Well Ben Roethlisberger was an underclassman...

I can throw up alot of arguments about why it's felt to be important. Most guys who declared early were big stat, system guys who wanted to get paid..Akili Smith comes to mind a guy who failed as a baseball player then returned to college to play football had his 1 good season and bolted.

Most of the time people don't like to take underclassmen because they haven't been well coached and they are unrefined so they'll need more work. The fact is with a guy like Sanchez he's been well coached he isn't going to learn anything else in college...

There are a huge list of seniors that have failed aswell, hell when you get out of the 1st round you're talking about basically a 5% chance of finding a franchise QB yet people always seem to want to do that.

It's about finding a guy who has the natural physical talent, the makeup and intangibles to lead your team and your franchise a guy with the desire to live and breathe nothing but the game so much so watching film is something he wants and loves to do not something he considers work.

I think Sanchez has the makeup to be a successful QB and he has supreme physical talent, and he's been very well coached in a pro style offense he properly drops, takes snaps and sets up and throws properly.

He's had responsibility for plays at SC you don't see him looking to the sideline for audibles.

I think the experience thing would mean something if you could show me something he doesn't do well because he needs more experience but that isn't the case with this guy.

I'm going to borrow a post I saw on another forum because it sums up the underclassmen QB thing pretty well...

Jake Delhomme
Jeff Garcia
Marc Bulger
Matt Hasselbeck
David Garrard
Kerry Collins
Steve DeBerg
Dave Kreig
etc...

Austin, I, too, am not sure what your hang up is over junior QB’s? It’s scouting and not stats that determine if a player is worth a draft pick. It seems to it’s a matter of whether a QB has the talent, skills, intellect, attitude, etc. to be a great NFL QB or not? If he does, he can gain the experience in the NFL, if … (last year that would have been a giant IF for us) he received the coaching/opportunity by the team. You can teach experience but you can’t teach the intangibles.

You say Sanchez started 16 games. I just looked up Tom Brady’s info on Wikipedia and it says he won 20 of 25. That’s 9 more games started but not a whole heck of a lot. Both, had to sit behind really good QB’s for years. (With Tom’s credentials, I wonder how in the world he could have been overlooked … I mean % of wins, championships, intellect, etc.??? Guess Pioli/N.E. recognized his greatness when Carl really didn’t know talent???, but that’s a side issue.)

I noticed Brady graduated cum laude. Intelligence is a huge factor for a QB. Anybody know Sanchez/Stafford’s IQ?

DeezNutz ... I agree, with you, that Sanchez is not a junior. He may be in football eligibility but not in school classification. Stafford has started more games than most drafted seniors. Both are more mature than a college freshman starting his first game, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Scouting is the issue. And, I humbly yield to Scott/Todd to make the determinations for all of our picks.

So what is everyones theory that Haley will want a "Fitzgerald type" WR and take Crabtree at #3?

The dominant reply to this will be that Crabtree is not near the prospect that Fitz was and certainly not worth the #3 overall pick.

Additionally, it sure doesn't help that Crabtree is refusing to run the 40.

70% of statistics are over-rated.

ROFL

Delhomme, Collins and Hasselbeck are average?

I'm sorry but this discussion is over. You clearly don't understand the difference between a bust (someone who NEVER had a career), an average QB, an above average QB and guys who have led their respective teams to the Super Bowl.

JFC.

Taking your team to the Super Bowl isn't the end all be all to a QB being great. Trent Dilfer was an average QB too, and he won a Super Bowl.

You obviously have much lower expectations than I do for someone who we will draft at number 3. At that slot we need a game changer, and none of those players I listed are that.

Just because someone is a starter on a team other than the Chiefs, that doesn't mean that they are above average. All of those guys I listed are average NFL starting QBs in my opinion. Much more so than Joey Harrington, that's for sure.

How many of the guys off that list would you be happy with if we could draft that player at #3?

Spot on, and I'm making some room in my sig for that quote as we speak.

OK, you got me thinking about this and if maybe I was being too hard on some of these QBs. So, I listed each starting QB from last year and where I would rank them roughly. Where do you disagree that Delhomme, Collins or Hasselbeck should move up this list? And where would Harrington fit in here. By definition, average would be anything in the middle group, numbers 10 or 11 through about 21.


1. Peyton Manning
2. Tom Brady
3. Drew Brees
4. Donovan McNabb
5. Ben Roethlisberger
6. Kurt Warner
7. Tony Romo
8. Phillip Rivers
9. Jay Cutler
10. Eli Manning
11. Carson Palmer
12. Matt Ryan
13. Aaron Rogers
14. Matt Hasselbeck
15. David Garrard
16. Marc Bulger
17. Kerry Collins
18. Chad Pennington
19. Jeff Garcia
20. Matt Shaub
21. Brett Favre
22. Trent Edwards
23. Joe Flacco
24. Jake Delhomme
25. Jason Campbell
26. Kyle Orton
27. Tyler Thigpen
28. Shaun Hill
29. Brady Quinn
30. JaMarcus Russell
31. Tarvaris Jackson
32. Dan Orlovsky

Every QB on that list is well above average.

You are listing starting QBs. There were over 100 QBs in the NFL this year.

OK, please show me where they should be listed then in this group. As far as I have them ranked, they are the very definition of average.

The problem with your list is you just listed the starting QB's when you factor in most teams carry 3 then your list is schewed. All the starters are above average in the league, the top backups are the average QB's, and the 3rd stringers are the scrubs.

so, we are looking for someone that could be a decent backup then?

Of course I am listing starting QBs. Usually when you look at a team and say if they have a good QB or not, you look at the starter, no?

You're right, of every QB playing, backing up, and on a practice squad in the NFL, Joey Harrington is average.

I'm sure that the Lions are just thrilled that they got him at #3!

I have literally NEVER seen anyone argue that Joey Harrington is an average NFL QB until this thread. I honestly can't believe it.

OK, every starting QB in the NFL is above average then.

Then, of course let's draft a QB! He's guaranteed to be at least average!

Who said anything about drafting an "average" QB?

Furthermore, if Joey Harrington wasn't at least "average", he wouldn't have over 15,000 yards passing in the NFL and he would not be a member of the New Orleans Saints.

And he wouldn't be backing up Drew Brees and the number one offense in the league. Somehow, some way, I think Sean Payton has this offense thing figured out and if Harrington couldn't hack it, he'd be gone.

I knew Bruce Pickens and Heath Schuler were first rounders, but I had forgotten that they were picked so high. Talk about legalized thievery (for them)....

Nobody said that we wanted an average QB, but that wasn't your argument. You argued that Harrington wasn't an average QB. List every QB in the NFL, and I will rank him along with
Jake Delhomme
Jeff Garcia
Marc Bulger
Matt Hasselbeck
David Garrard
Kerry Collins
Steve DeBerg
Dave Kreig

No shit? You would put Joey Harrington on the same level as those guys? Wow.

THE SPACE BETWEEN espn.com
By Bruce Feldman

Michael Crabtree looks overmatched. It is July 31, 2006, and Crabtree is getting posted up in the Texas High School Coaches Association all-star basketball game. In a few days he'll begin his football career at Texas Tech, but tonight the 6'3", 200-pound kid is locked up with Dexter Pittman, a 6'10", 320-pounder with a backside as broad as a Buick. Pittman wants position, and Crabtree isn't about to give it to him. Crabtree started the game on the bench and watched Pittman, a nationally ranked recruit bound for Texas, stake the South squad to an early large lead. Pittman would be a load for some NBA bigs, but Crabtree loves this challenge. All season he banged with big men as the brawniest player in Dallas Carter High's five-guard lineup. Crabtree's dad, Michael Sr., isn't worried either. He knows this is the same kid who, as a high school freshman, persuaded the varsity football coach to let him play lockdown corner. This is the same kid who, in second grade, used to fight sixth-grade bullies. And it's the same kid who, as a 5-year-old, was hospitalized with an infection in his leg that forced him to miss all but the last game of the flag football season—then, the first time he touched the ball, Li'l Crab ran up the middle, over a defender and 80 yards downfield for a touchdown. On this night, Crabtree's 16 points and seven boards aren't enough to lead a comeback. But the media still vote him the North's MVP. "My kid," Crabtree Sr. says proudly, "has heart!"

And hands. And smarts. In fact, ask anyone who knows Crabtree how a redshirt freshman who never played wideout can catch 134 passes for 1,962 yards and 22 TDs, and each will give you a different answer. We know—we did just that. But all the answers led to this ultimate truth: Michael Crabtree is college football's premier receiver.

"A GREAT SENSE OF SPACE"
Prod Texas Tech coach Mike Leach to say what makes Crabtree such a prodigious receiving talent, and he responds with a curious answer for a football coach: "He has a great sense of space." Usually you'll hear coaches wax on about a pass-catcher's blazing speed or soft hands or quick feet coming out of breaks. But Leach explains that maneuvering in space is essential to route-running. Or, as it should be called in Tech's four-wide, no-huddle, shotgun attack, route-adjusting. Leach explains that Crabtree, like former Tech and current Patriots star Wes Welker, has an uncanny knack for reading coverages and adjusting his routes "without breaking the integrity of the combination of the other routes." In layman's terms: Crabtree doesn't run into teammates or flood spots designed to be opened up by the play. Once the ball is snapped, Red Raiders QB Graham Harrell and his receivers quickly recalculate, reading coverages and scouting downfield for holes instead of automatically running a precise route. "We coach it. We encourage it. We insist on it," Leach says of improvisation. "You show the player on film: 'You're standing here covered by this guy, but there's a big hole right here. Why is that?' " The coach rubs his eyes in mock frustration before continuing. " 'If you take three steps over here, you're wide open.' " Leach has no such problems with Crabtree, and the coach thinks the player developed his keen sense of surroundings on the basketball court. But Crabtree says he just puts in a lot of time studying film and getting reps with his QB. But Mike, don't all receivers know to do those things? "It's one thing to know it," Crabtree says, "and it's another thing to do it."

"FIGURE OUT HOW TO COUNTER EVERYTHING"
Crabtree's cousin David Wells believes the receiver's greatness is rooted not in hoops but in boxing. Sparring taught Crabtree what his body could do. Wells knows what he's talking about: He trained former WBC middleweight champ Quincy Taylor. And when his cousin was in junior high, the two worked out together for three hours several nights a week. "Training like a boxer really worked on Michael's reflexes," Wells says. "He worked on his hand-eye coordination and was constantly working with his body, always having to figure out how to counter everything, how to change angles." And although Wells says Crabtree "looked like a scared rat" the first time he got into the ring, the kid was slick enough to win the respect of the older guys in the gym. Boxing taught Crabtree something else, too: about the solitude of sports, about how to hardwire your mind to adjust to your environment. In late summer 2006, before Crabtree's freshman year, he was put in academic limbo by the NCAA because his high school had lost some of his paperwork before finally sending it to the NCAA clearinghouse. Crabtree waited while Tech appealed.

Weeks passed. No updates. "I was like, Man, what am I gonna do?" he says. "I was so lost." Crabtree hurt too much even to go to the stadium and watch his team play. By the time he found out he was eligible—after Tech's third game that season—coaches had decided to redshirt him. He was still too upset to attend games in person, so he sat in his apartment and listened to them on the radio. Allen Wilson, the coach at Carter High, says the year off was a blessing for Crabtree, giving him time to learn the nuances of playing receiver. Better still, it fueled him, adding to the hunger that Wilson believes makes the receiver special: "Not getting to play that year was the best thing that could have happened to him."


"JUST PLAY FASTER"
Remember that little kid with the leg infection who went 80 yards to score in a flag football game? He grew up to be the Wing-T high school QB who, when Texas recruiters asked him about playing defense for the Longhorns, waved them off and said, "I want to score touchdowns." He grew up to be the kid who, when Bobby Knight asked him about playing hoops for the Red Raiders, said no thanks but claimed he'd be All-Big 12 if he did play. Sound boastful? Well, Tech's football coaches have learned not to doubt him. Receivers coach Lincoln Riley says Crabtree has looked polished from his first day playing the position.

"Welker and Crabtree are definitely the smartest wide receivers we've ever had here," Riley says. "And not just by a little. And whether they run a 4.4 or a 4.7, they never get confused, so they just play faster. "Michael knows where the holes are gonna be, especially in those scramble situations," Riley continues. "And you can tell him things that may screw up other guys. He just gets it. " Welker, whom Tech coaches dubbed The Natural, says Crabtree's burst is what separates him on the field, although neither player has ever been called a burner. Leach likes to say, "If the NFL were one-hand touch, Welker would be out of a job." When Crabtree's teammates hear the same things about their superstar, they have a standard response: For not being very fast, Crabtree sure runs past a lot of former track stars.

"HE GOES UP AND FIGHTS FOR THE BALL"
This summer, Wells, who says he has worked security for some of the Dallas Cowboys, arranged for Crabtree to work out at Deion Sanders' football camp in Dallas. For two days, Crabtree ran routes against Pacman Jones and other NFL defensive backs while Sanders and his pal Michael Irvin gave him pointers. Crabtree says Irvin showed him how to beat press coverage and maneuver through a defensive backfield. The NFL players say Crabtree showed them a few things too. "Man, he's a helluva player," says Omar Stoutmire, an 11-year NFL vet. "The way No matter how well Crabtree does on the field this season, there will always be skeptics who say that his greatness is merely a result of the Tech system. They'll say he's a step slow. They'll predict he'll be exposed if he goes pro a year from now and faces real defenses. And they'll be wrong.he goes up and fights for the ball—you won't find many receivers who can do it like that. I saw him make three catches against some of the best cornerbacks in the NFL. That's all about attitude."

Great he fights for the ball...does this really change that he's not fast, is coming from the spread and all that? Did he fight for the ball against Ole Miss when they completely owned him in his bowl game? The space thing is laughable at best he's in the god damn spread what do you expect?

And if they keep comparing him to Welker I'm gonna laugh my balls off, slot WR in the top 5 bank it!

No article in the world is going to sell me on a WR who doesn't have all the tools being worthy of a top 5 pick.

He does not compare to Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald and so forth.

He's not my pick if I was the GM of the Chiefs and picking 3rd. just thought it was a good background article.