Cash

Unfortunately, the first two are the two most important and hardest to find positions in football.

What's wrong with 2 FGs? You have to put together a decent drive, then either get a stop and put together another decent drive, or get a turnover deep in your opponent's territory. And if your opponent, already down 3, elects to kick a FG, then they deserve what they get. That's Dick Jauron-style coaching right there. I like the first to 4 or 5 idea because that way, a TD or any other 2 scores wins you the game. Just a FG won't do it, but 2 FGs or a FG and a safety will do it. I feel like giving up a safety in OT should be an automatic loss. The fact that it currently is an automatic loss is one of the best (and also least-frequent) aspects of the current system. But I'd be willing to sacrifice it (since it never happens) for a system where both teams play like they do in the 1st quarter - i.e., only settling for a field goal if they were truly stopped by the D.

Zero special teams in the college OT system. That's one of the reasons I hate it. The other is the spoon-feeding of the ball at the 25. What is this, Pop Warner? You get the ball wherever you earned the ball, not arbitrarily at the 25. If the team that starts with the ball goes for it on 4th down, it literally makes no difference whether the play is a sack, incompletion, or interception. That's BS.

Maybe if you're Dick Jauron or Perry Fewell. Or if your offense or special teams gave the ball to the other team deep in your own territory. I don't think most NFL defenders or defensive coaches would consider a 7-play, 45-yard FG drive to be a victory for the defense. Personally, I'm fine with the current OT rule, but I'll admit that the one downside is the opening drive for a FG. I like the sudden death, but winning on the first drive with just a FG is lame. I'd support a rule change that instead of first score wins, first to 4 or 5 wins. That way, if you want to put the game away, you have to go all-out for the TD, instead of just running up the gut once you hit the 30 and kicking on 3rd down. But I hate the college OT; it's not football. It would be like deciding a soccer game with alternating corner kicks (which might actually be an upgrade over penalty kicks, but that's another story). Anything that moves the NFL OT closer to the college OT is a terrible idea. And as a side note, this was about the worst possible OT game to use as a springboard for a change in the OT rule. How could it possibly have been more exciting? And how would the "each team gets possession" rule work here? Green Bay kicks off to Arizona after the score? Wouldn't Green Bay just go onsides at that point? Or would that not be allowed? Or, since Arizona scored, would they have to kick off to Green Bay again, because Green Bay has some inherent right to a chance to match the score? What if Green Bay then scored a TD and got the 2-point conversion? Does Arizona get another possession, since their offense never touched the ball, or are they S.O.L.? And while we're at it, what about when one team has the ball (or scores) as time expires in both halves? They got one extra possession for the whole game. Should we then give the other team one clockless possession to even things up?

Brady Quinn is debatable, but I'm pretty confident that he gets dumped this offseason. He's certainly sucked so far. As for Young, he got benched last year, went through the whole depression thing, and despite horrible play from Kerry Collins during an 0-6 start, it took a direct meddle from the owner to get him playing again. If Bud Adams doesn't force Jeff Fisher to put Young in the lineup, Young almost certainly gets cut this year.

Because he sucks, duh. Nice catch on the typo. I just corrected it.

Inspired by a similar breakdown over on the Buffalo Range boards, I decided to look at all the QBs drafted in the last 20 years by round. I wanted to see what the success rates looked like. We all know that even first-round QBs have a high chance of busting, and that late-round guys sometimes pan out, but what are the actual percentages? So I went to drafthistory.com and got a list of all QBs drafted since 1990, and broke them down in 4 categories: Likely HOF: Likely to make the Hall of Fame. Manning, Brady, Favre, etc. Pro Bowl: The easiest one to rate, because it's 100% objective. If he's made at least 1 Pro Bowl, yes, if not, no. Starter: By this I mean not just that he's started games, but that he was his team's unquestioned starter for at least a year, and not just by default. So I didn't count guys like Fitzpatrick or Gradkowski, nor did I count guys like Sanchez or JaMarcus Russell, who've only started due to draft status. If a high pick started for a couple of years, played terribly, and then was cut or benched, that didn't count. This one is pretty subjective, but I tried to be consistent throughout. My main guideline was that a guy's team had to go into at least one offseason both knowing that the guy was their starter and not looking to acquire a QB (except as a backup). Bust: Didn't pan out as a starter. The term "bust" may seem a bit harsh for a lot of these guys, especially the late-round guys, but here's my thought process: We're looking for a starting QB - a franchise guy. No matter what round we draft a QB in, if he doesn't develop into a starter, it doesn't do us much good. Ryan Fitzpatrick has done well for himself as a 7th-round pick, but another Fitzpatrick won't help. I actually double-counted some guys under both "Starter" and "Bust" because they were their team's unquestioned starter for a bit, but then flamed out. Trent Edwards is a good example here. Alex Smith and Vince Young were both benched for a whole season, but now appear to be their teams' respective starters, so they got double-counted as well. Again, a lot of this was pretty subjective, and I may have misjudged a few, but most of them are pretty clear-cut. Anyone who i felt wasn't determined yet, I left blank - like this year's first-round QBs. I think I left Matt Schaub's Pro Bowl column blank, because while he hasn't made one yet, he's likely to make one at some point. I also took a quick look at the current starters for each team. One thing that I thought was pretty interesting is that almost all of the non-first-round QBs who panned out did so for a team that didn't draft them. Right now, the list is only Brady, Garrard, Tony Romo (not drafted, but has only played for Dallas), and Bulger, assuming Bulger doesn't get cut this offseason. Maybe you can count Chad Henne as well, although that's still pretty up in the air. Anyway, feel free to check out the analysis (linked below). The Cliff's Notes version is that 1st-round QBs bust a little over 60% of the time, 2nd-round QBs bust about 75% of the time, and for every other round, they bust about 90% of the time. https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0As...NqV1E&hl=en

I'll be quite surprised if Tebow goes after the first round. These super-exposed high profile college players who don't really have an NFL position almost always go higher than projected.

Hmm, Shipley reminds people of both Wes Welker (small, quick slot receiver, usually runs short routes over the middle) and Easy Ed McAffrey (big, tall split end type, red zone target, usually caught balls along the sidelines). I'm guessing Shipley is a white guy?

Nice strawman. Of course drafting a first-round QB isn't a sure thing. They bust like 60% of the time. It's just that getting a franchise QB is so important, you have to take a risk in order to get one. What do you want to do, wait for the next Drew Brees to hit free agency? That will probably never happen again. Take a flyer on a mid-round guy? Those bust like 95% of the time. Just because you take a QB in the first round (or even in the top 10) doesn't mean he'll pan out. And you shouldn't reach for a guy that doesn't carry a first-round grade just because you need a QB. But if you don't have a QB (which we don't), and there's a QB available with a first-round grade, it doesn't matter who else is available or what your other needs are, you must take the QB. Then you focus on building around him while he develops. Hopefully by the time he's ready to lead you to glory, you've built a solid O-line and given him good weapons to work with. Having said all that, I should point out that there's really only 2 QBs with first-round grades (although LeFevour has a slim chance of being a dark horse), and I doubt either one will be available at #9. I would not advocate just reaching for Tebow or Tony Pike or someone like that.

Optimistic but still rational; I'll take it. I find the the Pollyanna posts (Brian Brohm is the future!) to be much more depressing that the super-negative ones. If delusion is the only hope we have, why even bother?

Awesome!

And with 3 QBs back there, the D won't know where to send the pass rush.

Good post.

It was just one game, but Brohm's arm strength didn't impress me against Atlanta. His out passes were absolute ducks.

There might be something to what you're saying, but I think the economy in general is a huge factor. Tampa's bottom line probably looked a lot worse than they're used to over the last year or two, which is one of the reasons they hired Morris in the first place (way too inexperienced = cheap), and why they're keeping him now.

What worries people is that Bradford hurt his throwing shoulder, then re-injured it right after he came back. Now it's been operated on, and until anyone sees him throw, there will continue to be legitimate red flags. If he throws really well before the draft, all will be forgiven. As it is, I'd guess that he goes to either Washington or Cleveland. Didn't know about the concussion, but that's another concern. More likely to suffer repeat concussions.

As the game continues to unfold, I'm fairly impressed by LeFevour's touch and decision-making. His line is way overmatched in this game (sound familiar), but LeFevour looks very poised and in control in the face of the heavy rush. He's able to buy himself time to make throws downfield, and seems to generally make pretty good decisions with his throws. I didn't see the interception, but I did see two key throws he missed on pretty badly: 1.) A deep bomb that was miraculously caught, but probably should've been batted away given the poor throw; a good throw would've gone for a TD. 2.) A would-have-been 20+ yard gain to a wide-open receiver on a wheel route on 3rd-and-4. LeFevour just missed the throw. But generally, he's been pretty accurate, with very nice touch on his throws. He had a great screen pass where he really suckered the D in before turning to the other side and lofting a perfectly soft pass to the RB. As for his arm, I'm not the best judge, but it seems to me that LeFevour has an NFL arm. Not a very good NFL arm, but good enough. If he makes it, he'll probably be a lot more of a Chad Pennington type than a John Elway. LeFevour completed a pretty nice deep out that had enough zip on it. But he had an earlier deep out broken up because it hung in the air too long.

That bomb on the last drive was woefully underthrown. His receiver had like 3 steps on the DB, but had to wait so long that the DB had as much chance to make a play on the ball as the WR did.

Agreed. Orakpo is really more of a true DE than Maybin, but Washington wanted him on the field as much as possible, so he plays LB on 1st and 2nd down. Maybin is more of a rush linebacker in terms of his body type. I guess the holdout had something to do with it, but doesn't it seem like he could play the same role as Orakpo? LB in the base 4-3, DE in the nickel & dime? Having said that, Maybin generally looked horrible even in clear passing situations, and I only recall one QB pressure from him all year, so we don't have a lot of reasons to be encouraged at this point.

Ideally, I'd like to draft Clausen at #9, then make LT the new top priority. But I doubt Clausen (or Bradford) will be available. In any case, we need to both find a real QB and improve the o-line. Keep in mind that there are no good free agent QBs, and even the rookies that pan out usually take time to develop. I don't think it's a winning strategy to first get everything around the QB in shape, then start looking for a QB to plug in. Good QBs are really hard to find. QBs drafted in the first 2 rounds bust about two-thirds of the time. QBs drafted later bust about 95% of the time. Those numbers aren't likely to be any different by the time our line is in good shape, which is why it's so important to worry about QB now. The odds are that it'll take several tries to find a franchise QB. That needs to be priority #1.

So we have to wait around watching awful QBs for 2 more years before we can get a decent one? Count me out.

Is this what these people really think? That if we draft a QB at #9 we'll then forfeit the rest of our draft picks and sign no free agents? I can assure you, that's not how it works. In today's NFL, QB is by far the most important position. If you don't have a QB, then finding one needs to be your top priority. Brohm isn't guaranteed to fail, but so far, he's shown nothing to suggest that he'll succeed. Hope is not a plan. Rolling the dice with Brohm and no other options would be a colossal error. That doesn't mean we have to draft a QB with our first pick, but finding a QB needs to be our top priority.

Must have hit pretty close to home to get him that riled up.

Nah, the outright firing never made a ton of sense. Everyone was under contract for 1 more year, which you still have to pay when you fire them. But if anyone is retained by the new coach, they'll need a new multi-year deal, so you'll wind up double-paying them. Maybe not fully double, unless their agent is really good, but the point is that you don't actually execute the firing until you're sure the new coach doesn't want them.