DALLAS -- Let's start with a few numbers: Over the last 20 years, there have been 46 quarterbacks taken in the first round of the NFL Draft. Of those, the majority (28) were Top 10 picks. And 12 of those 28 were No. 1 picks overall.
Which is to say something you already know: Teams have invested a whole lot of money and time and effort to find the next great quarterback. All but four teams -- Dallas, Kansas City, Miami and New Orleans -- have spent first round picks on quarterbacks in the last 20 years. Cincinnati alone has spent three Top 6 picks on quarterbacks.
So, teams are trying to hard find the future. And, to be blunt about it, mostly they're failing. You know how many of those 46 quarterbacks have been named first team All-Pro? One. Peyton Manning. Just 10 have played in multiple Pro Bowls, but even that's deceiving because the Pro Bowl is quirky and doesn't necessarily point to great success. Vince Young has played in two Pro Bowls, and nobody would consider him to have been an especially triumphant draft choice.
Every time a team drafts a quarterback in the first round, especially in the Top 10 or so, they place the team's future on young shoulders. You don't draft a quarterback that high to get a backup or an ordinary player. These quarterbacks are all gifted, obviously.They all have good arms. They are mostly big, all strong or fast or both, all winners. They are handled differently, of course -- some get thrown into their careers right away, some sit on the bench and learn for a while -- but they are given the best instruction, training and coaching available.
And, most fail and fail rather spectacularly. We tend to focus on the No. 1 overall picks (and some of them like JaMarcus Russell and Tim Couch and were disastrous, others like Alex Smith and David Carr not too good), but perhaps an even better gauge is to look at the No. 2 and No. 3 picks over the last 20 years.
-- Rick Mirer (No. 2 pick in 1993): Disaster.
-- Heath Shuler (No. 3 pick in 1994): Disaster.
-- Steve McNair (No. 3 pick in 1994): Good quarterback, led Titans to Super Bowl.
-- Ryan Leaf (No. 2 pick in 1998): Beyond disaster.
-- Donovan McNabb (No. 2 pick in 1999): Very good quarterback, led Eagles to Super Bowl.
-- Akili Smith (No. 3 pick in 1999): Disaster.
-- Joey Harrington (No. 3 pick in 2002): Not a disaster, but close enough.
-- Vince Young (No. 3 pick in 2006): Bright spots, but overall a disappointment.
-- Matt Ryan (No. 3 pick in 2008): Looking good.
So, that's nine quarterbacks taken with the second and third picks -- a spot where you would figure NFL scouts would NEVER miss -- and four are undeniable disasters, another two are big disappointments.
This is the challenge of drafting quarterbacks in the NFL. Nobody seems entirely sure what traits it takes for success. This is a league where one of the best quarterbacks of the last decade wasn't drafted (Kurt Warner), another was generally thought too small (Drew Brees), and a man making his case as the greatest quarterback ever was not taken until the sixth round (Tom Brady). This is actually pretty consistent with NFL history -- finding the best quarterbacks has always been more art than science. Joe Montana wasn't taken until the third round. John Unitas was taken in the ninth round by Pittsburgh and released. Warren Moon wasn't drafted at all and had to go succeed in Canada before given a shot to start his Hall of Fame career.
But, yes, it does seem in today's world -- with the quarterback position so specialized and so dangerous and requiring skills that are not easily named or isolated -- that predicting a quarterback's success is harder than ever.
Which leads to another question: What does Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers have that others don't?
* * *
Aaron Rodgers was the 24th pick of the 2005 NFL Draft. You might remember that was kind of a strange year. The two big quarterbacks coming out that year were Alex Smith from Utah and Aaron Rodgers from California, and they really seemed to be about equal as prospects in the mind of NFL scouts, at least for a while.
Alex Smith was 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, good arm, played in Urban Meyer's spread offense, which was really built along the lines of the old Bill Walsh West Coast offense.
Aaron Rodgers was 6-foot-2, 223 pounds, a bit stockier than Smith, big-time arm, played for quarterback guru Jeff Tedford and led California to a 10-1 season, though California could not quite put the ball in the end zone against USC at the end of the game to make it an undefeated season.
Both quarterbacks were viewed as smart. Both were viewed as competitive. Both had great talent and great college coaching. Smith was a few months younger, a little bit bigger, and came from a system that, perhaps, made it just a little bit easier to visualize how he might play in the NFL. One of the difficulties of drafting quarterbacks is that some college systems make quarterbacks look great -- think Houston when high first round picks Andre Ware and David Klingler went there -- but those same quarterbacks look like pale imitations in the tougher and largely gimmick-proof NFL. Truth is, Jeff Tedford's quarterbacks had a history of looking great in college, not so much in the NFL. Five of his quarterbacks had been taken in the first round. Of the five, Trent Dilfer, by far, had the best NFL career and with all due respect Trent Dilfer was not a great NFL quarterback. This probably hurt Rodgers.
In the end San Francisco decided to pass on the somewhat local Rodgers and take Alex Smith with the first pick. They threw him out there for seven starts his first year, and he threw 11 interceptions and one touchdown pass. He has not been especially healthy or especially effective since, and the 49ers have not had a winning record since.
Rodgers then fell all the way to the 24th spot in the draft, where he was taken by an aging Green Bay team with an aging legend of a quarterback, Brett Favre. This is another thing about the NFL Draft ... whispers begin circulating about players and suddenly their stock just falls. This happened with Dan Marino in 1983 when he fell all the way to No. 27, three picks after the Jets took Ken O'Brien. Rodgers' stock kind of plummeted without anyone rally knowing why.
Right after the Packers took Rodgers, the Washington Redskins took Jason Campbell, a 6-foot-5, 223 pound quarterback from Auburn.
The point being that there seemed nothing that separated Aaron Rodgers then -- certainly nothing that NFL scouts and coaches seemed to see.
But there WAS something. There had to be something. It now looks like Rodgers might be the best young quarterback in the NFL. The guy across the field from him on Sunday, Ben Roethlisberger, has his case, and Phillip Rivers puts up huge numbers in San Diego, and there are a bunch of young quarterbacks like Matt Ryan and Josh Freeman and Mark Sanchez and Sam Bradford who still have promising and unforeseen futures.
But if you had to pick one young guy, 28 or younger, you would probably pick Rodgers. Passer rating isn't a great statistic, but it says something that his 98.4 rating is second best ever for players in their first six years in the NFL, and No. 1 was a guy named Otto Graham. And Rodgers is putting up his numbers outdoors, in often terrible weather, for a good team, and he has done this under the added pressure of having to replace Brett Favre.
He has also been brilliant in the playoffs this year. He was breathtaking at Philadelphia, eluding defenders ("Aaron Rodgers is probably as good as in-and-out-of-the-pocket quarterback as there is in football," his coach Mike McCarthy said after the game) and throwing three touchdown passes without an interception. In Atlanta, indoors, he was even better, just about perfect really, he hit 31 of 36 passes for 366 yards and three touchdown passes, again without an interception. The next week in the snow of Chicago, he looked human -- especially in the second half -- but he also looked in control.
So, why him ... what does Aaron Rodgers have that so many of the brilliant young prospects lacked?
When you listen to the quotes about him, you wonder if even now anyone really knows.
"I think he was prepared mentally and physically," Packers GM Ted Thompson says. "He's a good leader and a good teammate."
These words mean just about nothing. Quarterbacks who are taken in the first round have all prepared all their lives to play quarterback in the NFL. Just about all of them are considered good leaders and good teammates in college.
"He stayed true to his craft and very true to his fundamentals," Mike McCarthy says. "He's an expert of the offense. He has the ability to run the whole offense, if needed, at the line of scrimmage."
Yes, the old "He knows the offense" thing. But again -- why does Rodgers have a better grasp of the offense than, say, Jason Campbell does? When Brady Quinn came out of Notre Dame, then Kansas City Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson told me that in all his years of interviewing players, Quinn most impressed him. His makeup was off the charts. His ability to understand schemes was unquestioned. Brady Quinn, taken two years AFTER Rodgers, was the third string quarterback for the Denver Broncos and did not play a single down.
"It is just his decision making," Packers quarterback coach Tom Clements says of Rodgers.
"He's such an efficient quarterback," Steelers defensive back Troy Polamalu says.
"He's an amazing, amazing, amazing leader," Packers tight end Andrew Quarless says.
"He's seeing the field," Steelers linebacker James Harrison says. "He's reading things out. He's getting the ball to his people. He's the hottest thing going right now."
And so on ... you can go to person after person and ask why Aaron Rodgers made it when others did not and they will almost always speak in generalities, in cliches, about leadership and field presence and efficiency. And there's no doubt truth in all of what they say, but that doesn't make it easier to find the next Aaron Rodgers.
Maybe that's just how it has to be ... because maybe what separates Rodgers is something ineffable, something that cannot be scouted. A couple of former NFL quarterbacks now say that Rodgers has the perfect throwing motion, but coming out of high school Rodgers did not get a Division I scholarship offer and ended up going to Butte Community College. He played well enough there to impress Tedford, who brought him in and worked constantly with him. What blew Tedford away, he has said many times, was how much the kid wanted to learn about playing quarterback. He wanted to know everything. He worked and worked and worked on his motion until it was, well, good enough to someday be called perfect.
He then went to the Packers and sat behind Brett Favre for three years. This has been listed as one of the reasons for his success -- "He was able to sit and watch and learn," Thompson says -- but other quarterbacks have been eased into the league without great success. What seems to have separated Rodgers is that he never stopped wanting to improve, never stopped trying to pick up any hint he could find find wherever he could find it, never stopped searching for ways to make himself better as a leader or as a passer as a teammate. The quarterback position in the NFL takes so many physical and cognitive skills -- accuracy, arm strength, maneuverability, mental dexterity, the ability to make quick and precise decisions, physical toughness, nerve -- that there probably is no way to find anyone who meets them all.
So the key might be finding someone with a limitless ambition to improve. Listen to Rodgers on leadership:
"I learned a lot about how to motivate guys (in junior college). As a young 18-year old, you’re trying to be the field general to guys who have been there and done that – had life experiences, been in the work force, been in jail, been in the military, had leaders before."
Listen to Rodgers on preparation:
"I spend a lot of time each week, just making sure I’m ready to play the game. I want my teammates to know I’m the most prepared guy on the field. That’s film study, that’s also studying the game plan and that’s practice.”
Listen to Rodgers on his perfect motion:
"Since high school I’ve been blessed to work with people who really understood how to coach the position. And in college, I think I got the best of the best with Coach Tedford. We honed fundamentals, we talked about the mental aspect of playing quarterback and I really think that time with him was invaluable.”
What you get from these quotes and just about everything Rodgers says -- in addition to steady and pleasant boredom -- is a sense of someone who thinks about things constantly, even little things that few others think about. He seems to be someone who simply cannot imagine staying the same, simply cannot imagine that he's already good enough. There are so many potential distractions at the NFL level, some of them off the field (money, fame, fan fickleness ...), some on the field (dealing with pain -- Rodgers has a history of concussions -- standing up to a heavy rush, the inner workings of a team ...). And the most successful quarterbacks, bar none, are the ones who deal with those distractions and never believe the hype and continue to hunger for even the slightest improvement.
That is a lot tougher trait to scout than arm strength and how much a player can bench press.
* * *
Before this season began, Aaron Rodgers went to Mike McCarthy and asked him to put photographs up of the Green Bay Packers championships in the team meeting room and leave an empty space up there for the 2010 team. It's fair to say that nobody who plays for Green Bay is unaware of the team's history. Lombardi and Starr and Nitschke are not underrepresented in Green Bay. And it's also fair to say that everybody who played for the Packers in 2010 wanted to win a championship.
Still, Rodgers thought it might be good to have a little bit of that history in the meeting room and an empty space to get the players thinking big. How much did this have to do with the Packers being here? I would estimate 0.0%. But that's not the point. Maybe it did help crystallize the goal in a few players minds. Maybe it inspired a whole bunch of guys. We can't really know.
What we can know is that this is how Aaron Rodgers thinks ... he is looking for every edge. He is thinking always, every single day, about becoming a great quarterback for a great team. And maybe that's how he emerged from the huge casting call of talented young men who wanted to be the next great quarterback. It's like he has never stopped auditioning.
Cool to be first. Great to see Aaron Rodgers succeeding, since I, too am a Cal alum.
ReplyDeleteI think the great ones always feel like they have something to prove with every pass- Playing with the proverbial "chip on the shoulder". Even when Peyton came into the league, the Colts had been a joke for several years running. Would he have been the same transcendent player if he had gone to the Dolphins or Bills to replace HOF QBs?
ReplyDeleteThe great ones hate to lose, and they feel like everyone expects them to. Peyton has this, Rodgers has this, Warner had this.
Leinart did not have this.
That's a good question. I've been a Packer fan for life and can't really think of an explanation other than "we got lucky". One thing about Rodgers is that he seems to connect with his teammates better than the Favre did...no prima donna garbage from him (so far, at least), and I think that helps him an awful lot. Like you could never picture the guy skipping training camp or getting a locker away from everyone else.
ReplyDeleteBy the way does anyone else feel, watching the Cardinals this year, that Kurt Warner was actually UNDERrated? I still cannot believe such a one-dimensional team made a Super Bowl. Warner may go down as a top 10 all-timer.
Favre was pretty good, though. And won a Super Bowl. And the "prima donna" stuff hit him pretty late in his career. Before that happened, he transformed a lot of receivers into high-level players (Sharpe, Chmura, Driver, Freeman, an old Don Beebe).
ReplyDeleteStill, that's a good comparison. Favre doesn't strike me as being very much like Rodgers, but both (to date) have been big success stories after somewhat less than fantastic beginnings.
Joe, I disagree with the idea that Alex Smith's college offense made him more NFL-ready. It was a spread-option. He seem to make more plays with his feet than with his arm. He ran the "dive play" that Tebow ran countless times at Florida and that's one play that is not a staple of the NFL.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, the discussion between Smith and Rodgers broke down because of who coached Rodgers and his unusual throwing motion. As you noted, Tedford had coached a string of quarterback busts. Teams were wary of latching onto the next one. They thought there must be reasons why his quarterbacks fail. There was thought that Tedford was "too good" at coaching quarterbacks and that enabled him to obliterate college defenses, causing his system qbs to become overrated in the process. There was also the matter of Rodger's throwing motion. Tedford had him hold the ball up his ear at all times, like a catcher. Rodgers and Tedford swore by it. Unlike Tebow, who temporarily switched up his mechanics to allay scouts' criticism during the predraft workout process, Rodgers threw his unconventional way during his draft workout, to good effect. He said at the time that he believes in Tedford's throwing motion but he's capable of holding the ball lower like he did in junior college.
What interests me is what made Rodgers different from previous Tedford quarterbacks Harrington, Akili Smith, Dilfer, Carr and Boller. And Carr aside, the big thing was Rodger's accuracy. He was a 62-63 percent passer in college. Smith, Harrington and Dilfer were mid-50s passers and Boller was horrendous a 50 percent passer. Rodgers could gun the ball with incredible accuracy, while the other Tedford pupils could not. College accuracy as a necessary tool for NFL success has mostly caught. In theory, it's so obvious. A NFL quarterback has to be able to hit 10 out of 10 open targets. If he doesn't show that ability in three or four years of college, he's unlikely to develop that ability enough to be decent NFL quarterback, much less one deserving of his high draft selection.
I can't help but think that at least part of the disparity is explained by the fact that QBs get way too much credit and take far too much blame for things beyond their control. The quality of the system they are put in, the quality of the skill players around them, and most importantly, the quality of their offensive lines is remarkably significant. Remember that Matt Cassell went 11-5 with the Patriots after Brady went down. That's not to say that there's no difference between QBs (after all, Brady went 16-0) or that Rodgers doesn't have something that his apparent peers lacked (he does), but I can't help wondering what would have happened if Manning had been behind David Carr's offense line in Houston for year after year.
ReplyDelete@Joshua: great point. We are told over and over again that Tom Brady is one of the greatest ever, then he has trouble with the Jets' defense playing a perfect game and the press crucifies him. Peyton Manning is glorified all season long for carrying a team with one decent receiver (at most) and no running game, and when the team's shortcomings finally catch up with them in the playoffs, the pundits view this as proof that he still can't win the big ones. It should be obvious, but somehow many commentators manage to forget that football is very much a team game!
ReplyDeleteManning would be drooling in a wheel chair.
ReplyDeleteMalcolm Gladwell wrote a great essay on the difficulty of projecting pro QB success from college success. It was combined in the essay with the difficulty in recognizing who can be an effective teacher and who can't. Great read. It was in the New Yorker and may be in his latest essay collection.
ReplyDeleteEstablishing a system and finding the right type of players to play in that system is everything. Take Montana and Marino. Both are undeniably in the debate for Top 5 All-Time QB status. Put Marino on the 49ers and Montana on Miami and suddenly who knows how their careers turn out. Both would have still been great in all probability but you can't know for sure. Would a guy like Marino, with a huge arm and a personality just as strong, been compatible with the strong minded Walsh? What would Montana have done with no running game? What would he have done, post Marks Bros, and still no running game? We can only guess. It's the same with Rodgers. Just like the two legends above, an unquantifiable number of things fell into place and it all culminated into the birth of a great QB.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Tom Brady fan, but I can't believe the criticism he's received this season. He had midget WR's (+ Welker led the NFL in drops), rookie TE's, and replacement level RB's. He had a down year, but I don't think another QB would have performed better in that situation.
ReplyDeleteI heard the radio interview Dan Patrick had with Aaron Rodgers maybe a month or so ago. I'm not a big fan of Patrick's cutesy interviewing style but I came away from those few minutes quite impressed by Rodgers. He was coming off his second concussion and that was briefly discussed. How Rodgers attempted to seriously reply to some of Patrick's light-heared banter was abnormally mature and he had some zingers back to Patrick that I thought were exceptionally smart remarks for a star athlete. It was very refreshing. Perhaps I have too low a standard for most athlete interviews but Aaron Rodgers far exceeded my normal expectations. While a Steeler fan, I will not be upset or surprised if Rodgers has a remarkably great game on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteJoe, you cite QB Rating as an indicator of Rodgers skill. As a sabremetrician, I am disappointed you would use such a flawed and useless stat that really means nothing anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhat does anyone successful have that someone unsuccessful, with similar metrics, doesn't have?
ReplyDeleteI feel like we can ask this question with any profession. I'm tempted to say luck is a factor, but I know it's not a determinative factor. This reminds me of a Neil Straus quote:
"In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don't appreciate things that fall into our laps."
It's seems to me, that Aaron Rodgers is always asking questions, BUT when he finds the right answer to a question, he moves on to a new question. Always building on the right answer. I don't think this can be scouted in football because there difficulty level below the NFL isn't good enough to challenge the most talented people.
In life, if you're smart, you're smart, but that doesn't mean you'll succeed. In elementary school a smart kid doesn't need to do much work to get great grades, as the kid grows the difficulty level increases, but only minimally. Once you get to real life, that's when we can finally separate those that can, and those that can't.
The NFL is the same. The biggest kids are going to dominate at lower levels. Once you get to the level where everyone is big, the fastest and the smartest usually win out. Once the fast and the smart move on though...everyone is fast and smart.
This is where the vigilant students of the game win out. Rodgers, Manning, Brady...Polamalu, Revis, Woodson...etc.
@Luke QB rating is a flawed stat but those who say its useless are the ones who usually don't have a clue on how it's calculated. I'm not making assumptions Luke, but that's usually how it ends up. QB rating is a simple tool to measure efficiency of the QB. The rating is derived from YD's/Att, TDs and INTs. Last I checked those are the most relevent counting for QB's as well as the ones that are always used when judging QB's. Is it the "end-all-be-all" stat to define a QB's worth? No not even close, but it was never meant to be. Yet the QB rating detractors still talk as if commentators purport it to be "the" stat. QB rating is there because raw passing data can be skewed. (The same can be said for almost all counting stats in the NFL).
ReplyDeleteEx. QB1: 35-67 414 YDS 3 TD 2 INT
QB2: 22-26 288 2 TD 0 INT
Yes QB1 had the gaudy numbers but it's clear QB2 was better and far more efficient. And thus..
QB1 Rating: 73.85
QB2 Rating: 138.46
Again it's not perfect. Shaun Hill has a higher career QB rating than Aikman, Fouts, Len Dawson, Tarkenton, Unitas, Namath and many others who were light years better. So it is flawed but in MANY ways it's extremely accurate. Find me any QB in history who had 130 rating in a game only to have the local papers rip him for a crappy game the next day. You can't because unless that guy fumbled 5 times (Fumbles are the one thing a QB can do that won't affect his rating), because a 130 rating means that he had a great day 99.99% of the time. If his rating was 27 then 99.99% the QB had an awful game. It's far from a perfect stat but to imply that a man of Joe's profound sports knowledge should almost be ashamed to cite QB rating as a relevent stat is absurd.
It was never pointed out, but Rodgers has the HIGHEST ALL-TIME QB RATING in NFL HISTORY at 98.4 with a minimum 1500 ATT. Clearly his 1611 career attempts is still too small a sample. Steve Young is the real career QB rating leader at 96.8 because he amassed that rating in a career with over 4000 ATT spanning a decade and a half. Still, Rodgers is pacing to be #1 and considering he's averaged 33 ATT per game for his career, he could be up around 4000 ATT in five years. Again it ain't perfect but...
ReplyDeleteTop 10 All-Time (1500 ATT) Rodgers, Rivers, Steve Young, Romo, Brady, Peyton, Warner, Big Ben, Montana, Brees.
That's a pretty impressive list. I guess I just don't understand the hatred for QB rating. To me it's an easy way to sum up a QB's day and the number is usually in line with QB performance. When Ken Stabler is in a three-way tie for 94th All-Time with the immortal duo of Steve Bono and Scott Mitchell then we know that the stat doesn't tell the whole story. But is it useless? The deception lies in the raw stats methinks. Many people pick John Elway when asked who is the greatest QB they ever saw. Many, Many people. What a very many people probably don't
know is that he never once threw 40 TD. Heck he never even threw 30 TD and he only passed for 4,000 YDS once and surpassed 3,800 just two other times. For many the eyes say he was the best but numbers say otherwise. I guess the real question is how stats in football should be used in judging anyone. BTW Elway is 60th all time in QB rating. (all rankings per footballreference)
I have toyed with the idea of evaluating each pass that a QB throws and coming up with a rating. It is one thing to throw a dart and get a completion that moves the ball from the 30 to the 3. To then have the coach call a play fake with the QB tossing the ball to a wide open tight end for the TD is not really impressive. I actually think that I could make that throw, at least some of the time.
ReplyDeleteI'll sometimes watch a game and see a QB make a good throw that is dropped, a bad throw that is caught, a dumb throw, a decent throw after eluding a blitz, a throw that is behind the receiver, etc. I want to rate each of those plays and end up with something like "6 great plays, 14 good plays, 12 average, 5 poor, and 3 terrible plays" and give the QB a score based on those numbers. I've often suspected that this is what NFL teams do -- similar to "grading" the play of an offensive lineman -- but I never read or hear about it. Why?
As a Bills fan, I'm pretty concerned about the wildly fluctuating opinions concerning Blaine Gabbert. As far as I can see (not too far), he's not a #3 overall pick-worthy prospect, but that seems to be the way the gurus are trending.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to nitpick, include Buffalo among the teams that haven't spent a first-round pick on a QB in the last 20 years. Todd Collins and J.P. Losman were second-rounders; last first-rounder was Jim Kelly in 1983.
Justin: Losman was a first-round pick, 22nd overall in 2004.
ReplyDeleteI believe the single-most important attribute a top-level QB needs is the ability to see the field and process what's happening incredibly fast.
ReplyDeleteA good arm, athletic ability, size, for the most part any QB that separates themselves from the pack in college and gets drafted has at least the miminum levels of these attributes to at least get on the field. Accuracy is slightly more crucial, but only to the point that not having it negatively affects a QB; once you get to a certain level, being marginally more accurate than the next guy probably doesn't offer much more value. Ultimately, if a QB is skilled enough to get to the league, he can make most throws. The key is knowing the right throw to make. I think this is why the Lewin Career Forecast, which uses a combination of completion percentage and games started in college, is able to predict which pro QBs will be successful to a large extent. It stands to reason that more games played would lead to better field vision. Even still, there are QBs who played at a high level for multiple years in college--Ken Dorsey, David Greene--and never really developed at the next level. And beyond simply counting playing time, how else does a scout figure out which QB is better than another at seeing the field, especially against the much faster defenses one will encounter in the NFL? Frankly, I have no idea.
One more thing: although you didn't say this, Joe, one could infer that you're suggesting that the first round isn't an efficient place to find a starting QB for your team. Leaving salaries aside (in which most very high first-round picks are overpaid, but that's a different argument), there simply is no better place to find a high-quality signal-caller. Warner, Brady, and Brees are exceptions. (And even Brees was most likely penalized by scouts because of his size; if he were 6-3, he probably have been a first-round pick). Look at the rest of the best QBs in the league: Two were No. 1s overall (Manning, Vick), one was No. 3 (Ryan), and another, (Rivers) was a No. 4. Roethlisberger was predicted by a lot of draft experts to go higher than Rivers, and if the teams drafted in a different order he might have. He ended up No. 11. As you said, Rodgers was graded very close to Smith, and throughout much of the season was predicted to be the eventual No. 1. And it's worth noting that before a couple of major injuries, Carson Palmer (another No. 1 overall) appeared to be a very, very good quarterback. Bradford (No. 1) and Josh Freeman (No. 17) have had very good starts to their young careers.
The point is, yes it's difficult to find a good quarterback in the first round, and the crucial nature of the position makes the difficulty more pronounced. (There are tons of first-round WR and CB busts as well, they just rarely get picked quite as high in the round, and therefore cost less money when they don't pan out.) But ultimately, first-round QBs are much more likely to become very good to great than those you can find in later rounds.
Another difference between Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers is the organizations they've played for. Much as I admire Rodgers as a quarterback, I think the 49ers and their collection of rotating incompetent head coaches and o-coordinators could very well have ruined him too.
ReplyDeleteFavre has had a few unheralded backups go on to have nice NFL careers -- Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselbeck. They also selected Aaron Brooks, too, and he had moments.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the Packers had a number of forgettable Favre backups, too, but they were all selected in the fifth round or later, except for Brooks (fourth round).
If I had to guess, it'd be a combination of the following elements:
1. Packers have a relatively good eye (and system) for QBs, and they finally could use it on first-round talent.
2. Rodgers had a very, very, very conservative learning curve compared to other first-round picks.
3. Rodgers has a great receiving corps - part of it is that he makes them look great, but they get open for him.
This is an example of the sports writing profession's inborn tendency to look back on what has occurred and concoct a plausible narrative to explain what has happened (not at all dissimilar to the stories that the bases for most of the world's religions). Intention and logic are much more comforting than randomness.
ReplyDeleteThe more reasonable answer about Aaron Rodgers is that chance and luck have played a greater role in his arrival at the Super Bowl; if a play here or there had gone differently, we could be building similarly satisfying narratives about Jay Cutler (redemption), Mike Vick (Capital-R Redemption), Mark Sanchez (meets high-intensity NY high expectations) or even Caleb Hanie (the next Bob Dylan...I mean Tom Brady).
Joe is a firm proponent of using statistics in baseball, but it seems in this case he opts for "I'll pretend this statistic is meaningful because it's the best we've got" even though his example of quarterbacks chosen in the first round does not have anywhere near the number of occurrences to have any statistical significance.
There's a moment when a thought becomes an action. All professional quarterbacks have done the necessary work to get to that point. They've inherited the genes. They've built their bodies. They've memorized the playbook and practiced the plays. But at the moment of transition from thought to action, some quarterbacks are simply better.
ReplyDeleteYou can see it in Rogers. A little less in Brady, who has Belichick behind him. Even less, perhaps, in Manning, whose insane control of facts on the ground seems to make up for his slower commitment to action.
But Rogers doesn't pause, he doesn't wait; he sees and acts, and does so without the "you can't touch this" bravado of Favre and without settling for the low-risk, low-reward option. He seems to think faster out there, and it's a joy to watch.
He might now be the most complete QB I've ever seen. Favre had the best arm. Peyton has the best grasp of the game. Montana and Elway were the least flappable. You just could not flap those guys. But I haven't seen this level of brain-body zing since Marino, and Marino never really had his shot, never had a good team with him. Rogers has the chance Marino never had, and we're lucky for it.
Here's one theory about guys who are never scouted up to par. The look the same in the pros as they did in high school. The game keeps speeding up but in their eyes it never changes. They're still watching the same game.
ReplyDeleteI covered Bradford in college. I covered Ryan Broyles in high school and college. These were so not the guys everybody celebrated on signing day. And yet, one won the Heisman Trophy, and the other might be the best collegiate receiver in the nation and, anyway, was far better than advertised going back to his first week of practice at Oklahoma.
They just have the knack. They do what it takes to be better than everybody else. They may not seem like enough to dominate at the next level … until they get to the next level and they do it again.
This makes me think of an essay I just ready by Galen Rowell, the great mountaineer and photographer, and from what you say, it seems to me that what makes Rodgers stand out from his draft-mates is "the size of the rat". Rowell was talking about what separates elite mountaineers from the rest of the pack. At one point a team of doctors thoroughly examined Reinhold Messner, who was the first to climb Everest without oxygen, among many other feats. They expected to find unusual lung capacity or other physiological traits to link his great accomplishments to. And they found a pretty average guy.
ReplyDeleteGalen says that the saying among mountaineers is that what separates the best from the rest is "the size of the rat." They describe the feeling of a rat in their stomach that gnaws away at them driving them to climb higher. The best climbers just have a bigger rat. So, it seems, does Rodgers.
You're right, Joe, I was mistaken about Losman. Although I would have felt a lot better about the Bills drafting ability if he wasn't a first-rounder...
ReplyDeleteI was looking at Rodgers' college stats and they are eerily similar to his professional stats:
ReplyDeleteCompletion % (GB): 63.6/64.7/65.7
(Cal): 61.6/66.1
Yards/Attempt (GB): 7.5/8.2/8.3
(Cal): 8.3/8.1
He was able to import his college numbers, achieved in a pro-style offense, pretty much to the pros.
I looked over the other Tedford QBs and the only really impressive thing about them were the great TD/INT ratios. Boller, in his last season, still only completed 53 percent of his passes but managed a sterling 28:10 ratio. That was his first year under Tedford and his ratio the previous year was 12:10. When Joey Harrington was a Heisman candidate in his senior year and impressed enough to go really high in the draft, his completion percentage was only 57.8 but his TD:Int ratio was a great 23:5. Tedford's system didn't inflate his quarterback's accuracy with easy passes; the true genius of it was limiting their mistakes, something they couldn't carry over into the pros without the accuracy Rodgers has.
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ReplyDeleteHarwood is corrct. Luck and chance put Rodgers at the top, currently. It could have been any number of other quarterbacks with a different play or two. Remember, some great or near great QB's almost never got a chance, except for some luck, e.g., Unitas, Dawson, Warner and maybe Brady.
ReplyDeleteRodgers is a very good quarterback, likely to retire early due to concussions. The most likely scenario is no more Super Bowl victories. Joe in a couple years will be talking about some other great young QB.
The answer to what makes the best QB is the accuracy of their throws (which really should be more obvious than it is). All have high skills. Most work hard. Many are smart enough and poised enough. a Good number have good enough supporting teams, at least at some point. And a few ave an unacanny accuracy in their throws and, therefore, are great QB's, e.g., Warner, Montana, Brady and now, maybe, Rodgers (if his good luck continues). That's it.
Do not forget the offensive line in this discussion.
ReplyDeleteI saw Tim Couch play against Peyton Manning in college, and there is no doubt who was the better athlete.
Not saying that Tim would ever have been as good as Peyton. But, in my opinion, we will never know if he could have made it because of the line he played behind.
In the few games I watched, he got killed.
Beethoven, you're wrong about Leinart. It was a huge mistake by Whisenhunt to release him, and I doubt he'll still be the coach when the Cardinals are good again.
ReplyDeleteWhisenhunt didn't draft Leinart; Green did. Whisenhunt never liked Leinart; he's embedded in the "QBs are just another element of the team" Steelers approach, even though Whisenhunt clearly had his greatest success with more of the "We'll go as far as our great QB will carry us" Colts/Patriots approach. Leinart thought he was about to be the #1 QB when they brought in Warner (who showed there was still gas in the tank) and so Leinart sat. It had to rankle Leinart, but he sat and evidently he learned. The last pre-season game Leinart played as a Cardinal, Whisenhunt implied Leinart needed to win a job on the team. Leinart completed 9/10 passes (the one incompletion was a drop) but instead of bowing down and showing gratitude, Leinart stated the obvious: he was the only QB who had moved the team at all. So Whisenhunt cut him, proving that Whisenhunt was indeed the coach and king of a lousy team without a QB.
If Leinart did not truly love football, he would not have returned to USC for his senior year; he'd have gone straight to the pros (probably as #1 overall following his Heisman victory) and cashed an even bigger paycheck then he got a year later. If Leinart did not truly love football, he'd have gone home with his $30M instead of signing as backup QB for Houston.
Personality clashes happen between players and coaches all the time. Great coaches learn how to adapt and motivate. Whisenhunt has not built a consistently good defense in Arizona, has not built a solid offensive line, has not created a running game. What he has accomplished was recognizing that a HOF caliber QB, Kurt Warner, deserved one more chance, and riding that horse into the sunset. The Cardinals last season looked poorly coached. Players, especially but not exclusively QBs, seemed to have no clue what they should be doing. I have zero hope of them being good again with the current regime. If Whisenhunt had build a good team on either side of the ball, say, a Ravens or Steelers light (good D, decent running game) then the Cardinals would have won the lousy NFC West; they were in the race for most of the season. But in no element of play do the Cardinals look to be above average, and that's Whisenhunt's fault, not Leinart's.
The NFL has had lots of great QBs who were cut by a coach he didn't like him. Look at Unitas, or Jim Plunkett. I'm not saying Leinart's going to turn out great, but so far there's zero evidence that Whisenhunt's judgment is superior to Leinart's talent.
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ReplyDeleteGreat blog Joe. Rodgers is a great story, and it's been a fun ride to see how he would handle his situation in Green Bay, filling the shoes of Green Bay God, Brett Favre. I wasn't aware of his humble experiences in junior college and believe it was his humility that made him the type of quarterback he is today.
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting to see how QBs fare after they are drafted. There really isn't a clear cut way to draft a QB for success. Like you said, only Manning has been named a first team all pro out of 46. A QB is probably the most important player on an NFL team, it makes the game that much more compelling when there isn't a guarantee when you draft your "franchise quarterback" We'll have to see what Locker and Newton do in the next few seasons.
I've been very curious about this. I think way too much credit goes to coaches these days and not nearly enough to great QBs. I looked up since, I think, 1967, how many marginal QBs have won the Superbowl. Either 8 or 6 depending on your viewpoint. Phil Simms won two in 1987 and 1991. Don't know if I would consider Phil Simms an all time great. Here are the rest with marginal QBs:
ReplyDelete1981 - Raiders - Jim Plunkett
1986 - Bears - Jim McMahon
1988 - Washington Redskins - Doug Williams
1992 - Washington - Mark Rypien
2001 - Baltimore - Trent Dilfer
2003 - Tampa Bay - Brad Johnson
All the other QBs that have won Superbowls for the last 40+ years have been GREAT ones. I think there's a lot to be said for that and coaches get way too much credit.