So, a lot has been made about the QB situation in Miami recently. Blame has been assigned to current and former coaches and GMs for the debacle of the past 12 years. I'm not disagreeing with anyone that the QB position hasn't been made a priority. It's clear that we have not invested as we should in what is clearly the most important position in sports. I'm not questioning whether or not you need an elite QB to win the Super Bowl either. The fact that Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Manning, Roethlisberger, and Warner (all hall of fame QBs) have filled 15 of the 22 QB slots in the last 10 Super Bowls clearly illustrates that is the point. But 3 of those 7 guys weren't even first round picks. Brees was a 2nd rounder, Brady a 6th and Warner undrafted. And that's where I begin to disagree with a lot of people on this issue. The conventional wisdom is that in order to secure an elite QB you must spend a 1st round pick on a QB. If Brees, Brady and Warner aren't enough to squash that line of thinking then maybe whats to follow is. I went back to 1998 for two reasons. First of which, it is the last draft from which a QB taken in the first round is still in the NFL. Secondly, it was 2 years before the retirement of Marino which was the time frame when we really should have begun to look for a replacement. Some of you may disagree with my assessment of certain players, if so, please feel free to post a legitimate argument to the contrary. Without further ado I present to you the 39 Quarterbacks taken in the first round in the past 14 years. 1998 Peyton Manning - Arguably the greatest QB of all time, definite 1st round success Ryan Leaf - Only spent four years in the league, Finished his career with 14 TDs, 36 INTs and a QBR of 50.0. Much as Peyton Manning is the quintessential QB to compare to for success, Leaf is the poster boy for failure 1999 Tim Couch - Spent 5 years in the league, finished with a 75.1 QBR, 64 TDs and 67 INTs. Not nearly as bad as Leaf but a pretty clear cut bust Donovan McNabb - 4 straight NFC championship games with the Eagles, a Super Bowl appearance, one of the most successful careers of any non Super Bowl winning QB Akili Smith - In 4 years in the league he threw a total of 461 passes with a completion % of 56.6. A terrible bust. Daunte Culpepper - Hard to label him a bust since he did have over 24,000 yards and 183 TDs, but he never did it without Randy Moss, he never won anything significant and the last 4 years of his career were a joke. Cade McNown - Only lasted for 4 years, Bears cut him after 2, more INTs than TDs, clear cut bust 2000 Chad Pennington - Another guy who is hard to classify as a bust. With a career rating of 90.1 and a 2nd place MVP vote behind Peyton in 2008, Pennington had a solid career. His injuries were his ultimate undoing however. Only starting 81 games over an 11 year career isn't what you want out of a 1st round QB. 2001 Michael Vick - Went to jail for 2 years, played one full season in an 11 year career, never won anything significant and the Falcons passed on LaDanian Tomlinson for him. Bust. 2002 David Carr - A guy who is still active in the NFL today but hasn't been a starter since 2006. Career 65-71 TD/INT ratio. Most sacked QB in NFL history and stil never learned to get rid of the ball faster. Bust. Joey Harrington - 7 years in the league, 69.4 QBR, more picks than TDs. Bust. Patrick Ramsey - This guy was on 9 teams in 9 years. Need I say more? 2003 Carson Palmer - Another guy who is hard to classify as a bust. The definition of solid but unspectacular. Hasn't been himself since 2006 but still isn't terrible. Byron Leftwich - 5 teams in 9 years. Wasn't even good enough to start in Jacksonville. Jokes are still made about his terrible delivery. Bust. Kyle Boller - Career rating of 69.5. More INTs than TDs. Single handedly held the Ravens back for years. Raiders traded away a kings ransom for Palmer just so they wouldn't have to start Boller. Epic Bust. Rex Grossman - 10,000 passing yards in a 9 year career. The Bears made it to the Super Bowl in spite of Grossman. Almost found success in Washington this year, but definitely a bust. 2004 (The Last Great QB Draft) Eli Manning - 2 Super Bowls, finally coming into his own. Clear success. Philip Rivers - Not as successful as Ben or Eli but 4 pro bowls and a 95.2 career rating makes him a success. Even if he is an insufferable prick. Ben Roethlisberger - 2 Super Bowls in spite of not having the best passer skill set. A bit overrated IMO but his game works. Success. J.P. Losman - They can't all be great picks. Though he was the UFL MVP. Bust 2005 Alex Smith - Would have been a bust prior to this year. At this point it's hard to tell. Will have to see what Harbaugh can do with him. Aaron Rodgers - Possibly the biggest draft steal of all time. Clearly a success. Jason Campbell - Considering the trade up the Washington had to pull off to get him, the fact that he only started 2 full seasons in Washington and got shipped off to the Raiders you gotta call this guy a bust. 2006 Vince Young - Had a mental breakdown, got Jeff Fisher fired, talked a whole bunch of **** about the Eagles while being a back up, and was never good at his position. Monumental bust. Matt Leinart - Started 18 games in 6 years and wasn't good when he started. Bust. Jay Cutler - Another guy, much like Palmer, who's solid but not spectacular. He had one good season in 2008 and in the 4 full seasons he has played has 74 INTs. Not a good QB but not terrible. 2007 JaMarcus Russel - Biggest bust since Ryan Leaf. Brady Quinn - 10 TDs in a 5 year career. Now sits behind Tim Tebow. Bust. 2008 Matt Ryan - After 4 years it would be unfair to say it's too early to tell. He has been a great regular season QB but is 0-3 in the playoffs. He still has time to turn it around but as of right now I put him in the solid but unspectacular category. Joe Flacco - Another solid but unspectacular guy. He's clearly reached his ceiling. 3,613 3,622 and 3,610 yards the past 3 years. 21/12 25/10 and 20/12 TD to INT ratios over the same time span. He's not bad at all but he's not gonna get much better either. 2009 Matthew Stafford - 5,000 yards passing, Comeback player of the year, led the Lions to the playoffs for the first time in forever. Success. Mark Sanchez - A guy who has put up deceptive numbers. Over 9,000 yards in 3 years but a 73.2 QBR and 55 TDs to 51 INTs. He's lost his team and possibly his coach. Gotta label him a bust. Josh Freeman - This is the only guy who I will say it's too early to tell from the 09 class. 51 TDs to 46 INTs, 8,898 yards and a 79 QBR aren't great numbers. But if he can return to 2010 form 3,451 yards 25 TDs 6 INTs he'll be a good QB. He regressed hard this year but I think another year is needed to make a real determination about him Below I have listed the first round QBs from 2010 and 2011. I did not comment on them because I feel that 1-2 more years is necessary to gauge the success of these guys 2010 Sam Bradford Tim Tebow 2011 Cam Newton Jack Locker Blaine Gabbert Christian Ponder Based on my estimation of these quarterbacks I come up with the following Success (7) - Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford Solid, but not spectacular (7) - Daunte Culpepper, Chad Pennington, Carson Palmer, Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco Too Soon to tell (7) - Josh Freeman, Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder Bust (18) - Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, Michael Vick, David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, J.P. Losman, Jason Campbell, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Jamarcus Russel, Brady Quinn, Mark Sanchez 7 successful quarterbacks in the past 14 years drafted in the 1st round. Of those 7 only 4 of them have won the Super Bowl. As you investigate it further you realize that the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 classes were dreadful. Of those 5 classes Carson Palmer and Jay Cutler are all they have to show. The proposed theory of many to spend 1st round picks on QBs until you find one that works would have cost us 5 drafts in 7 years simply because there were no QBs worth taking in the 1st round. We went about shooting ourselves in the foot at the QB position over that time span just as well as the teams who picked those QBs and we did it without even investing those first round picks. Just would have been nice if we would have brought in better talent with the picks we did use. tl;dr So, in closing, I just want to reiterate that there is no magic wand that can be waved and our QB issues go away. Drafting a QB in the first round for the sake of drafting a QB in the first round isn't going to make it any better. And sometimes the move you don't make is more important than the move you do make.
Heres the problem with it.... - 14 is kind of an arbitrary number to start with. Why 14? Is it because Manning started then? - The bigger problem is that it only shows the relevance of first round qb's and their hit or miss rate. It doesnt show the hit or miss rate in comparison to the rest of the draft. If you had included the rest of the draft and the QB's selected you would see that you have a much higher success rate in round 1, especially in the last 5 years when QB importance has grown to a different level with the rule changes favoring the offenses, then you have of finding a quality QB elsewhere in the draft. - It doesnt show the relative success rate of finding QB's via other methods (FA, trade, CFL, etc) that ended up being a success or failure. - 14 years, as arbitrary as it may be, is not relevant anymore. The game changes every few years. The last 5 is whats relevant. Its a great effort on your part and threads that initiate discussion and point out trends are always good but it does have flaws. That said, good job.
Well.. By your own account, 14 of the 32 "eligible" QB's are either "solid" or a clear "success". After watching the Dolphins go through QB bust after bust, QB failure after failure, since the tail end of Marino's career, I'd take my chances on a 1st round QB pick because the other method clearly hasn't worked for this franchise since the mid 90's. At this point a 50/50 chance compared to another decade of misery doesn't seem so bad now, does it? Even if it involves a "solid" QB to take us back to playoff contention. Sprinkle in the chances of landing a HOF talent like Green Bay has done, and this becomes a no brainer. Plain and simple, if we can't land Peyton and Flynn isn't a viable option financially or the guy to lead this franchise, we better damn well do whatever it takes to land a QB in the first round or this team will face a mutiny even worse than last year if Matt Moore is our guaranteed #1 to start the season.
As to your other point, I'm not getting payed enough to catalog every QB brought into the league And limiting it to the past 5 years excludes all of the elite QBs in the league and leaves you with a lot of guys that the jury is still out on/never got an opportunity to even attempt to prove themselves.
Also FWIW, there was a thread like this in Club a year or two ago. second round, 3rd round and 4th round your hit or miss rate all goes down as you go along.
Then you have the Dave Wannestadts of the world who think just because the 2000 Ravens and the 1986/1989 NY Giants won the SB with medicre QB play, means any team can do it, thus rendering the QB into being a "game manager". That's been our team mentality since Marino retired. I knew it was false then, and 12 years later, here we are, finally sobering up and realising we need a franchise QB to win. No more of this game manager crap.
You're free to infer what you want, but I disagree with your premise. Again you're falling into the draft a QB in the 1st round for the sake of drafting a QB in the 1st round mentality. If there's not a QB there worth drafting, which has been the case more often than not at our draft position then it doesn't make sense to take someone just to take them. Solid doesn't win Super Bowls. Hell, being a success doesn't mean you're going to win a Super Bowl (Rivers, Stafford and McNabb are special cases.) It's not a 50/50 proposition. 4 of those 39 QBs have won Super Bowls. That's more like a 1 in 10 proposition.
The real judge would be whether or not you would draft that QB again with the same pick. Obviously it's not a classification of the best method of acquiring a QB. That is not what the thread title implies, the whole post is about the success rate of first round QB's over a certain time period. In my opinion it's stupid to draft a QB just to draft a QB. If you don't think you have a franchise guy you don't reach for a player. Drafting any position is about doing your homework.
Of course it does. Logic dictates that would be the case. Some guys because of talent, some guys because of draft status and some guys just because they never got a chance. You think Brady ever becomes Brady if Bledsoe doesn't go down? But that's not the point I'm trying to debate here. What I'm trying to address is the recently prevailing thought pattern that simply drafting a QB in the 1st round will change everything BECAUSE he was drafted in the 1st round.
Id agree if we actually TRIED to find a franchise QB the past several years in the first round and failed, but we HAVEN'T. If we didn't win all those meaningless games this year we could talking about how cool Luck or RG3 look in aqua and orange.
Also I wouldn't label Vick a bust. Maybe he never won a Superbowl but he was a very legitimate threat as a player (still is) that can go off and have a great game at any time. Often injured sure. Made idiotic mistakes in life? Sure. Bust? I wouldn't say that. Wasn't he the first to go into Green Bay and win a playoff game? That is significant to me.
If we were talking about Luck or RG3 I wouldn't be making this thread because it wouldn't be relevant to us I get where you're coming from, and I understand your frustration. Like I said, I'm not denying the importance of the QB position or our need to address it, merely taking exception with the notion of taking a QB for the sake of taking a QB when there's better talent on the board.
Agree with your point but 86 was the year Simms went from mediocre to legitimately good. he just didnt get a lot of credit for how good he was because of how good the defense was. Well thats obvious. What isnt as obvious apparently is how bad we are at the position since Fiedler (which is kind of sad in itself). Aside from the 1 year of Pennington, we are awful over the last 10 years. So if drafting a QB in round 1 or hell even round 2, isnt the answer, then please propose how you intend to upgrade the position....because unless your signing Flynn or Manning (and I know your stance on Manning) please tell me how you intend to make the playoffs? The nice thing about the draft nowadays with cost certainty involved is you can continue to draft QB's until you hit it big. We should be doing what the Packers do and draft QB's every year or every other year.
I don't think Trowa is saying we shouldn't draft a QB in the first round. He is saying if there isn't a QB worth drafting in the first round based on your homework then you shouldn't reach for the next best thing because chances are he will flop.
Every arguement is true..the common misconception I'll put it is that if he's a first rounder he's a franchise qb.. But the flip side is they are the better prospects coming out of college and we will never know if we hit or miss because we simply don't do it... With our tEam it's a tough arguement to make because we haven't tried to do it... How do we know that it's not in our best interest? Also busts like couch had a horribleeeeee team along with most of the other busts...hence why they are drafted so high. We have a solid offense and a solid defense.. What just what if we traded up to grab luck or rg3? We could strike gold!!! Or we could fail.. What if we take tennehil,weeden,foles, Wilson, or any other prospect and hit gold? If we fail it's another notch on the belt for us.. We don't make these decisions unfortunately And if we all had our way we would have drafted Ryan or Rodgers or Quinn or whomever!! We just don't know is what I'm getting at. I'm all about at least trying...
I do agree that some busts are busts simply because of their team. Carr for instance was too shell shocked to ever develop as a player. We do have a better team in my opinion than most who are looking to draft a QB so early. Which does give them a better chance to blossom.
Shoot I'd be all for drafting a QB after QB until we find one lol. As for Tannehill I'd reach for him only because we have Sherman, otherwise I wouldn't risk a first or a second on him since he wasn't been a fulltime QB in college.
Great write-up OP. Some mention the 14/32 of solid or success. Solid QB is what we currently have in Matt Moore. Why use a 1st to bring in someone that's no better than Moore? More important and I think what we should focus on is how many bona fide SUCCESS QB's drafted in the 1st round were taken at our pick or later? Answer 2 - Rodgers and Big Ben!! So over the last 14 years if you picked at the 8th spot and took the highest rated QB you would have succeeded twice and failed 12 times! People that blame our organization for not drafting a QB, it's a tough point to make when you look at where we were drafting. The only time we would have hit on a big time QB at our spot in the 1st would have been Rodgers. ONE TIME!!
Are you really labeling Michael Vick as a first round bust? He was one of the most electrifying players the NFL has ever seen when he came into the game. He revolutionized the QB position when it came to being able to run the football. Did you watch him play?
I think every GM understands the draft is a crap shoot, but you have to go after a franchise Qb if you think there is one there. Even if you fail, you have to take another Qb and keep trying, the Qb position is the hardest to draft but if you think there is a guy there in the first round you take him, support him and move on if in 3-4 years you decide he isn't your guy. I don't blame us for going with Henne and sticking with him for a few years, I think its the right way to go, but we decided he isn't the guy and its time to draft another Qb. Unless we think Flynn is the guy.
I'm not downplaying his talent. Yes he was an electrifying player. Yes he turned the NFL on it's head. Yes he was the first person to go into Green Bay and win. Yes he had the single season rushing crown for a QB in NFL history till Cam Newton came along. All these things are true and he should be lauded for his accomplishments. But in my opinion when you take a look at the whole career it's a disappointment. The arrest causing him to miss 2 seasons, playing a full season only once and being 2-3 in the playoffs will haunt his legacy. Also, the Falcons could have had LaDanian Tomlinson in that spot. Is he as big of a bust as Ryan Leaf or Tim Couch or Jamarcus Russel? Certainly not. But, in my opinion, he is a bust.
Thank you for posting this. This is a point that I have gone to before and can't stress enough. The criticism is abundant for Ireland and his "disregard" for the QB position, but no one can say what he should have done differently except for Matt Ryan. As I stated in my write-up, Ryan has been a great regular season QB but is 0-3 in the playoffs. He has not yet proven that he is at a franchise level to be able to go and win you a Super Bowl. They brought in Henne and gave him time to develop. He never did and it's time to move on. But one can't argue that we haven't tried to develop a QB and then complain about Henne or any other QB being developed. Hell they even brought in Pat White who turned out to be a huge mistake but could have been a big payoff as well. It's not like Kevin Kolb or Mark Sanchez or Tim Tebow are exactly lighting the world on fire. The one guy I do fault them for is Andy Dalton. Him and Cam Newton were the only two QBs I saw in the 2011 draft that were going to make it in the NFL. You can check my post history if you don't believe me it's all in there
You need to post the flip side of the coin. The QB's drafted after the 1st and what they've done. There are no guarantees in any round but are the percentages higher drafting in the 1st? How many Tom Bradys or Kurt Warners do you hear about every season?
Terrible write up. You blame Carr and Couch for getting sacked and "not learning to get rid of ball faster" but you clearly fail to realize that both of those guys went to expansion teams that were pathetic in O-LINE talent at the time. Throwing a rookie, young QB into an expansion team with expansion talent around him and a pathetic offensive line? and that's the QB fault? Then you call starters in the NFL "busts" like Vick, Grossman, etc....... Again, if I didn't mention it already, TERRIBLE write up.
For any of this to make sense you MUST talk in percentages. No one, anywhere is saying draft a QB in the first rd for the sake of drafting a QB in the first rd. Its about what percentage do you feel a given QB has of being franchise worthy. Look at all the QB's available at your spot, and decide what the chance of them becoming thee QB are. If the GM feels the guy has a 50% chance or better, then you take him in the first before you grab anyone else. That's the difference here. The franchise has not taken that kind of shot and that's what people are calling for.
Not to even mention our other 1st round busts that were not QBs...ala Fletcher in lieu of Brees, who was the first pick in rd 2 so barely qualifies as not a 1st rounder.
The Miami Dolphins as an organization have had this same thinking over the last 10 years. How's that working out? You have to take a risk at some point.
Clearly you haven't been paying attention to a good majority of Miami fans the past 10 years if you think that.
No, you aren't understanding what people are saying. If a QB in the draft had a 50% or better chance of being good, we didn't take him. Basically, we viewed all positions essentially equal, so when a QB had a 55% chance of being good versus a WR having a 60% of being good, we took the WR. In reality, what people want, is that we take more shots on a QB with a 50% of being good over any other percentage of any other position.
14/32 isnt even 50 percent. The point you should get from all this is *drum roll* there is no sure fire way to get a qb.
If people believed that we wouldn't have people saying we should have taken ryan over long. A guy who is above descent over a guy who is spectacular at his position.
As opposed to the guaranteed failure we have endured here. I'd take slightly below 50% odds any day over that.
The fact we have failed, doesn't make it guaranteed. It more then likely means we just haven't done a good enough job or the selections just haven't been there, especially since great qbs are few and far between. Especially since there have been other qbs found in other rounds. And below 50% is below 50%. IN other words statistically speaking you are still more likely to fail then succeed. You're just a little bit more likely to succeed.
Right but the percentage of draft picks that make a roster isn't 50% either so it's all relative. If you have 7 picks and 3 end up being on roster a year or two later that's considered to have been an average draft. So it's all relative to the rest of the draft. While there is no sure fire way to get a franchise qb what are the percentages relative to free agent qb's vs qb's drafted in round one for example? I would bet heavy money that the percentage of free agent qb's signed to be starters is actually much worse because of those guys are just there to be placeholders for qb's that are drafted early. Obvious the one exception is Brees bit most of the good qb's around the league are drafted by their teams.
Nice work Trowa. I don't know if this adds to the discussion or not. Here is a chart of all QBs with post season wins in the past 11 seasons, the draft round they were selected, number of SB appearances and titles. Interesting to note that of the 121 post season games played the 1st rounders have won 66 (55%) and of the 13 QBs with SB appearances, the 6 1st rounders have 6 wins and the 7 others have 5. Hardly a reason to take a QB in the 1st just to say you did. IMO [TABLE="width: 146"] [TR] [TD="class: xl24, width: 90, bgcolor: transparent"]QB [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, width: 25, bgcolor: transparent"]RD [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, width: 28, bgcolor: transparent"]W [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, width: 25, bgcolor: transparent"]SB [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, width: 25, bgcolor: transparent"]W [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: xl25, bgcolor: transparent"]Brady [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]6 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]16 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]5 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]3 [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: xl25, bgcolor: transparent"]Roethlisberger [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]1 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]10 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]3 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]2 [/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD="class: xl25, bgcolor: transparent"]P Manning [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: transparent"]1 [/TD] [TD="class: xl24, bgcolor: 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Nothing about what I am saying benefits from hindsight. At the time of the draft Ryan was viewed to have a 50% chance or better of being a franchise QB. Long had a 90% chance or better of being a franchise LT. What people are saying, is that a 50% chance at a franchise QB is more important than a 90% chance at a franchise LT. FULL DISCLOSURE: At the time I disagreed with them. The reason I don't disagree with that premise anymore is the rookie cap. People have to realize that missing on a first round pick is not disastrous anymore, especially at QB.
I would be the percentages aren't as far apart as you think they are. Especially since most players in the nfl enter the nfl through the draft.
Those people I think need to go back and rethink their ideas about the qb position. And you originally said 55% vs 60%. How much of a gap is too much?
