With all due respect, I believe you don't just draft players, they have to fit into a team's pressing needs. Instead of risking that a certain player would be available later on - select him on the spot.
The Jets agreed to a contract extension with their safety this week -- a reported five years, over $30 MM, and that plays into their draft strategy.
Here's an interested article published by the Plain Dealer on QB Anderson and Brady Quinn.
(Tony Grossi, Plain Dealer beat reporter for the Cleveland Browns)
Plain Dealer Newspaper
Browns' QB status no controversy to opponents
by
[email protected] April 02, 2008
Palm Beach, Fla. -- In Cleveland, the debate between Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn no doubt will burn hot for another year at least.
But coaches and personnel experts interviewed this week at NFL league meetings were unanimous in saying the Browns have done the right thing with their quarterbacks.
"Obviously, the bold move they made a year ago paid off for them," Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis said.
"I'm talking about putting Anderson in and trading Charlie [Frye] and moving on. I think with the other 52 guys -- or 51, because I don't know that Brady's fine with it -- they know who their quarterback is. That's a huge step for a football team. You have to make that step to win."
Nobody here expressed the opinion that signing Anderson to a three-year deal after trading a No. 1 to select Quinn the year before automatically creates a quarterback controversy.
"The controversy would come if they didn't keep Derek," said Pat Kirwan, a former Jets assistant coach and front office employee now with NFL.com.
"Those receivers were going to go crazy. [Kellen] Winslow and [Braylon] Edwards, they're making the Pro Bowl right now with Derek Anderson delivering the mail. They don't want to go backwards. They know that guy gets the ball to them, and they have an open attack. Why would they take a risk to switch out?"
Not even Phil Savage can say, however, how long Anderson's reign as the starting quarterback will continue.
"Derek, he's a little bit more of an unknown," the Browns' general manager said. "He just kind of came from the hinterlands and all of a sudden ends up in Hawaii [in the Pro Bowl]. Now we'll see if he can build off that. It was worth the investment for us to see if he can go further with what he did last year."
And if he doesn't?
"That contract does not lock Derek down," Kirwan said. "Here's what Phil said to me a hundred times: 'I made sure that we are good for 2008. Then we'll figure it out.' And I don't think that means you trade Brady Quinn if he's great. If [Anderson's] great, you're going to play out the three-year deal. If he's not great, they move Derek and give the kid a chance.
"If he has three games at the beginning like the Cincinnati game [in December] ..."
So far, Quinn is the victim of bad timing.
He slipped down the draft board a year ago because Miami passed on him at No.¤9, and then came a long run of teams uninterested in drafting a quarterback first. He had a contract dispute in training camp, partly as a result of the Browns wanting to sort out the Frye vs. Anderson debacle. Then Anderson buried him on the bench with a totally unanticipated breakout year.
If Quinn were coming out of Notre Dame this year, experts here said, he would be considered with Boston College's Matt Ryan as the draft's top quarterback.
"That would be a tough debate," Minnesota coach Brad Childress said. "Apples and oranges. Either one could be the top one taken."
"I think they're real close," Kirwan said. "I think this year, unlike last year, more teams need a quarterback in the top¤10. I don't think either one would go to Atlanta at No.¤3.
The first interest might be Kansas City at 5. And then the one not taken would probably go to Baltimore at No.¤8."
This year's No.¤8 overall pick will exceed the $15.4 million in guaranteed money given the 2007 selection, Jamaal Anderson of Atlanta. Quinn got about $7.8 million in guarantees. So, factors totally out of Quinn's hands have been costly to him.
But Savage and coach Romeo Crennel insist that Quinn can and will handle the situation.
"His state of mind is that he's got good enough ability to be the starting quarterback for the Browns and that's what he's going to try to be," Crennel said. "He understands there's a competition and there's a guy ahead of him, but that doesn't diminish his confidence in himself or diminish his ability at all."
Gruden never met a quarterback he didn't like, but he seems particularly impressed with Quinn.
"It seems like a heckuva trade to me, to get him 22nd [last year]," he said. "Who knows what'll happen? Derek's a heckuva story. Whether it works in Brady's favor in Cleveland or not, they have two really good young quarterbacks and that's a lot more than some of us can say.
"That's an exciting team, man, to have those two guys. This is a quarterback-driven league."
(*speculation on Kansas City part) -- I hate speculation -- welcome to the world of sports writing.
http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/200...vers.html#more