Rebuild without the QB

[ChiefsCountry]

So for all of you complaining about having no QB, when have the Chiefs had an actual shot at drafting a franchise QB? The only one we have had a shot at was Aaron Rodgers and he is still unproven overall. More than likely we will get their shot this April in the draft with Stafford or Bradford.

[RealSNR]

That's the risk we took with seeing if Croyle was "the guy". If he wasn't, then things would get really bad like they are now. If he was, we would be almost ready to contend after next season and the rebuilding phase would be over.

It looks to be far from that right now.

[HC_Chief]

Herm stated he didn't think last year's draft had any "franchise QBs". If Matt Ryan had fallen to us, they would have passed on him.

I do not want that dumbass picking our QBOTF. He has no eye for offensive talent. He has no clue how to utilize or even select a QB. If Herm is still here and it's his call at QB, this team is #&%#ed for the next 5-10 years.

[Deberg_1990]

I posted a thread a month or so ago stating why i thought the Chiefs should have selected Rodgers over DJ in 2005.


I also think the Chiefs should have tried to leap frog Atlanta to snag Ryan.

Everything begins and ends with a QB.

[triple]

Every QB Carl has drafted has been a disaster. Herm's record with QBs is no better.

That's why it is critical to get these idiots fired before the draft.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by HC_Chief

Herm stated he didn't think last year's draft had any "franchise QBs". If Matt Ryan had fallen to us, they would have passed on him.

I do not want that dumbass picking our QBOTF. He has no eye for offensive talent. He has no clue how to utilize or even select a QB. If Herm is still here and it's his call at QB, this team is #&%#ed for the next 5-10 years.

This goes well beyond Herm doesn't it? Sorry, I'm not trying to defend Herm Edwards by any means. I really think Herm Edwards is to football what Hitler is to Germany. But hasn't this always been a problem with this franchise? Drafting a QB, I mean. Forgive my ignorance. I've been a big fan of the sport for a decade plus, but I've only started really getting into the nuance of the game and appreciating it on a more than superficial level in the past couple of years. And my knowledge of Chiefs history, it's only fair to say, is still pretty limited and novice. When have the Chiefs EVER been able to draft and mold a QB?

Getting rid of Herm certainly will help matters, but that's just scratching the surface. And I have no idea what the solution is. I just wonder why this has been such a hard thing for the Chiefs to do.

[Fish]

If we just draft QB in the first round.... that's all it would take.....

In the 1983 NFL draft, six quarterbacks went in the first round. All of them became starters for their respective teams. Three of them--John Elway, Jim Kelly, and Dan Marino--are in the Hall of Fame after lengthy and productive careers. This marks 1983 as one of the best quarterback drafts of all time. How have first-rounders fared since? Not so well.

Taking a look at quarterbacks drafted over a 20-year period from 1985-2005, the return on first-round investments is underwhelming. NFL teams drafted 242 quarterbacks overall during that time; of those, 43 were first-round selections. The average career for a first round pick through last year (2006) was 6.5 years and 70.3 games played with a 72.9 passer rating. The average league-wide passer rating was 77.3 during that same timeframe. Only 15 of those first-round quarterbacks (34.8%) have a career passer rating better than that mark. Only four of them have led the league in passer rating; only one of them--Peyton Manning--has done it more than once. Meanwhile, 12 have retired with fewer than 30 game appearances, and 11 have retired after five seasons or less.

It's said that championships are the true measure of greatness. Among this group, only nine have appeared in Super Bowls, with six wins to show for it. Three of those wins are from the only current Hall of Famer among that group, Troy Aikman. Which means that sixth-round pick Tom Brady has as many Super Bowl victories (3) in the past five years as 42 first-rounders not named Aikman have achieved in the past 20.

The 1990s was not the decade to pick a first-rounder, as the average passer rating among that group is 68.4, thanks to some spectacular flops including Todd Marinovich, Ryan Leaf, and Jim Druckenmiller. Out of the 20 quarterbacks selected in the first round during the 90s, only four entered the 2007 season as active players with career ratings over 80: Peyton Manning (94.4), Daunte Culpepper (90.8), Donovan McNabb (85.2), and Steve McNair (83.2). In contrast, nine of those 20 quarterbacks retired after playing in fewer than 35 games, with an average passer rating of 55.7 among them.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...bust_than.html

['Hamas' Jenkins]

That article has a pretty bad selection bias.

If you extrapolate it out to include the classes with Roethlisberger, Manning, Rivers, and the Cutler, Leinart, Young class it does look quite a bit more promising.

Only one of those six is a certain bust (Young) and another one (Leinart) is a big disappointment thus far.

[Fish]

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn...c.php?t=452945

First-round QBs aren't worth the risk

Posted: September 2, 2008

The benchings of quarterbacks Alex Smith and Matt Leinart are the most recent evidence of a point I've been making for years.

When drafting a quarterback in Round 1, proceed at your own peril. History tells us that it's a coin-flip proposition, at best. And given the big money that quarterbacks taken in round one get paid, putting millions at risk might not be a prudent gamble.

Of the 10 drafts from 1997 through 2006, 14 of 27 first-round quarterbacks were clear busts. As to several others (Chad Pennington, Michael Vick, Aaron Rodgers, Jason Campbell, Vince Young, Jay Cutler), reasonable minds could differ and/or the jury is still out.

This leaves only five clear-cut franchise quarterbacks from ten drafts: Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger. (Cutler will likely join that group this year.)

In contrast, franchise quarterbacks such as Tom Brady, David Garrard, Tony Romo, Marc Bulger, and Matt Hasselbeck weren't picked in Round 1.
Still, the lure of landing that franchise quarterback via the first round is strong. Strong enough to get teams like the San Francisco 49ers to make Smith the No. 1 overall pick in 2005, and for the Arizona Cardinals to take Leinart at No. 10 a year later.

Part of the problem is that non-football decisions often influence the process. Does anyone really think the Falcons' football people wanted to pick Matt Ryan third overall? That decision reeks of an ownership move aimed at erasing the memories of Michael Vick.

As a result of the imperfect nature of the draft, plenty of guys not taken high in the process have climbed the ladder to become starting quarterbacks. Indeed, 10 of the current 32 starters were drafted either after round five or not drafted at all. (The AFC has no undrafted quarterbacks who are starters, which might explain why the AFC is generally viewed as the better conference.)

This leaves only 14 first-round picks as starters, with rookie Joe Flacco recently getting the nod in Baltimore. Contributing to this dynamic is the amount of attention and pressure that lands on a first-round quarterback. The fans want to see what the kid can do, and the media will echo that sentiment by constantly clamoring for him to get onto the field. If/when the losses pile up, the coaching staff will feel compelled to comply.

But the player no longer gets five years to figure things out. Nearly four decades ago, Terry Bradshaw of the Steelers, the No. 1 overall pick in 1970, was able to sputter and spurt for several seasons until the proverbial light finally began to flicker. Today, Bradshaw would have been replacing spark plugs in Shreveport if he hadn't become a superstar by the end of year three.

The better approach, then, seems to be taking a quarterback later in the draft, allowing him to develop quietly and without scrutiny, and hoping that he'll become the next Tom Brady, Tony Romo or Kurt Warner.
Or even the next Brett Favre. Though the Packers once upon a time gave up a first-round pick to obtain his rights from the Falcons, Favre was taken in Round 2, one spot ahead of Browning Nagle.

If you're trying to remember who Browning Nagle is, then you should be agreeing with the overriding theory here -- the draft is a crapshoot, and it doesn't make sense to stake more than $50 million on what is in essence a game of poker in which the last card won't be turned for at least a couple of years.

[Fish]

(...)

Here are the primary QBs for this year's NFL teams with winning records and where they were drafted.

Giants - Eli Manning (First Round)
Redskins - Jason Campbell (First Round)
Bills - JP Losman (First Round)
Steelers - Ben Roethlisberger (First Round)
Colts - Peyton Manning (First Round)
Titans - Vince Young (First Round)
San Diego - Philip Rivers (First Round)
Packers - Brett Favre (Second Round)
Jacksonville - David Garrard (Fourth Round)/Quinn Gray (undrafted)
Seahawks - Matt Hasselbeck (Sixth Round)
Patriots - Tom Brady (Sixth Round)
Browns - Derek Anderson (Sixth Round)
Cowboys - Tony Romo (undrafted)
Lions - Jon Kitna (undrafted)
Bucs - Jeff Garcia (undrafted)

So if you add in Quinn Gray, then we have as many Sixth Round and Undrafted QBs leading winning teams as we do First Round QBs.

But wins alone aren't the best example of whether a QB is competent or not - I'm looking at you Vince Young. A passer rating gets us closer to that. So let's find the average passer rating by draft round for the primary QBs in this year's NFL. We're using career passer ratings (not just this year's) provided by NFL.com and have added Byron Leftwich, Jake Delhomme, David Carr and Vinny Testaverde to the list. Special note: Trent Green was drafted in the 8th round of the 1993 Draft. This means in total we're looking at 34 QBs.

First Round QBs: 17
Avg. passer rating: 80.05

Second Round QBs: 2
Avg. passer rating: 86.35

Third Round QBs: 2
Avg. passer rating: 81.05

Fourth Round QBs: 1
Avg. passer rating: 84.1

Fifth Round QBs: none

Sixth Round QBs: 4
Avg. passer rating: 87.48

Seventh Round QBs: none

Eighth Round QBs: 1
Avg. passer rating: 86.9

Undrafted QBs: 7
Avg. passer rating: 85.07

You don't need a linear regression analysis program to tell you that there is no correlation between career passer rating and draft round. But there are some important things to consider. One is that first round draft choices get more playing time to determine if they'll pan out while late round draft choices have to produce immediately. We all know about the Ryan Leafs and Akili Smiths. Meanwhile a bad Sixth Round pick may play one game and that's basically his career. Or he may never play at all. These scenarios will naturally deflate the first round QB avg. passer rating to a degree while boosting the late rounds. But, looking at it from another perspective, you can also make the argument with the data available that there are a fair number of pretty good QBs that go late in the draft or that don't get drafted at all. By this analysis, there are 12 current QBs who were drafted in the Sixth Round or later (or not at all) who easily surpass the 17 First Round players in average career passer rating. When you stop and think about that, it's stunning. And it also says that maybe some of those First Round picks really shouldn't be playing anymore and teams should be trying out new guys - like say my 49ers. One can only wonder how many Tom Bradys and Tony Romos weren't discovered because a higher draft pick, but inferior player, was ahead of them on the depth chart.

The most recent example is Derek Anderson. Romeo Crennel named Charlie Frye (a third round choice) as his starter at the beginning of the year, then traded him after Week 1. It's only because of that trade that Anderson saw significant playing time. Imagine if Crennel had stuck with Frye until week 8 or 9. He might have just inserted Brady Quinn by then, effectively shutting the door on Anderson's career. Instead, the trade was made, Anderson began starting, and another late round gem was found.

Year after year scouts and coaches drool over players with great arm strength (see: Boller, Kyle), or family genes (see: Manning, Eli) or God only knows what (see: Smith, Alex). And after they fail - although Eli appears to maybe finally be headed in the right direction - you hear excuse after excuse. He's an idiot; he didn't play in a pro-style college offense; he's slow; he doesn't get rid of the ball quickly enough. Well, if all that's so noticeable now, why didn't you notice it before? And why didn't you notice Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Derek Anderson, and Kurt Warner? Obviously something isn't working in terms of scouting.

Certainly more analysis needs to be done - as in looking back year after year - but there does seem to be a bit of a trend. And that is that there are a ton of first round QB busts along with a surprisingly high number of good QBs available late in the draft or who were never drafted at all. Which pretty much means one thing. The draft is frequently a total crapshoot when it comes to drafting QBs.

http://100percentinjuryrate.blogspot...-is-total.html

[boogblaster]

Al the above is true .. that said we have never addressed the QB position ever ... But right now a great QB would just get murdered anyway ...

[BigChiefFan]

Carl re-signed Damon Huard, enough said.

[Chief Faithful]

What is the problem, Huard is developing nicely.

[BigChiefFan]

Originally Posted by Chief Faithful

What is the problem, Huard is developing nicely.

I agree, he should be set to help anybody that is concerned with getting their fetal position down pat. I hear, he once tutored Jim Baker for his trial back in the day.

[Micjones]

QB is at the top of our list of priorities this off-season.
If there isn't a fairly young prospect in Free Agency we must take one high in the Draft.

I think a reliable veteran addition in FA would also be prudent.