Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 (edited) I keep reading all the posts from various people that the Bill's are crazy to think Fitz is a franchise caliper QB or give him this season and if he doesn't turn things around get someone else next season for sure. I'd like nothing more than for the Bill's to get that elite QB But how easy is it to find one?? Is the problem the Bill's just have a terrible front office and are unique in not being capable of finding one? Since Kelly retired the Bills have tried four to five times to find that guy and by that I mean using high draft picks or significant $$: Rob Johnson, Drew Bledsoe, JP Losman for certain fit that bill and you could probably argue that Fitz and Edwards fit the definition also as while no high draft picks were involved, they gave them a decent sized contract, not huge, but enough to say they were hoping that they found their guy. Below is a table of all teams since 1995 listing the number of attempts teams made at finding that starting franchise QB's I chose 1995 as that was when Kelly retired. A team could only have one QB per year on the list, so whomever started the most games for the season was considered the starter for that season. My rational was if a guy started one year and not the next, there was only two reasons why, either he wasn't getting the job done and was replaced, or got hurt. There was some cases where "Fred" started one season, the next season the starter was "Joe" and the season after they were back to "Fred" Was that because "Fred" got hurt and went with "Joe" but once he was healthy went back to "Fred"or was it because after starting "Joe" for a year they realized he was even worse? I didn't dig into it to find out, but did count them as another notch on the post, but will tell you that number of times that pattern existed for all the teams total over 16 seasons, was less than 10, so even if all were due to injury, it didn't happen all that much to sway the numbers. Two clear cases of this were the year Brady got hurt and last season for the Colts when they went without Manning. Without their injury replacement the totals for those two teams would have been one lower. The one thing that kind of surprised me was how many teams lists did Vinny Testaverde show up on, I believe it was 7 Cleveland tied for the highest with four less seasons to work with. There are a couple of teams that you'd say must have done a decent job as the total is low like Jax and Tenn. But today they are not any closer to finding the answer than the Bill's are, so while their total looks good, it's not like they are doing a better job than others. There also were a couple others with lower totals that kept a guy as the starter for five or six years before giving up, again in most cases they aren't any better off today, they just held out hope longer. Many with low numbers were either due to luck (Brady) or just being in the right place at the right time. (Colts twice maybe??) My point in all this is for all those screaming for the Bill's to give up on Fitz and go get that franchise guy, the odds of them getting him are low, not because the Bill's are inept, but because with 32 teams there just aren't enough good QB's to go around. So that's why teams will stick with a Fitz or a Chad Pennington longer than most fans would like because they know there's better than a 50/50 chance that the replacement to Fitz may be a Chad Pennington, Damon Huard, or Kerry Collins clone. If Fitz does stink up the year, likely they will go in another direction, maybe they will find the next Peyton Manning, but if they due it was more just luck that skill as in my opinion the high numbers for all teams bear that out. Not trying to paint it all gloom and doom, but just to throw out a warning of be careful what you wish for! (Well guess this site doesn't like tables very much!) Team Starting QB's since 1995 Packers 2 Texans 2 Only had a team since 2002 Colts 3 Pats 3 Jaguars 4 49'ers 5 Broncos 5 Rams 5 Steelers 5 Titans 5 Chargers 6 Eagles 6 Giants 6 Lions 6 Seahawks 6 Chiefs 7 Cowboys 7 Falcons 7 Saints 7 Bengals 8 Bucs 8 Panthers 8 Ravens 8 Bills 9 Cardinals 9 Jets 9 Raiders 9 Bears 10 Browns 10 Only had a team since 1999 Dolphins 10 Redskins 10 Vikings 10 Average 6.72 Edited August 31, 2012 by Ed_Roch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Daddy Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Calibre, and let's hope Fitz remains healthy all season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garion Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Nice analysis what strikes me is how a team that has been consistently good for the last decade the Ravens has gone through a lot of QBs pre flacco to get to 8. They were good before him but were churning through QBs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisyphean Bills Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Not sure counting QBs that started due to injury as attempts to find a franchise QB makes any sense. Still, if a team is serious about winning a Super Bowl, they have to have an excellent QB who can lead them there. Fearing the unknown is not a plan for success. Nor is it moving forward to be paralyzed with worry over how many mistakes the franchise has made over the years under other leadership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Formerly_of_Roch Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 I was just trying to determine the amount of churn at the starting QB position from year to year. Looking up the number of changes per team was pretty easy took less than an hour. I wasn't going to do an in-depth analysis to find out did they switch because the guy was injured or because he sucked. However the fact that there were less than maybe ten total times where they went back to the same guy which likely would have happened more due to injury told me the numbers were pretty valid and the churn was most likely due to the degree of suckedness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSpeed Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I agree that getting a franchise QB is more luck than skill (to a point). So if this was the lottery how do we improve our odds? We draft a QB every year, even if it's in the later rounds. If you can't get that first round "predicted" stud you take a flyer later in the draft. A forth round or later player is likely not going to become a superstar anyways, but in the odd chance that they are... wouldn't you want that guy to be a QB? If you do already have your franchise QB and you do stike gold on a late round QB you can trade him for a high round pick. We are in the prefect position to get a QB next year at some point in the draft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UpperDeck Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Actually, if you went back further than '95 you probably could've had the Lions at forty-something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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