Drafting QBs

[silvermike]

I had started an argument that the Bills erred in not finding a replacement for Jim Kelly sooner, and being left with Todd Collins. But in researching my point, I looked and discovered a huge gap in QB talent in the mid-90s. Following 1989, that saw Troy Aikman launch his career, you have:

 

1990: Jeff George and Neil O'Donnell battle it out for the top of the class. Andre Ware is a first rounder. And Scott Mitchell and John Friez round out the best of this yera. So O'Donnell is the only one who made the playoffs with the team that drafted him, but hardly was more than a serviceable backup for most of his career.

 

1991: Dan McGuire and Todd Marinovich are the only first rounders. There's a certain Brett Favre in there, but the rest of the class is topped by Scott Zolak and Browning Nagle. Nagle seems like the only non-Favre to even start a whole season.

 

1992: Klinger and Maddox are first rounders. The best QB in this draft is Brad Johnson. After that, you have Maddox, Jeff Blake, and Ty Detmer. Johnson got his team to the playoffs in '96 and '97, making him the best draft pick, so far, of the '90s.

 

1993: A talented draft, this one produced Drew Bledsoe, Trent Green, Elvis Grbac, and Mark Brunell. Brunell was shipped out to Jacksonville in a couple of years. Trent Green never managed a down with his draftee'd Chargers, and Elvis Grbac is the definitional journeyman. Still, three current starters is pretty impressive, even if none are on anything better than their third team.

 

1994: Health Schuler and Trent Dilfer are the only ones drafted before the 4th round. Jim Miller and Gus Frerotte are the best I can do after that. Ugly.

 

1995: Steve McNair might be the best draft pick of the era, since Favre was traded to, not drafted by, Green Bay. Kerry Collins has been serivceable, and even managed the playoffs for Carolina. After that, it gets sketchier - Todd Collins is still in the league, Kordell Stewart has been exciting at times, that Rob Johnson is the best you can do after that is statement enough.

 

1996: Tony Banks was the first QB taken, in the second round. He was also the best - beating out, um, Bobby Hoying? Danny Kannell?

 

1997: Jim Drunkenmiller in the first. Jake Plummer was a solid pick, but after that, Danny Wuerrfel and Koy Detmer are the best '97 had to offer.

 

1998: Finally, Peyton Manning comes out, the first unquestionable hall of famer since Favre. His classmates? Ryan Leaf, Charlie Batch, and Brian Griese. And a 6th round afterthought named Matt Hasselbeck. Still about the best class yet.

 

1999: The famed QB class of '99. McNabb and Culpepper, along with Aaron Brooks are passable. Cade McNown, Tim Couch, and Akili Smith leave this one unsettled.

 

Only by 2000 does the tide begin to turn again, with Brady, Bulger, and Pennington. But what happened in the 90s that caused this catastrophic run on QBs? Favre is the only real star from 1990-1992, 1993 was a bumper crop of journeymen, and Steve McNair is the only legit QB until Peyton Manning.

 

Take a look at the passing leaders from 1997-2001, and this is reflected: It remains full of old timers (Kelly, Moon, Marino, Young, Elway) before sliding into journeymen - Grbac, Beurlein, George, etc.)

 

1998-99 are the turning point. But that's after a long, gloomy era.

[L.EvansHands]

Nice post.. I just wish we had hit one of the ringers through those years

[The Senator]

1997:  Jim Drunkenmiller in the first. 

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Was it Druckenmiller or Drunkenmiller? I know a few drunken Millers.

[buffaloboyinATL]

Nice take. No wonder we have been unable to get a stable signal caller, that was a bleak decade for QB's. That was an enjoyable read because I flashed back to most of those drafts and remembered guys like McQuire, Mariniovich, Leaf, Akili Smith et al, who at the time seemed like they were going to be great. Thanks.

[Pyrite Gal]

Thanks for the research and your findings are interesting.

 

I'm curious whether in addition to finding out that the drafted QBs were not very good if you also had any sense of whether other sources produced any good QBs. Certainly, there are a number of anecdotal cases of good QB work coming from QBs not drafted by the teams they had success with (UDFA Kurt Warner, once highly drafted but really a CFL product Flutie) but I am curious if the research shows any indication of UDFA succeess (Delhomme is a another example but probably outside the time period researched) or any clear trends along the line of players rejected as losers or not liely to suceed by the teams which drafted then but later turned into SB winners or HOF players like Favre, Young, Dilfer, Johnson etc.

 

I think your findings are another form of showing what I have regularly insiste that drafting a QB in the first is not a technique for winning it all or even etting to the SB as there was a drought of accomplishment of the SB win for the team which chose them from Dallas selection of Aikman in 89 to Pitts selction of RoboQB last season. RoboQB may well be the exception that proves the rule a team should not draft a QB inthe 1st if you are looking for an SB win.

 

What is interesting to me is that the drain of lack of achievement by 1st round QB draftees for the team which chose them includes not even a look at the rarified pool of SB winners but is pretty thin when you look at the larger pool of SB appearing QBs. The importance of this being a TEAM game is shown prominently in that even though Manning is a great player and probably will be judged one of the best QBs ever, he has yet to be even in an SB without a ticket to the game.

[OCinBuffalo]

But what happened in the 90s that caused this catastrophic run on QBs? 

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I take a shot at this:

 

First off I would say the sucess of the west coast offense. Coaches in college and everywhere else saw the ability of a system to become more important than the player running it(QB). (BTW, this was never Bill Walsh's intention. His ideas have been bastardized) Plus, they liked the idea of being in control of every step, read, and pass the QB makes -it's like playing Madden. They then set out to recruit guys who were very good at following the system and staying within it, as opposed to placing emphasis on pure talent. Of course there are exceptions(Brett Favre). However, once these college starters got to the NFL, a place where one must have talent, they dropped like flies. The only exceptions are guys that could work within the system but had a lot of pure talent as well(Bledsoe and McNair).

 

Second, IMHO coaches in college saw Bill Parcells beat the Bills in a superbowl by using what I call "Frankenstein" football. You know, run into the line for 3 yds, eat clock, pass ocaisonally on second down for 8 yds, eat clock, bore us all to death(Remember the No Fun League label the NFC East got?), eat clock, spend all of your draft and money on sick defense and get them to play well, eat clock, oh - no more clock? -the game is over, we win. Notice I didn't say anything about the QB in that. A marginal QB can suceed in that gameplan - Jeff Hostetler. How did Trent Dilfer get a super bowl ring? He did a great job handing off.

 

Now, if the general thinking out there was/is based on one or both of these philosophies, it's easy to see why minimally talented(in terms of physical gifts) guys with joysticks attached to their helmet in college simply cannot succeed when they get to the pros. I remember how everyone(Kiper, ESPN, SI, etc.) was saying that Tim Couch was a much better QB than McNabb becuase he was smarter and could fit into the Chris Palmer's(Browns HC at the time) system perfectly.

 

How did that work out?

 

It's also easy to see why some people on this website and the "experts" out there think KH is better than JP, becuase they say "he is better at the system" and is more "consistent". At what? Throwing for 4 yards? What happens when the other teams' d breaks the system? Easy - an intercpetion or a sack. Kinda like, no, exactly like, what happened last Saturday.

 

The system worshipers simply don't know any better since the two above philosophies is all they know. This stuff would have continued until the Rams, and for a while the Titans, came along and left these folks scratching their heads. "Individual play and phyiscal ability beating the other team's system? How is that possible?" "Where did this Greatest Show on Turf come from?"

 

I believe this is cyclical and we will see a shift away from the scheme/system mentality over the next few years. Especially on our team. "The scheme is not more important than the player"(or something like that) - Marv Levy

[silvermike]

Well, the main point of the article was just that there wasn't an influx of QB talent in the 90s - well, 1990-1997 to be exact. And if you look at the league leader charts from the 1998-2001 range - the time when the missing QBs should have been in their primes - it's a little weird.

 

This is by passing yards, incidentally:

1999: Beuerlein, Warner, Manning, Favre, B. Johnson, Bledsoe, Gannon, Grbac, Kitna, Flutie. Manning was a young buck, part of a new era. Kurt Warner showed up from AFL, Flutie showed up from the CFL, Favre and Bledsoe were the only bright lights from the era, and then you have Beuerlein, Johnson, Gannon, Grbac, and Kitna. All journeymen who were in the middle of a good run.

 

2000: Manning (1998), Garcia (CFL), Grbac (journeyman), Culpepper (99) Favre, Testaverde (pre-90) Beuerlein, Brunell (late-rounder), Collins (journeyman), Gannon (Journeyman). Manning and Culpepper are signs of things to come.

 

2001: Warner, Manning, Favre, Brooks (99), Gannon, Green (journeyman), Collins, Plummer (um), Garcia, Flutie

 

2002: Gannon, Bledsoe (again, the rare 90s standout, but note he hasn't been showing up on this list before), Manning, Collins, Culpepper, Brady (new guy), Green, Favre, Brooks, McNair (again, showing up for a rare shot)

 

2003: Manning, Green, Bulger (new guy), Hasselbeck, Brad Johnson, Brady, Kitna (again!) Brooks, Culpepper, and Maddox.

 

2004: Finally, I think it breaks. Culpepper, Green, Manning, Plummer, Favre, Bulger, Delhomme, McNabb, Brooks, Brady.

 

and last year:

 

2005: Brady, Green, Favre, Palmer, E. Manning, Collins, P. Manning, Bledsoe, Brees, Hasselbeck.

 

Green and Gannon may diverge as journeymen - they're just late bloomers who had their best years in their mid-to-late thirties. Flutie too, I suppose. But there was a distinct gap where only a phenomenal kid named Peyton Manning kept it from being the Brett Favre & the Reject All-stars.

[OCinBuffalo]

Right....and the main point of my post is that the talent gap was there because non-talent robots were getting the college starts, therefore the hype, and therefore being drafted, rather than guys with talent. Once in the NFL their general lack of talent was exposed. This is my answer to your "Why the major talent gap" question.

[silvermike]

Sorry, I was responding to Pyrite Gal - talking about where to get a QB. I think you might be on to something OCP. After '98, first round QBs are viable again: Manning, Vick, Palmer, Manning, Roethlisberger. There' still Harrington, Leaf, Ramsey in there, but we might also get to add Rivers, Losman, Smith, Rodgers, Leinart, Cutler, and Vince Young to that list.

 

As to your point, I don't know enough about college football to comment, but wouldn't more talented, improvisational guys still show up somewhere in the system? Or were they drubbed into other positions - maybe Hines Ward and Drew Bennett would be great QBs.

[RuntheDamnBall]

1991:  Dan McGuire and Todd Marinovich are the only first rounders.  There's a certain Brett Favre in there, but the rest of the class is topped by Scott Zolak and Browning Nagle.  Nagle seems like the only non-Favre to even start a whole season.

...

1995:  Steve McNair might be the best drafted QB of the era.

...

1998:  Finally, Peyton Manning comes out, the first unquestionable hall of famer since Aikman.

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This is a pretty interesting post, but I have to take issue with these three statements together. Favre is the only one of these three to have won anything. He's had as much regular season success as Manning and he has a ring. McNair has been awesome but he also had his injury struggles. He might make it to the HoF eventually. Favre, on the other hand, has been pretty dependable until about the past year. Also, it says here that there have certainly been questions about naming Aikman to the HoF, few though they may be. He had a superb cast surrounding him, far better than Favre has ever had.

 

Favre, OTOH, is a unanimous first-balloter. He and Reggie White brought football back to GB in a big way. I think he is by and large the best QB pick of the decade, especially considering he was a second-rounder.

[silvermike]

Yeah, I should fix that - what I was thinking with the McNair comment - "drafted QB" is that Favre's success has been as a "traded QB" e.g. not with his original Falcons. The Manning thing was just a mistake, I'm editing it.

 

I'll guess that McNair doesn't get in to the HOF.

[MRW]

I'll guess that McNair doesn't get in to the HOF.

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This is a bit of a tangent, but it wouldn't surprise me to see McNair revitalize his career with a change of scenery. I think he may be the missing element to make Baltimore a force to be reckoned with, and 2 or 3 more successful seasons may make him a HoF contender.

[justnzane]

I'd make a case that Steve McNair is a borderline HoF'er as it stands and as MRW is talkign about. If he has a couple good seasons in Baltimore he will have around 35000 yds. over 200 TDs passing 40 rushing TD's and a career passer rating over 80. These stats along with an MVP award could be enough to put him in the hall

[Shamrock]

I'd make a case that Steve McNair is a borderline HoF'er as it stands and as MRW is talkign about. If he has a couple good seasons in Baltimore he will have around 35000 yds. over 200 TDs passing 40 rushing TD's and a career passer rating over 80. These stats along with an MVP award could be enough to put him in the hall

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I recall the drivel that Thurman was not in the HoF was that when you're thinking of RB's there's Payton, Brown et al, you don't think of Thurman in the same light. Stats alone didn't get him in on his 1st ballet, I imagine McNair will face the same hurdles.

[MRW]

I recall the drivel that Thurman was not in the HoF was that when you're thinking of RB's there's Payton, Brown et al, you don't think of Thurman in the same light. Stats alone didn't get him in on his 1st ballet, I imagine McNair will face the same hurdles.

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McNair is really hurt by the fact that the Titans fell apart around him. If they had remained a perpetual playoff contender (like the Dolphins of Marino's day) he'd be well on his way IMO. Now he will need to put together some good seasons in Baltimore (which I think he can do, they certainly have the talent around him).

[silvermike]

McNair has that co-MVP season to his name, which should help him a lot. Along with the Super Bowl appearance, although otherwise, I don't think he's had much in the way of playoffs since. I think his main yardstick is Drew Bledsoe. Each led a team to a Super Bowl loss (Bledsoe '95, that is). Maybe Donovan McNabb is on pace for the same.