finknottle

Players do not have memories as long as fans. They get over it.

No; as long as he passes for at least 10% and has a qb rating over 20, then we keep starting him. Only when his contract is up do we evaluate him. You have to give him time to develop, and he can't do it on the bench!

I though he sounded more like Rush Limbaugh.

I just don't think sponsors will cough up competative amounts in order for the Bills, in Buffalo, to keep up with the Jones'. IMO this just increases the pressure on the next owner will move the team - and that may be why RW was one of two to vote 'no.'

So... Dan Snyder didn't realize what he was buying into, a league based on preserving competativeness among franchises? Sounds like he didn't do his homework. I suggest he sell if he doesn't like it.

I wonder about the assumption that salaries will go up dramatically in the uncapped year. Under the current rules there is a minimum that clubs must spend of salaries overall and on draftees - those rules would go away. So if you are a club sitting on 10 mill in cash and lose out in the free agent sweepstakes, there is no longer any incentive to spend it on the also-ran players. You can offer them 'take-it-or-leave-it' money. So it will be interesting to see what happens to the median salary...

I'll go one further. You can't have a top pick succeed either, because it kills you financially. The better he plays, the bigger a piece of the pie he is going to demand to where he accounts for nearly 10%.

And how did Spurrier mess him up? By not handing the job over to a rookie he didn't want to draft in the first place? Seems to me that Spurrier turned out to be correct in hindsight. Gibbs clearly didn't like him from day one.

Funny, I spent the season hearing about how, unlike the Cards' sorry backfield, WM is a top three running back, EM is a solid #1 and LE a future all-pro at #2. And yet we have stats like att cmp yds pct td int rtg Tweedle-Dee 230 155 1509 67.4 10 8 85.6 Tweedle-Dum 228 113 1340 49.6 8 8 64.9 Imagine McCown's numbers if he had a runningback like Willis to open things up for the passing game!

Absolutely - it's not about being good, it's the identity. Without that it's pretty hard to get excited about rivalries. Who are the Dolphins these days? I have no idea. Beating them or losing to them just doesn't seem to matter any more.

No, it's better. Today's NFL isn't about feature runningbacks or even great #1 receivers. It's about putting more quality receivers out there than they have defensive backs. You pick who to throw to, so it's about your #3 and #4 being better than their #3 and #4 db's. Nobody forces you to throw against their #1 cb, after all. And that's where a good qb comes in: reading the field and decision making.

Like Frank Reich. He was a good rookie for a lot of years here.

The jury is still out on him. But even if he fails, I doubt very much he'll blame anyone publically. Unless he's self-destructive (and nothing he has said suggests that) he'll be busy trying to get his career on track elsewhere and won't want to bring any baggage.

As so many have pointed out, those practice players will never develop as long as they are on the bench.

You are right. Still, I think it's a fair topic to question whether he knows what he's doing with assessing and playing quarterbacks, regardless of HA's motives.

I took him to mean players going out of their way with comments that could be considered controversial, like Moulds did when KH was on the bench. Anybody can praise the starter. I'm sure JP has his supporters among the players - the question is, do they care enough about it to risk alienating the fans and/or the coaches?

Sorry - I misunderstood, thought you were questioning the odds. The JP-KH part jibes with my recollection because the Moulds-Evans comments were widely discussed and I'm sure analogous comments when the roles became reversed would have been eagerly reported. As for the Flutie-Johnson part, I don't know, but it seems a reasonable description of the support. However, I don't remember any players actually saying anything publically (but it was long ago).

From another thread - looks like my Rex Grossman obit might be premature! We'll see next year... For the challenged out there, note that this was neither a call for KH nor a bashing of JP. It questions the philosophy that say's you get a better team payoff by starting young quarterbacks sooner to get them experience. ---------------------------------------------------- Nov 1 2005, 09:57 PM This is in response to the chorus of fans who seem to assume that (1) by virtue of being a first round choice JP will likely be a good qb, and (2) it is worth stepping back a year to develop him on the field and find out more quickly. To the second, let me point out that teams that commit to starting a first round QB who doesn't ultimately pan out frequently spend 2 or more years in limbo before they cut their losses and try again. As to the first, let's look at the numbers. I took all 28 quarterbacks drafted in the first round from 1990 to 2003, and sorted them into three groups: Good (10), Journeyman (4), and Bust (14). (A player with a ?- means it's a little too early to to be sure...) --- GOOD Drew Bledsoe (1, 1993) Steve McNair (3, 1995) Kerry Collins (5, 1995) Peyton Manning (1, 1998) Donovan McNabb (2, 1999) Daunte Culpepper (11, 1999) ? Chad Pennington (18, 2000) Michael Vick (1, 2001) ? Carson Palmer (1, 2003) ? Byron Leftwich (7, 2003) --- JOURNEYMAN Jeff George (1, 1990) Tommy Maddox (25, 1992) Trent Dilfer (6, 1994) ? David Carr (1, 2002) --- BUST Andre Ware (7, 1990) Todd Marinovich (24, 1991) David Klingler (6, 1992) Rick Mirer (2, 1993) Heath Shuler (3, 1994) Jim Druckenmiller (26, 1997) Ryan Leaf (2, 1998) Tim Couch (1, 1999) Akili Smith (3, 1999) Cade McNown (12, 1999) ? Joey Harrington (3, 2002) ? Patrick Ramsey (32, 2002) ? Kyle Boller (19, 2003) ? Rex Grossman (22, 2003) So - if history is any guide we have a 50-50 chance that JP will be a bust. The question is: is it worth stepping back a year - going 4-12 say, and maybe 4-12 again the following year - to find out for sure the value of a player who is unlikely to be the starter in 2 years? He is more likely to be another Cade McNown than a Peyton Manning. Or maybe he is merely better than average - would Tommy Maddox have been worth stepping back a few years? And even if he is in the top tier, would it be worth it to develop a Chad Pennington, Steve McNair, or - gasp! - a Drew Bledsoe? Alternatively, given those odds, is it better to assess while he's on the bench?

The only man-love going here seems to be coming from you. I don't particularly like KH. I don't dislike JP. I have no deep opinion other than KH plays well in a limited gameplan, and JP hasn't shown me anything yet. I am not in either of your two camps. To me the interesting questions have been the more theoretical 'how long do you keep a first rounder on the bench' and 'how long do you commit to a first rounder before moving on.' The only thing I bash are people who won't discuss Bills topics objectively. People who assume that because we drafted a player in the first round - whether JP, WM, or whomever - that they will automatically pan out, will make endless apologies for them that they wouldn't make for another comparably performing player, and think that we should spend whatever it takes to keep them. And above all, who turn any attempt at a critical discussion into a slap-fight.

Has JP shown any evidence of leadership? Funny how if the veterans rally around KH they are traitors or worse, and by no means do we conclude that KH has any leadership skills. But JP, whom I don't remember any players calling for while he wasn't starting, gets the benefit of the doubt. Must be the magical sheen of the first rounder...

I wouldn't put it at 15%, but the number thrown out earlier, 50%, is based on the stats for first round qb over the last 15ish years. Something like 50% were busts, 25% became journeymen, and 25% were the long-term starters for the teams that drafted them. So if I put everything I saw last season out of my mind, I'd give him only a 25% chance of being the starter here four years from now. How you adjust that number based on what you saw depends on the tint of your glasses.

Well, if you consider where he was drafted moot, then why are you posting in this thread? Regardless of if the sub-text was to criticize JP, the original topic was clearly intended to be about TD's history in drafting qb's. Frankly, I think the man-love war here started with the reaction of the JP fans.

That's called an if- and but-. We used a first round pick on him in 2003. We payed him every month. In 2003 he took up a roster spot and contributed absolutely nothing to the team. He didn't give us 2,000 yards untill past the mid-point of his contract.

Neither am I. But his performance has so under-whelmed me that I think it is a fair question to ask if he has what it takes. So many people rally behind him because he is a first rounder, saying you can't sit a first-rounder and wait for him to develop on the bench, etc etc. At that point it becomes more than fair to wonder about whether he should have been picked there, and look at TD's track record drafting QB's. That was the thrust of the original poster, and I think it is worth thinking about. The original post never suggested that JP was the cause of all our problems.