Russ Lande did too. He rated Couch as the 28th overall player IIRC, or thereabouts. He said he got a lot of negative feedback about it too, but said he was just going by what he saw.
Ryan has shown enough to make it reasonable to think someday he could make to a Super Bowl and win, IMO. How many years did Brees play before he took a team to the SB? How about Peyton? Guys like Ben who make it to a Super Bowl in their first couple of years and play on the winning team are a very small minority.
Far more of it than most people care to admit or want to consider. What if Joe Montana had been drafted by the Saints or some other crappy team of that era for example? If Greg Cook had not suffered a career ending shoulder injury near the end of his rookie season, who knows, but he showed enough to make one think he was embarking on a HOF worthy career.
I'm with the poster who asked what the alternative was to trying to find a franchise QB in the first round. The truth is that there is no other way to get one. Franchise quarterbacks don't become free agents. They are, well... franchised. Or the team knows they're the franchise and pay to re-sign them. So proven franchise quarterbacks are never available by free agency or trade, and it's extremely rare that a team completely misjudges a backup's franchise potential and lets him go. So despite the OP's excellent analysis, which shows us all how rare franchise QBs are even in the first round, you either try to find your franchise guy in the first round or are fortunate enough to hit the jackpot in the lower rounds. There is no alternative.
I think the point isn't to avoid using a 1st on a QB. The point is to determine if any given draft has a QB that you rate highly enough and truly believe will be a franchise QB and do you have enough to go get him (or is he too high and the team that has the pick is unwilling to trade). If you do, then it's a no brainer. But if you don't then settling on a mid 1st round mediocre 3% success probability (1 in 32 QB's became a franchise QB after pick 11 in the 1st round in the past 14 years) is not worth it. Upgrade elsewhere and go get a mediocre QB in FA or later round (cause that's all you're getting anyway). Example: Luck will be a 1st rounder and Jake Locker was a 1st rounder; they don't have equal probabilities of success.
My last post actually made me go back and look at this differently. If you exclude the "too soon to tell" (although they appear right now to further my argument with only Cam Newton, #1 overall pick, being an obvious "Success") you have 7 "success" QB's in 32. However, 5 of those were drafted in the top 4!! So over the past 14 years, 2 QB's proved to be successful 1st round picks drafted after pick #4 -- 2 in 14 years!!! Heck, Big Ben went 11th because it was possibly the 2nd best QB draft ever. Any other year and he's probably also top 4. There's a reason Luck and RG3 are expected to go top 4 and no one else is. That reason is no one else will probably be a franchise QB. **I exclude Weeden because I think he'll go in the 2nd and his reason for dropping is not related to how well he is expected to play (just how long) - personally I think he might be the best value pick in a long time**
Drew Brees and Peyton Manning are the only ones...and its because they are/were deemed "damaged goods". We know Brees turned out great for the Saints. Manning may or may not turn out great for us or another team. But all in all, if you keep passing up opportunities to draft your franchise QB, especially in the first round, you most likely won't have your franchise QB.
I was going to comment on this yesterday, but unfortunately duty called and had some work at the office I just had to do. Trowa, I have to hand it to you first off. Great research with facts to support your stance. Just the kinda of arguments I enjoy reading. I definitely agree with you when it comes to drafting a quarterback in the first round for the sake of drafting a quarterback. Something that’s always bothered me would be teams drafting a quarterback whose talents didn’t match the offense the team was running, or drafting a quarterback and giving him absolutely no support and he ends up being a complete bust. Although it’s still way to early to tell, that is one thing I do give credit to the Panthers and the Broncos, changing their offensive scheme to match the skills set of their recent draft quarterbacks. Now, a further analysis of former first round draft quarterbacks. Now, let’s be ABSOLUTELY clear about something. You play a game…ANY game…to win and if the game you’re playing involves a tournament, the object is to win that tournament and be declared the champions, otherwise, why even play the game at all? You listed 38 quarterbacks drafted in the first round of the draft since 1998. That’s A LOT of quarterbacks drafted that were held in such high regard. Of those 38 drafted in the first round, only six of them have appeared in the Super Bowl, a whopping 15.8%. Since the object of the game is to win, only 4 of those 38 quarterbacks drafted, a whopping 10.5% have gone on to actually win a Super Bowl. There’s been a lot of teams that staked their futures on their 1st round quarterback draft, only to fall on their faces. Why? I blame it on the Class of ’83. As we all know, the Quarterback Class of 1983 is the greatest year of quarterbacks that ever entered the draft in a single year…Elway, Marino, Kelly, O’Brien, Eason, Blackledge and the tremendous success teams like the Broncos, Dolphins, Bills and to an extent, the Jets had with their drafted quarterbacks, and with the NFL rule changes that favor offenses (protection of the QB/WR, pass interference rules, etc), many teams today are looking for the next Elway, Marino or Kelly, but these players not only don’t grow on trees, as the facts show, your first round draft pick is more likely to be a bust rather than a Super Bowl champion. And another thing to look at as well, the 4 Super Bowl Champion quarterbacks…their paths to their Championship didn’t just come their raw talent alone, they came from overall organization structure that set them up for success. Peyton Manning: Arguably the greatest quarterback drafted during this time frame went nowhere under the tutelage of Ted Marchibroda. It wasn’t until Bob Irsay hired Bill Polian as GM and he brought in Tony Dungy as head coach before Manning saw perennial success. Manning was drafted in 1998 however, did not play in his first Super Bowl until 2006, a 9 year trek before finally achieving the pinnacle of his sport. Eli Manning: Six years elapsed before another Super Bowl future winning quarterback would be draft. Cast in the shadow of his big brother and playing in arguably the most difficult city in the NFL, Manning grew up in Camp Coughlin. Tom Coughlin arguably the best coach in the NFL today knew Eli wasn’t his big brother, but knew he had the talent to lead a team to success, and built a franchise around Manning that allowed just that; a powerful defense that created opportunities, a punishing running game that created mis-matches, giving Eli the opportunity to audible and strike when those opportunities were available. In essence, Eli Manning became the 21st century’s version of Terry Bradshaw, but Eli’s first trip to the dance didn’t happen until his 4th year in the league. There was no instant success, but even though it seems year after year, Tom Coughlin is coaching for his very job (Tough New York crowd), year after year, the Giants are always in the playoff hunt. Ben Roethlisberger: A phenomenal specimen of a quarterback when he was draft, 6’7, 270lbs, he was big, he was strong, he burst on the scene like no other quarterback in recent memory, winning game after game after game, only to finally lose in the playoffs, but who did Big Ben play under? Bill Cowher, who had already established himself as a winning coach with a powerful defense, punishing running game, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, Chuck Noll. Did anyone really think Roethlisburger wouldn’t be a success? Ben was blessed to be able to win the Super Bowl in only his second season however what I find ironic, Roethlisberger didn't receive his first Pro Bowl selection until the following season. Strange how that worked out. Aaron Rodgers: Of the four winning Super Bowl quarterbacks drafted during this time frame, Rodgers is the one who was the MOST fortunate and his path was the easiest. I know, sounds crazy, huh? But let’s look at this. Rodgers was drafted in 2005, much to the dismay of Brett Favre. The Packers were a winning organization, they just kept missing it by “that much” every year so how did drafting a quarterback help the Packers and Brett Favre for that matter? Well, as for Favre, it didn’t help him, but it surely helped the Packers organization as a whole. Rodgers was already a gifted quarterback, the Packers had a reputation of being able to develop quarterbacks and now a first round draft pick quarterback under the tutelage of Brett Favre. Could any quarterback walk into a better situation? When Favre finally left the Packers, the heir apparent was already prepped and ready to step in, with the Packers continuing as if nothing changed. So, drafting a quarterback in the first round, for the sake of drafting a quarterback? If you’re looking for an NFL Championship, the odds are against it. If you’re looking to win some games, sure, 21 of them have done just that…won games, but when you consider most of these Super Bowl champion quarterbacks were in the league for 3 years or longer prior to reaching the Super Bowl, if you’re going to make that kind of investment, you best be sure you’re getting a Manning, a Roethlisburger or a Rodgers…AND the coaching staff to go with him, otherwise it’s going to be 3 years of so before you realize your first round draft pick was wasted on Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, Byron “Sandwich”, Kyle Boller, JP Lossman, Jason Campbell, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn…and like Trowa, I’ll reserve jugdement on some of the more recently drafted quarterbacks. Bottomline, unless you have a STRONG organization that can indeed groom a quarterback like Green Bay…or a STRONG organization that builds a TEAM around your quarterback like in New York or Pittsburgh and you just “think” he’ll be a good franchise quarterback, the odds are very much stacked against you
Which is why we need to be the smarter team. All valid points you and others have made cautioning against drafting a QB in the first just for the sake of it. However, I think we finally have to right coaching staff to develop our QB. With Wanny, Saban, Cam, and Sparano, its likely all the QBs we had a chance to draft likely would've crashed and burned due to the incompetence of our leadership we've suffered under the past decade. So alot of that does make sense. But its about time we take a chance on someone...be it Tannehill or Flynn(I'd be ok with either).
Well, in all fairness to Cam, he did ony have one season before Parcells came in. Cameron's had success in both San Diego and Baltimore. As for the Flynn question I've been quite clear on this. If Philbin wants him, then Philbin thinks he has what it takes and we should get him. If he doesn't, let it go.
my old news director at a tv station i used to work for had a saying about potential stories: if we don't go, we don't know...i think that applies here...the dolphins have to take a chance at somepoint...i would have taken that chance with Mallett, but i'm not a scout nor a gm, but Mallett seemed to make sense...could he turn into Leaf? yup...could he turn into Favre? yup. you never know...and unfortunatly for Miami they seem to be afraid to take the chance and find out
But you have to pick your spot where the odds are likely to favor you. IMO Mallett was worth a third round pick yet some wanted Miami to spend their first on him. IMO Tannehill or Weedon are both far better prospects this year. Flynn is probably the safest choice. Any of those would be better options than Mallett was last year.
If you're looking through the lenses of the Atlanta Falcons, sure. But I've got news for you, players are judged on the totality of their careers, not just how they played for the team that drafted them.
Again, I'm not understanding where your 50% and 90% is coming from. Is it coming from Jeff Ireland, Parcells, and Sparano? Because if it is, I get it. They probably should have taken the risk on Ryan if they believed it would be a toss up of whether or not he becomes an elite QB. If it is coming from the fans or Kiper or Mayock, then your point is moot. Hypothetically, analysis was done by the FO and they believe Matt Ryan had a 35% chance of being elite and Jake Long had a 95% chance. Who would you take in that instance?
Oh, this argument I get. We definitely made mistakes in not taking a QB pre-Ireland / Parcells era. I was talking specifically about this regime. And I'm not an Ireland supporter, I'm just trying to point out that he didn't really pass up on a QB that we should all look back and say "WTF were you doing in not taking him". Like Saban did in taking Brown over Rodgers.
There is one additional alternative. At each pick, you determine if a guy has the talent to be elite or take you to a Super Bowl. If he does not, you pass on him for a more sure thing understanding that maybe next year you will have the opportunity to get that chance at an elite guy. You don't just draft a QB in the 1st round in the hope that he defies your analysis and turns into something he is not. That's the point here. So if the Bills gave JP Losman a 15% shot at being elite, they made the right choice in trading up to draft him in the 1st? I just don't get that at all. All this comes down to is NOT drafting a QB in the 1st b/c it's the only way to get one. It's hoping you have the right talent evaluators in place that will see the right potential. If that happens and a QB falls to them in any round, they will take him. I hope everyone gets that all teams in this league understand the importance of a QB. It's uttered through fandom, through the media, into the inner walls of a stadium and FO. It's blatantly obvious how important a QB is. The Miami Dolphins just havent had the right talent evaluators in their system yet. Saban passed on Rodgers (as did 23 other teams), Wanstedt and Spielman passed on multiple QB's. You could complain that Ireland passed on Ryan but I could make the argument that the jury is still out. I'll repeat, it's not about taking a QB in the 1st round. It's about having the right talent evaluation in the FO.
Good post by the OP, but I would label Ryan a success despite his playoff woes. As a Falcons' fan also, I've seen firsthand how we were before Ryan, and it wasn't pretty. He's doing well despite playing under Mularkey for 4 years. But after this year he has to take the next step. He should be up there with Stafford, since Stafford has never had a winning season, until 2011 mostly due to injury. Injury prone QBs are bad news no matter the talent. See Vick. I'd put Ryan and Stafford together. Stafford had no running game to fall back on so he had to take to the air much more, and with Calvin Johnson or speedy guys like Titus Young, that was no problem. This year's potential 1st round QBs will be either a hit or miss. I have a bad feeling about Luck playing bad or mediocre under the pressure. A lot of people are expecting him to come in and be great of the back. With RGIII, I think he could do the best since he has been overshadowed by Luck. He's faster than Cam, just as fast as Vick, and can throw just a well as both of them. And unlike Vick, he isn't lazy, and can read a defense well while minimizing mistakes. Ryan Tannehill is a guy I could see performing well too. I wouldn't say it's impossible for him to become a Dolphin either. :P
You can just buy a proven QB from a proven team but that's next to impossible. If the QB is good and healthy no team will just swap them out and start from scratch.(Unless given QB is old)(to old). Your pretty much left with trying your best on the odds in the draft. All of these drafted QB's have been heavily diagnosed under so many eyes that its no secret come draft day at which ones should be the best. That's why you cull them. Keep the best you have and keep swinging.
the overall point of the OP is that drafting a qb early doesnt mean he's going to be good. if the talent isn't there either move up to get it or draft someone else. personally i dont want to sell the farm for one player when this team is riddled with holes.
