I thought super bowl teams had a lot of first rd talent in general.

 

The Seahawks say hi.

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How are you defining good?  As in upper-echelon elite?  There have been a number of 2nd rounders that have been good enough to take their team to the playoffs or keep them in the playoff hunt.  Andy Dalton, Jake Plummer, Kordell Stewart.  Chad Henne led the Dolphins to 9 wins.  Heck I think even Charlie Batch had an awful Lions team almost in the playoffs.  ANd Im sure there are a few others I missed.  No those guys arent elite but they were good enough to lead teams to victories.

 

If your goal is to find an upper echelon elite QB, I could probably make the case you dont want to draft one in the 1st round.  Take the top 15 QBs in QB rating this year (alright lets take the top 17 and exclude Josh McCown and Sam Bradford who didnt play half a season worth).  Of the top 15, I only count 5 who are playing for teams that drafted them in the 1st round.  Only 1/3.  The rest were either later round picks or are playing for a team that didnt draft them.

 

I think you can easily make an argument that the best course of action is to draft all other positions early in the draft in order to build up your team.  And either get lucky later in the draft/rookie free agency OR acquire a proven QB talent via trade or free agency.  As opposed to hoping whichever overdraftd QB you take in the first round pans out while simultaneously missing out on potentially elite players at other positions.

 

 

Yeah, but you're being misleading by only counting 'teams that drafted them'.  It's rare for a team to have the opportunity to pick up a QB in free agency of that caliber.  It's being even more misleading by apparently not counting Phillip Rivers, who was as good as a 1st round pick for the Chargers.  

 

8 of the top 15 QB's (not counting Bradford and McCown) were 1st rounders.  That's 53%.

 

If you're going to be misleading, then I can too and say that 9 of the top 15 QB's were taken within the first 32 picks.  Making it 60%.

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

The Seahawks say hi.

 

Really? Because Seattle has six First Round selections starting for them. Carpenter, Okung, Thomas, Lynch, Harvin, and Irvin. Granted, that's not a majority, but to think that they are not having success without First Round selections is kinda wrong.

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I'm trying to make myself more informed and less opinionated.

Stop saying whatever stupid thing you're talking about and pay attention to all the interesting things I have to say!

It's rare for a team to have the opportunity to pick up a QB in free agency of that caliber. 

It also takes an extreme gamble. Like giving 20+ mil a year to a 35 year old coming off of 4 neck surgeries in Peyton. Or 12 mil/yr to an undersized, up and down (at that time), QB coming off of a devastating shoulder injury in Brees. Very, very rare, and very, very risky.

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It also takes an extreme gamble. Like giving 20+ mil a year to a 35 year old coming off of 4 neck surgeries in Peyton. Or 12 mil/yr to an undersized, up and down (at that time), QB coming off of a devastating shoulder injury in Brees. Very, very rare, and very, very risky.

 

Compared to spending a top 3 draft pick it's really not that risky at all. Money is just money. There is a salary cap, but that can be worked around in a lot of ways, but you only get a certain amount of draft picks. It's why the price of good QBs is so high. Teams are paying for the privilege of getting that QB without having to waste a bunch of high draft picks hoping to find him. They can now spend those crucial draft picks on other elite talents.

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Really? Because Seattle has six First Round selections starting for them. Carpenter, Okung, Thomas, Lynch, Harvin, and Irvin. Granted, that's not a majority, but to think that they are not having success without First Round selections is kinda wrong.

 

The Legion of Boom has only one first round pick (Earl Thomas). Percy Harvin played only parts of two games before the Super Bowl. Yes, first rounders are a big part of their success, but they won a lot of games including the most important one more because of their later picks than early picks.

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Compared to spending a top 3 draft pick it's really not that risky at all. Money is just money. There is a salary cap, but that can be worked around in a lot of ways, but you only get a certain amount of draft picks. It's why the price of good QBs is so high. Teams are paying for the privilege of getting that QB without having to waste a bunch of high draft picks hoping to find him. They can now spend those crucial draft picks on other elite talents.

 

Exactly how is it a lot riskier to spend a top three draft pick than to give a 35-year old quarterback coming off four neck surgeries $90 million?

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Exactly how is it a lot riskier to spend a top three draft pick than to give a 35-year old quarterback coming off four neck surgeries $90 million?

 

Because if he never plays well they don't have a QB and they spent a lot of money, but they still have their draft picks.

 

If you draft a QB like Gabbert you lost something much more valuable, which is the opportunity to draft JJ Watt because you're not desperately flailing for a QB.

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Compared to spending a top 3 draft pick it's really not that risky at all. Money is just money. There is a salary cap, but that can be worked around in a lot of ways, but you only get a certain amount of draft picks. It's why the price of good QBs is so high. Teams are paying for the privilege of getting that QB without having to waste a bunch of high draft picks hoping to find him. They can now spend those crucial draft picks on other elite talents.

Paying that much just to risk that much on very scary injuries or past ineffectiveness or both? There's a reason the major FA QB signing happened successfully a mere four times in salary cap history. 

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Yeah, but you're being misleading by only counting 'teams that drafted them'.  It's rare for a team to have the opportunity to pick up a QB in free agency of that caliber.  It's being even more misleading by apparently not counting Phillip Rivers, who was as good as a 1st round pick for the Chargers.  

 

8 of the top 15 QB's (not counting Bradford and McCown) were 1st rounders.  That's 53%.

 

If you're going to be misleading, then I can too and say that 9 of the top 15 QB's were taken within the first 32 picks.  Making it 60%.

 

I'm not being misleading(And I did count Rivers as one of those 5).  The whole point is that you can get upper echelon QBs outside the draft.  Its not as though your only two options for acquiring an elite QB are to draft one in the first round or to draft one in another round. 

 

You say its rare to pick up a QB of that caliber in free agency.  Well first I would say you can also trade for one.  But secondly, of those top 15, I see 5 first rounders drafted by their own team and 3 are first rounders playing for a new team.  So obviously its not that rare.  Bu then of course, if you are going after already proven quality NFL QBs, who cares what round he was drafted in?  So I may as well add in Drew Brees and make it 4 guys playing on a new team.

 

Point being, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat.  And while I think that article would have been much better served to look at it by round and not lump together rounds 2-7, obviously the success rate of a 1st round QB is going to be better.  Just like any position.  But if you could somehow perform an ROI calc on drafting QBs 1st round versus building your team early and finding a QB later/free agency/trade, I'd be curious to know how much better off you would be in terms of wins.  Clearly we are 0-2 on 1st round QBs and it set us back both times although obviously way back with Gabbert. 

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Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

The Legion of Boom has only one first round pick (Earl Thomas). Percy Harvin played only parts of two games before the Super Bowl. Yes, first rounders are a big part of their success, but they won a lot of games including the most important one more because of their later picks than early picks.

 

And their Defensive Line has a First Round talent on it. As does their Offensive Line. And their Offensive backfield.

 

Talent prevails, and it's tough to find talent so you better get it as soon as you can.

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I'm trying to make myself more informed and less opinionated.

Stop saying whatever stupid thing you're talking about and pay attention to all the interesting things I have to say!

Paying that much just to risk that much on very scary injuries or past ineffectiveness or both? There's a reason the major FA QB signing happened successfully a mere four times in salary cap history. 

 

Hey, just stating why the risk is lower. These NFL franchises are money presses. The idea that how much the spend on players salaries and bonuses matters in the least is laughable. Draft selections are hard limited and of extreme value and scarcity. The money they have to throw around is much less scarce.

 

Of course the problem isn't that teams aren't willing to pay elite money to elite guys in free agency, the problem is guys that make it to free agency generally aren't elite or thought of as elite.

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It also takes an extreme gamble. Like giving 20+ mil a year to a 35 year old coming off of 4 neck surgeries in Peyton. .

 

How is that an extreme gamble?  All that does it hurt your salary cap... which for a team like the Jags is meaningless.  If we had signed him that year and his neck injury forced him out of the league one game into his contract, how would we have been worse off?  We would have gone right back to starting Gabbert which is what we were doing anyways.  You could argue the PL statement for the Jags would have changed for the worse, but that obviously doenst impact the roster since we have so much cap space.  And whatever pain Shad's pocketbook hurts, would be partly offset by the fact that we still got to use our 1st rounder on another position, one which may have helped the team.

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________________________________________________
Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

I'm not being misleading(And I did count Rivers as one of those 5).  The whole point is that you can get upper echelon QBs outside the draft.  Its not as though your only two options for acquiring an elite QB are to draft one in the first round or to draft one in another round. 

 

You say its rare to pick up a QB of that caliber in free agency.  Well first I would say you can also trade for one.  But secondly, of those top 15, I see 5 first rounders drafted by their own team and 3 are first rounders playing for a new team.  So obviously its not that rare.  Bu then of course, if you are going after already proven quality NFL QBs, who cares what round he was drafted in?  So I may as well add in Drew Brees and make it 4 guys playing on a new team.

 

Point being, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat.  And while I think that article would have been much better served to look at it by round and not lump together rounds 2-7, obviously the success rate of a 1st round QB is going to be better.  Just like any position.  But if you could somehow perform an ROI calc on drafting QBs 1st round versus building your team early and finding a QB later/free agency/trade, I'd be curious to know how much better off you would be in terms of wins.  Clearly we are 0-2 on 1st round QBs and it set us back both times although obviously way back with Gabbert. 

What you're still leaving out is that the trading price is often a 1st round pick (and then some.)  Sure the Bears didn't draft Cutler with a 1st round pick.  But they did trade a 1st and a 3rd for him.  Meaning they used a 1st round pick on him.

 

The Chiefs spent two second round picks to get Alex Smith.  Not quite a 1st round pick, though the Chiefs 2nd round pick last year was practically a 1st round pick.

 

We're not 0-2 on 1st round QB's.  Because Dave Caldwell has never selected a Quarterback.  We have a new regime now.  They're 0-0.  You can't be afraid to draft a Quarterback because the old regime has a poor record of selecting Quarterbacks.  Especially when they also had a poor record of drafting ANYTHING else.

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

What you're still leaving out is that the trading price is often a 1st round pick (and then some.)  Sure the Bears didn't draft Cutler with a 1st round pick.  But they did trade a 1st and a 3rd for him.  Meaning they used a 1st round pick on him.

 

The Chiefs spent two second round picks to get Alex Smith.  Not quite a 1st round pick, though the Chiefs 2nd round pick last year was practically a 1st round pick.

 

We're not 0-2 on 1st round QB's.  Because Dave Caldwell has never selected a Quarterback.  We have a new regime now.  They're 0-0.  You can't be afraid to draft a Quarterback because the old regime has a poor record of selecting Quarterbacks.  Especially when they also had a poor record of drafting ANYTHING else.

Hey now that's pretty harsh. They drafted a pretty good punter.

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Hey now that's pretty harsh. They drafted a pretty good punter.

 

Even a blind squirrel can find a punter in the third round once in a while.

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

And their Defensive Line has a First Round talent on it. As does their Offensive Line. And their Offensive backfield.

 

Talent prevails, and it's tough to find talent so you better get it as soon as you can.

 

I was only rebutting the claim that no Super Bowl participant got there because of later round picks. Of course I believe the first round is extremely important.

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Even a blind squirrel can find a punter in the third round once in a while.

 

Not one like Bryan Anger. He actually was projected to go as high as the third round. Any other punter would have been a reach.

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Not one like Bryan Anger. He actually was projected to go as high as the third round. Any other punter would have been a reach.

Even Bryan Anger projected himself as a 4th-7th rounder.

 

So yeah, that was a mega reach.  It turned Gene Smith from joke to laughingstock.  

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

Even Bryan Anger projected himself as a 4th-7th rounder.

 

So yeah, that was a mega reach.  It turned Gene Smith from joke to laughingstock.  

 

But we had no fourth round pick, so someone else could have beat us to him before our next pick. That probably is why Gene Smith reached for him.

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