.

 

The Kurt Warner story illustrates that there is a limit to the speed at which your team can evaluate QBs. If you try to evaluate QBs too quickly, you'll end up in the same situation the Packers did. Your team will be unable to identify the next Kurt Warner even when he's already on your roster, and you'll end up releasing him (as the Packers did with Warner).

 

Another story which illustrates the difficulties of QB evaluation is Tom Brady's. Tom Brady was clearly a better QB than Drew Bledsoe. But the Patriots didn't realize what they had in Brady until Bledsoe went down with that injury. Had Bledsoe remained healthy, Brady could have lingered on that roster for years in kind of a limbo status. The Patriots wouldn't want to cut him because of how good he (presumably) looked in practice. But neither would they have started him, because of the feeling that Bledsoe was probably better.

 

Unless you're going to bench your starter on the off chance that your backup might be better, there's not a whole lot you can do to avoid the problem of that limbo status. If you have some late round pick who looks good in practice and in the preseason, will he turn out to be the next Tom Brady? Or will he turn out to be just another backup? You won't know until you give him significant action in the regular season. Your starter might not get injured for a long time.

 

Together, the Kurt Warner story and the Tom Brady story illustrate the difficulty of trying to process too many QBs through your team too quickly. The Kurt Warner example shows that you can make a much more accurate evaluation of a QB after you've given him the chance to learn the offense and adjust to the NFL. The Tom Brady example demonstrates the fact that even after a QB looks good in practice and the preseason, you won't really know what you have until you give him extended playing time in the regular season. Whether or when that happens will largely depend on your starter's ability to avoid injury.

 

A strategy of "draft a late-round QB every year until you find the right one," is potentially deeply flawed. If you want to add a late-round QB to your roster each year, you need to remove an existing QB from your roster every year. There may be circumstances where you could get away with that. For example, if you had a Ryan Fitzpatrick on your roster, and knew that that guy didn't have much upside. But what do you do if your backups have looked good in practice and the preseason? Are any of them Tom Brady stories? You won't know until you give them significant playing time in the regular season. And if your plan is to release one of them without giving him significant playing time, then what's going to happen to that late round pick you're adding? In a year or two, that late round pick will (hopefully) look good in practice and in the preseason, yet he'll also end up getting released to make room for some other late round pick.

 

Because there's a limit to the speed at which your team can accurately evaluate QBs, a team that needs a QB is better off with one or two high percentage chances of getting a good QB, than it is with a large number of low percentage chances.

 

You wrote about how picking a bad QB in the first round can set the franchise back three years. There are two components to that situation: the waste of the first round pick, and the lack of other measures to address the QB situation during that three year period. As I've mentioned elsewhere, that first round pick is going to be a risk no matter which position you choose to address. So the real potential downside here is the failure to otherwise address the QB position while your chosen QB is in development.

 

Let's think about that second point a little more closely. If a team has a very high draft pick invested in a QB, will that stop it from using a late round pick on some other QB it really likes? Probably not: the logic would be that if the late round QB works out, he'll be a good backup, or can be traded away for a better pick than the one used to take him. Green Bay, for example, drafted Flynn even though they had Rodgers and had just drafted Brohm.

 

But a first round bust at QB will do several things which will hurt your franchise. 1) That first round pick may be thrown to the wolves his rookie year. Or he may be inserted at the beginning of his second year even if he looked lousy in practice during his first year. Either way, he's being given starts he did nothing to earn; thereby preventing you from evaluating other, potentially more promising QBs. 2) The presence of a first round QB on your roster will typically prevent your team from drafting another QB in the first or early second round.

 

Both of those factors can significantly slow the pace at which you fill the void at QB. Factor 1) is avoidable: as a coach, you should not play a QB his rookie year; and you should not make a first round pick into a starter until he looks good in practice. Factor 2 is harder to get around: it's difficult to justify throwing first round picks at a position without first having determined if the first rounder you already have can do the job. But the correct response to #2 is not, however, to say, "Well, then, I just won't use any first round picks on that position at all." The problem with factor 2) is a failure to use enough early picks on the QB position. Denying the QB position of any early picks at all, ever, does nothing to solve that problem. On the contrary.

[sharper802]

Haha. I can't argue with someone that doesn't understand what a percentage is.

 

Also, if you're going to argue with someone who knows football, come prepared.

 

1. His name is Ron WOLF not Ron WOLFE.

2. Ron Wolf was the GM from 92-2000. During that time he drafted SIX quarterbacks outside of the first round.

3. NOT ONE OF THOSE QUARTERBACKS STARTED A SINGLE GAME FOR THE PACKERS.

 

He did however, have one Quarterback that started during his time in Green Bay.

His name was Brett Favre.

He traded a FIRST ROUND PICK to get Favre.

 

oh no! schooled again! post again! please! this is to easy!

Drew Brees was not a first rounder so the percentage is less than 50.

I can't spell - I will give you that one

Thanx for adding to my point that the great QB of your team does not need to be drafted. Wolfe had Mark Brunell, Matt Hasselbeck, and Kurt Warner at one time or another along with Farve. I would take any of those three over half over the first rounders starting today.

[billsfan89]

The Colts drafted that Manning guy 1st overall and he seems to be pretty good.

[Orton's Arm]

yeah i used to do something along those lines. Now I use those resources to argue with middle schoolers on the internet. ug.

 

 

 

fantastic post! thank you! Excellent point about other positions not necessarily being a sure thing, as exhibited by Buffalo's draft history.

Thanks for the compliments. You've made some very first-rate contributions to this thread of your own! I fully agree with everything you've written about the desirability of drafting a QB in the first round. As you've shown, there are very few good, non-first round QBs in the league. Moreover, the pace at which those QBs have been added has been very slow. Tom Brady was taken in the sixth round of 2000. But since then, how many good QBs have been taken outside the first 32 picks? Looking at your list, the only two good ones I saw (that entered the league from 2001 to the present) were Tony Romo and Matt Schaub. That's a pace of one good non-first round QB every five years.

 

With 32 teams in the league, that means that each team will, on average, receive a good non-first round QB once every 150 years or so. (Give or take.) Conversely, that list contained eight or nine first round QBs drafted since 2000 who have proven to be very good. That means that each team, will, on average, receive a good first-round QB about once every 37 years. But that number should improve once guys like Matt Stafford are given more time to prove what they can do. So maybe the real number is once every 32 or 34 years or so. Ideally, you'd like to be getting a first-rate QB once every ten to 15 years. To bridge the gap between the 32 - 37 years (league average) and 13 years (targeted average for your team) your team needs to use an above-average number of first round picks on QBs, and it needs to do an above-average job of selecting those QBs.

 

Even then you're probably going to experience gaps in your quarterback play. By the time Peyton Manning retires, will the Colts have found a first-rate QB to take his place? The Bills experienced a similar problem after Kelly retired--a problem which has yet to be solved. The goal of getting a good QB once every 13 years is probably a little on the ambitious side; but it's well worth attempting.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Edwards' Arm

[sharper802]

The Colts drafted that Manning guy 1st overall and he seems to be pretty good.

Yeah and Bobby Beathard drafted Ryan Leaf with the next pick. That worked out well too.

[disco]

 

Both of those factors can significantly slow the pace at which you fill the void at QB. Factor 1) is avoidable: as a coach, you should not play a QB his rookie year; and you should not make a first round pick into a starter until he looks good in practice. Factor 2 is harder to get around: it's difficult to justify throwing first round picks at a position without first having determined if the first rounder you already have can do the job. But the correct response to #2 is not, however, to say, "Well, then, I just won't use any first round picks on that position at all." The problem with factor 2) is a failure to use enough early picks on the QB position. Denying the QB position of any early picks at all, ever, does nothing to solve that problem. On the contrary.

I can't appropriately respond to this on my phone, but how do I nominate this for best post of the month? Loved reading it - great insight into the complex nature of drafting QBs and nicely articulated.

 

Yeah and Bobby Beathard drafted Ryan Leaf with the next pick. That worked out well too.

 

The problem is you are refusing to understand that risk is present in every round and the risk is much greater after round 1.

 

In my prior example of 40% of playoff starting QBs come from the first round...not any other single round is even in double digits. In fact undrafted QBs come in second at 9%.

However I don't think many teams are going to count on finding an undrafted QB.

 

The easiest math is 1 in 10 first round QBs will have 10 playoff appearances as opposed to 1 in 50 from any other signing.

 

If someone was going to pay you $100 to try and guess a number between 1 and 10 OR a number between 1 and 50 which bet would you take?

Edited August 29, 2010 by disco

[DIE HARD 1967]

Who says Brohm will be cut ?