Top 5 QB's Drafted Stats since 1970
 

1970
1. Terry Bradshaw

1971
1. Jim Plunkett
2. Archie Manning
3. Dan Pastroni

1973
2. Bert Jones

1975
1. Steve Bartkowski

1979
3. Jack Thompson

1982
4. Art Schlichter
5. Jim McMahon

1983
1. John Elway

1986
3. Jim Everett

1987
1. Vinny Testaverde

1989
1. Troy Aikman

1990
1. Jeff George

1993
1. Drew Bledsoe
2. Rick Mirer

1994
3. Heath Shuler

1995
3. Steve McNair
5. Kerry Collins

1998
1. Peyton Manning
2. Ryan Leaf

1999
1. Tim Couch
2. Donovan McNabb
3. Akill Smith

2001
1. Michael Vick

2002
1. David Carr
3. Joey Harrington

2003
1. Carson Palmer

2004
1. Eli Manning
4. Phillip Rivers

2005
1. Alex Smith

2006
3. Vince Young

2007
1. JaMarcus Russell

2008
3. Matt Ryan

Out of this group:
21 have made the Pro Bowl
12 have took teams to the Super Bowl
7 have won the Super Bowl
4 are Hall of Famers right now (Manning is for sure someothers have a good shot ie McNair, McNabb, Eli)
10 are pure busts
4 of the busts came in two drafts (1999, 2002)
1 Jeff George - no Pro Bowls but he wasnt a bust really, he played good with other teams, so he is in his own category

(Vince Young, JaMarcus Russell and Matt Ryan jury is still out - Young did have a Pro Bowl though)
Jim Plunkett never made a Pro Bowl but won two Super Bowls.

Just going off history you have close to a 70% you are going to get a Pro Bowl Quarterback with a top 5 pick. You have about the same percentage for a bust as Marty does for playoff wins.

McMahon wore cool shades too.

Since 2000, only 4 of the 10 picks have worked out. If you go back to 1998, you get 6 out of 15. Those are bad percentages.

By team:
Colts - 5
Oilers/Titans - 4
Bengals - 3
Falcons - 3
Chargers - 2
Patriots - 2

Are 4 of these teams unhappy that they kept firing on trying to land an elite QB? Colts, Bengals, Falcons, Chargers? Granted, some of these players have a long way to go.

Patriots lucked into one. Titans are the lone team still feeling the sting, in some ways.

Imagine this fan base if we were the ones who selected Leaf. No way in hell would most KC fans have had the sack to draft Rivers (Manning, you know what I mean) only six years later. ****, some Chiefs fans probably still want Croyle to have another crack at it.

Removing the guys with three seasons or less for the moment, here's how I'd rank them. I'm giving this very little thought, so don't beat me up.

Looking at it this way, there's a 50/50 chance that you'll get a Bert Jones or better - a solid pro. there's a 25 percent chance you'll get an Archie Manning or better - a good to great QB. I'd take those odds.


Peyton Manning
John Elway (jerk)
Terry Bradshaw
Donovan McNabb
Troy Aikman
Drew Bledsoe
Steve McNair
Archie Manning
Steve Bartkowski
Eli Manning
Jim Plunkett
Vinny Testaverde
Jim McMahon
Carson Palmer
Jim Everett
Phillip Rivers
Bert Jones
Dan Pastorini
Jeff George
Michael Vick
Kerry Collins
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Alex Smith
Tim Couch
Heath Shuler
Rick Mirer
Akill Smith
Jack Thompson
Art Schlichter
Ryan Leaf

We have a breakthrough in this man's therapy. Thanks to the aggressive stereotactic gamma knife radiation of ChiefsCountry's list, RainMan has taken those odds.

Allahu Akbar!!

You mean you finally agree with me?

Not as risky as alot of you think huh.

Jamarcus Russell and Vince Young shouldn't count. Those were owner-driven picks.

Eli won't make the HOF

Remember when we picked Blackledge? Croyle is too damaged to get back on the field, except as a backup. Chan and Thiggy aren't doing too bad with what we have for line help. Wait and see who's coming out for the draft, but I don't think the QBOTF is going to declare this year.

Palmer is good. He just has no defense whatsoever. An offense can only go so far, unless you are the Rams from that one Superbowl...

Maybe not. We can't make a player magically appear, but, odds are, there will be a front-line QB somewhere in this draft, and the Chefs need to find him. Furthermore, the odds are that said QB will be an early-round selection.

If there's no one available when KC picks in round one, I'd be very happy to take the second best QB in the draft at the top of round 2. Maybe this is Davis? Maybe it's someone else.

It will be interesting to look back in a few years and wonder if the Chiefs really messed up by not taking Flacco in '08.

I assume you're talking about the one they lost, because the D from the one they won was clutch.

Eric Davis would be a good pick.

Flacco is flying because the defense effectively sets up the offense in the Ravens' case.

Yeah, I'm not sure about Flacco. When I've seen him, I haven't been very impressed, but I'm just saying that this is one of the few round one QBs that the team could have taken. We didn't, so it will be interesting to reflect, given our desperate need to fill the position.

As much as we complain, the Chiefs, generally, weren't in position to draft a top guy. They would have had to trade up in most instances.

I wish people would analyze this without going back to the 1970's. Everything is different nowadays - more teams, QBs leave school early, better athletes on defense, etc. etc. The track record is a less than 50% chance of success in the last 10 years. Fact.

That's skewed by teams making stupid picks like Rex Grossman, Vince Young and the like.

The percentages are a lot less for QBs outside of the top 5 and outside of round 1.

Going back to 1995 here are the QBs drafted by round. Calculate the percentage of finding a franchise QB.

top 5
Vince Young
Alex Smith
Eli Manning
Philip Rivers
Carson Palmer
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Mike Vick
Tim Couch
Donovan McNabb
Akili Smith
Peyton Manning
Ryan Leaf
Steve McNair
Kerry Collins

round 1
Matt Leinart
Jay Cutler
Aaron Rodgers
Jason Campbell
Ben Roethlisberger
JP Losman
Byron Leftwich
Kyle Boller
Rex Grossman
Patrick Ramsey
Chad Pennington
Daunte Culpepper
Cade McNown
Jim Druckenmiller

round 2
Kellen Clemens
Tarvaris Jackson
Drew Brees
Quincy Carter
Marques Tuiasosopo
Shaun King
Charlie Batch
Jake Plummer
Tony Banks
Todd Collins
Kordell Stewart

round 3
Charlie Whitehurst
Brodie Croyle
Charlie Frye
Andrew Walter
David Greene
Matt Schaub
Dave Ragone
Josh McCown
Chris Simms
Giovanni Carmazzi
Chris Redman
Brock Huard
Jonathan Quinn
Brian Griese
Bobby Hoying
Stoney Case
Eric Zeier

round 4
Kyle Orton
Stefan LeFors
Luke McCown
Seneca Wallace
David Garrard
Rohan Davey
Chris Weinke
Sage Rosenfels
Jesse Palmer
Joe Germaine
Aaron Brooks
Danny Wuerffel
Pat Barnes
Jeff Lewis
Danny Kanell
Rob Johnson
Chad May
Dave Barr
Steve Stenstrom

round 5
Ingle Martin
Omar Jacobs
Dan Orlovsky
Adrian McPherson
Craig Krenzel
Brian St. Pierre
Randy Fasani
Kurt Kittner
Brandon Doman
Craig Nall
Mike McMahon
AJ Feely
Tee Martin
Kevin Daft
Jay Barker

round 6
Bruce Gradkowski
Derek Anderson
Andy Hall
Josh Harris
Jim sorgi
Jeff Smoker
Drew Henson
Brooks Bollinger
Kliff Kingsbury
JT O'Sullivan
Josh Booty
Josh Heupel
Marc Bulger
Spergon Wynn
Tom Brady
Todd Husak
Matt Hasselbeck
Mike Cherry
Chuck Clements
Craig Whelihan

round 7
DJ Shockley
Matt Cassel
Ryan Fitzpatrick
John Navarre
Cody Pickett
Casey Bramlet
Matt Mauck
BJ Symons
Bradee Van Pelt
Gibran Hamdan
Ken Dorsey
Seth Burford
Jeff Kelly
Wes Pate
Tim Rattay
Jarious Jackson
Joe Hamilton
Michael Bishop
Chris Greisen
Scott Covington
Moses Moreno
Tony Graziani
Koy Detmer
Wally Richardson
Jon Stark
Kyle Wachholtz
John Walsh

Better players are more likely to be drafted higher. This is true at every single position, not just QB. But the success rate overall on QBs is low. The original post tossed around numbers like 70% for top 5 when that is not realistic in the modern NFL. It's less than 50% now. I'm not saying it's not worth it if you have real conviction about the guy - but you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking that because a guy has a big arm he'll be Peyton Manning. He probably won't.

I advocated for Matt Ryan last year because I thought he had the completely off-the-charts work ethic, intelligence, and leadership skills that truly make the great QBs what they are. At this point I don't see that in the top QB candidates, although I don't know enough about Stafford yet.

2 years produced 4 of the 6 busts.

now that's a sample size to believe in. :)

I guess looking at it from say...1980 would make more sense.

cd can explain more about statistics than I can, but you have to good sample size to get an accurate read. The 1999 and 2002 drafts were quarterback busters. I went with top 5 QB's bc that is where we would be picking. The Blackledges, Klingers and such who are seen as horror stories were not even top 5 picks.

Go back to 1998, or 1990, or 1980....you'll see it was not just 2 fluke years. I think your research shows that picking a QB high was really successful in the 70's, but became less so over time. Again, I still think you should do it - but only if you have strong conviction. I did about Ryan, don't about Stafford or Bradford right now.

Amazing that in the best year ever for QB's - 1983 - only Elway was picked in the top 5.

You forgot
1970 Cleveland Browns took Mike Phipps 3rd overall

and if you include 6th and 7th overall picks
1976 jets take Richard Todd 6th overall
1979 Phil Simms. Works out very well, though if you remember, simms gets hurt and backup Jeff Hostettler takes them to super bowl victory anyway. I'm betting they win some super bowls with LT and Parcells and Belicheck if they pick simms here or not.
1981 Green Bay picked Rich Campbell sixth overall and Ronnie Lott went two picks later. Campbell was only in the league for 4 seasons, put up a whopping 3 tds,
1983 Todd Blackledge was the seventh overall pick by the chiefs , we know how that went. Bruce Matthews went two picks later.

1987 Cardinals took Kelly Stouffer sixth overall
1990 - Lions took Andre Ware seventh overall
1992 Bengals take David Klingler sixth overall
1994 Trend Dilfer taken by Tampa Bay sixth overall. He would go on to win a super bowl, but not with Tampa.
2003 Jacksonville took byron leftwich seventh.

and if you don't cut it off at 1970, in 1969 Bengals take Greg Cook 5th overall

So maybe the odds aren't quite what you were saying they were. I mean, most of the time the reason a QB goes 6 or 7 instead of top five is simply because top 5 teams don't have a need for qb.

round 6 almost seems better than round 1

I went top 5 bc that is where I knew the Chiefs would be picking and 1970 bc that is when the merger and the current NFL was in place. But the more you post you are scared to take a QB and want to be the 90's Chiefs.

I just thing quarterbacks are more of a gamble than other positions

The problem with a poll like this is that it sort of puts the chicken before the egg...

Those QB's werent good because they were top 5 picks they were top 5 because they were good. Some probably were reaches. Some deserved it.

Its all about the scouting of the player as always. Just picking someone top five to say we picked someone top five isnt gonna garner the next Peyton Manning.

I will absolutely disagree with this logic, no pick is truly safe any position can bust, if you make a top 5 pick just trying to be safe that is the absolute ultimate fear, you shouldn't be in charge of a team if you think that way, you'll never be great if you aren't willing to take the chances to make it happen.

There is some flawed mathematics right there.

Also... "there are 3 types of lies; Lies, damn lies and statistics." -Benjamin Disraeli