The Wanderer

With all the attention that is annually paid to QBs drafted in rounds 2 through 5 -- whom Mel Kiper tells us year after year after year are probably just as good as the ones drafted in round 1, and if YOUR team happens to draft one, you agree with him -- perhaps it would be helpful to simply take a look at where the NFL's starting quarterbacks come from.

So let's start with the full list:

PATRIOTS: Tom Brady (6th round)
DOLPHINS: Daunte Culpepper (1st round)
BILLS: J.P. Losman (1st round)
JETS: Chad Pennington (1st round)

COLTS: Peyton Manning (#1)
JAGUARS: Byron Leftwich (1st round)
FLAMING THUMBTACKS: Billy Volek (undrafted)
TEXANS: David Carr (#1)

BENGALS: Carson Palmer (#1)
STEELERS: Ben Roethlisberger (1st round)
BROWNS: Charlie Frye (3rd round)
RAVENS: Steve McNair (1st round)

BRONCOS: Jake Plummer (2nd round)
CHIEFS: Trent Green (8th round)
CHARGERS: Philip Rivers (1st round)
RAIDERS: Aaron Brooks (4th round)

GIANTS: Eli Manning (#1)
REDSKINS: Mark Brunell (5th round)
COWBOYS: Drew Bledsoe (#1)
EAGLES: Donovan McNabb (1st round)

BUCCANEERS: Chris Simms (3rd round)
PANTHERS: Jake Delhomme (undrafted)
FALCONS: Michael Vick (#1)
SAINTS: Drew Brees (2nd round)

BEARS: Rex Grossman (1st round)
VIKINGS: Brad Johnson (9th round)
PACKERS: Brett Favre (2nd round)
LIONS: Jon Kitna (undrafted)

SEAHAWKS: Matt Hasselbeck (6th round)
CARDINALS: Kurt Warner (undrafted)
RAMS: Marc Bulger (6th round)
49ERS: Alex Smith (#1)

OK, so here is the breakdown:

#1 picks: 7
Other first rounders: 9
Out-of-nowhere (6th round and down): 9
Mid-rounders: 7

Let's break it down further:

The #1 picks give us two franchise QBs (P. Manning and Palmer), two reasonably good QBs (Bledsoe and Vick), one question mark (E. Manning) and two bad jokes (Carr and Smith).

The other first rounders give us three franchise QBs (Roethlisberger, McNair and McNabb), three reasonably good QBs (Culpepper, Pennington, Leftwich), and three question marks (Losman, Rivers and Grossman). Personally, I'd put Losman in the "bad joke" category, but the consensus is that he's still a question mark, so we'll put him there.

The out-of-nowhere guys give us one franchise QB (Brady), six reasonably good QBs (Green, Delhomme, Johnson, Hasselbeck, Bulger and Warner), one established good backup/not-so-good starter (Kitna), and one question mark (Volek).

The mid-round guys give us one franchise QB (Favre, who I realize hasn't been a franchise QB for years, but he has 3 MVPs so for our exercise we'll count him here), four reasonably good QBs (Plummer, Brunell, Simms and Brees), one question mark (Frye) and one bad joke (Brooks).

So let's organize our thoughts here.

There are, by my estimation -- and I've been as consensus-centric as I can on this -- seven franchise QBs. Five were drafted in the first round -- two #1 overall -- one was drafted in the 2nd round, and one came out of nowhere.

There are 15 reasonably good QBs. Only five of them were first round picks (two were #1 overall picks). Four of them were mid-round picks. Six of them were found on the scrap heap.

There is only one starting QB I identified as a backup/not-starter type, Jon Kitna. This is about correct, as most of these guys either wash out of the league or become career backups. Kitna came out of nowhere.

There are six guys I called "question marks," guys who are too young/inexperienced/inconsistent to be able to make a definite judgment about them. One of them (Eli Manning) was a #1 overall pick, three were other first round picks (two who have never played and one who, being generous, doesn't look like too good a bet). One was a 3rd round pick, and one was a scrap heap find.

Being as generous as I can, there are only 3 quarterbacks I classified as bad jokes. Two of them were #1 overall picks; the third was a mid-round guy who should have become a receiver (Brooks).

It should also be noted that three current starting QBs who weren't first round picks (Billy Volek, Mark Brunell, Kurt Warner) are going to be replaced this year by QBs who were first round picks (Vince Young, Jason Campbell, Matt Leinart), which is going to skew the data even more by the end of the season.

This evidence, friends, is extremely clear: You can find serviceable backups in rounds 2 through 5, but if you're looking for a starter, you either get him in round 1, or you just wait until the end of the draft (or after the draft) to find him. The percentage of 6th round and below guys who completely wash out is very high, but then, they don't cost you very much to take a look at.

It's OK to take a QB in the middle rounds. Just don't go telling your fans this is the guy to lead your team to glory, because unless you hit the Brett Favre Lottery (dozens of QBs have been taken in rounds 2-5 in the last 20 years, and only one of them was Brett Favre), he isn't taking you anywhere besides the top of the draft. One more note about Favre: Favre was drafted way back in 1991. At the time he was acknowledged to be a top-15 talent and the biggest-upside QB in the draft, but slid to the top of the second round because of character issues. It seems like since Favre, teams have stopped caring about character issues if a QB has elite talent.

Bottom line is, about two-thirds of the QBs in any given draft year that are good enough to start consistently in the NFL are obviously good enough that scouts peg them as first round talents. Most of the other one-third are guys that, for whatever reason, the scouts miss entirely.

imported_DarthGator

is that a copy and paste or your own work?

imported_nowayguy

if it is his work it is quite impressive.

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imported_DarthGator

thats my thought


either way its a great post

imported_BaltimoreRavens

IMO Culpepper should be counted as a Franchise QB by your standards.
Carr shouldn't be in the joke catagory yet.


Everyone is already sure Mcnair will start over Bller this upcoming season, but I'm not so sure.

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"The Steelers are still the best team in the AFCN by a landslide" - Steelerfan1

imported_mitchell2254

As PArcells said you dial 1-800-Quarterback

Moe

there are more players from the 6th round thru than there are in the first few picks, simple as that the percentage is still the same.

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PeanutTillman)</div>Pass to Pinky game

DHNF

But Alex Smith should after half a season on the least talented team of alltime?



Retarded.

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The Wanderer

Yes, I did write that.

The 49ers were one of the worst teams in the league because of Alex Smith, not in spite of him. Smith was horrible -- substantially worse than Ryan Leaf's rookie season, in similar playing time and with at least as good a team as Leaf had. Being worse than Ryan Leaf is plenty enough to qualify a man as a bad joke, in my book.

Anyway, supposing we do move Culpepper up to "franchise" level (setting aside the fact that franchise QBs do not get traded, ever, unless a. they're old and b. someone extremely talented is waiting in the wings) and Carr and Smith to "question mark" level. All three of them were first-rounders (Carr and Smith were #1), so this only bolsters the original argument, which is that, by far, the first round is the best place to find a good quarterback.

I hope you understand that this has nothing to do with categorizing QBs. The exercise is to point out how wrong the general opinion is that you can get good QBs in rounds 2-5. Clearly, you cannot unless you're extremely lucky. You can feel free to put the various QBs in whatever categories you choose, and the point remains the same.

Concerning Moe's point: That's wrong, because it's a scarcity question. It is very difficult to obtain quarterbacks that are regarded as good enough to be drafted in the first round, since you have to have a high enough draft slot to get them and numerous other teams want the same guy. It is easy to obtain quarterbacks that are available in the sixth round and beyond, because no one thinks they'll make it in the NFL and no one else is really competing with you for their services.

DHNF

Because the Niners did so well when Smith wasn't playing last year...

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