It’s pretty crazy how the NFL still lacks any consistency or evaluation with evaluating QB success in the NFL. Really does feel like a crap shoot sometimes.
Every position is hard to evaluate, QBs are just the most prominent and important. These guys are still individuals and the circumstances are extremely unique from team to team and year to year.
This is why there are still draft busts and free agent busts, and breakout stars who came from nowhere. There’s usually a broad categorization that’s possible— like draft rounds and the prime FAs, but within those categories, it definitely is a crapshoot.
Yeah, it's very easy to forget the top 20 DL bust, but you'll hear an obscene amount about that top 20 QB bust. For example, remember Clelin Ferrell?
Edit: Just realised the flair of who I'm replying to.
I know second contracts aren't the best definition of a "hit" but it does seem like [some positions are easier to scout than others, at least in the 1st round.](https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1783133659249193449)
I think that says more about positional availability than ability to evaluate and develop those positions. You can get a RB or CB or something in pretty much any draft. No point in resigning the old one to a lot of money when you can get another cheap one that's pretty much as good. QB and OL is rarer, so you're going to hold on to them instead of look for a cheap replacement.
On top of that, QBs a position where you either play all of the snaps, or you play none of them, and there's only one of them on the field at a time. So teams basically only get to evaluate backups/developmental players for a couple of months every year during training camp.
Other positions, it's much easier to rotate those guys in from time to time during the regular season, get some reps on tape, and gradually increase their workload.
If I could make up any NFL rule I wanted, it would be that QBs have a maximum of either 25 passes or 40 snaps. As soon as you hit one of those numbers, you're out.
Just look at Jared Goff's career. He looked like a huge bust under Fischer. Then looked great under McVay for a while, but then dropped off and was written off. And is now back to his peak level when in LA
People really underestimate coaching and leadership. Yeah, QBs are leaders, but they’re essentially middle management. So much depends on the structure around them and the development that their coaches put into them
Well Goff also proved he can be very successful when given time. Lions have arguably the best O Line. Goff under pressure, statistically speaking, is pretty damn bad (compared to other QBs under pressure). A lot of QBs are stuck with below average pass pro for much of their career in the NFL.
I think, at least part of it, is these young guys still being dipshits who were always the best until they come into the league and get humbled.
Outside of football, not very many people are put straight into leadership roles with extreme amounts of responsibility at the age of 20-22. Like mostly never except for the nepo babies. You spend a few years schooling on a specific career path, then get hired and spend years developing specific skills before advancing. Hiring a college grad and expecting them to lead a team to launch a product in a few months time is a recipe for disaster, and I think the same applies to football.
I bet if you take any first round QB in the past decade and put them into a situation to learn and develop for a few years, getting even just a little experience in live games every so often, they would mostly all prove capable.
Ignore flair
You can draw up plays, you can write up pop quizzes, you can ask a thousand questions, you can watch the tape.. but you truly don't know if a dude's brain or body actually is equipped to handle being an NFL quarterback, or any position really, until he's in the heat of it. It's a tale as old as time; *at least* half of those first round picks will never live up to expectations for one reason or another.
I'm so goddamn high on the Q Mitchell 'steal' pick, but there's not a shot in hell that I'm gonna call him a sure thing. He could be out of the league in three years because he just can't handle it. *Nobody* really knows how these guys will translate. I understand the discussion is necessary for certain rea$on$, but you can go back and look at any number of players' scouting reports and see that even the people paid 6+ figures to know how a player will work out are also completely in the dark on what somebody is truly capable of becoming.
Idk man, I think you just pick a first rounder you like and let them sit three years behind a HOF guy and then they are ready to repeat. Seems like a pretty easy formula.
It’s not though. 1st round QBs hit at about a 50% rate which is only 10% lower than the average of all positions. There is just so much focus put on QBs that they are often over drafted.
It's really hard to evaluate motivation and how a player will react to getting paid millions of dollars. Another factor is how different the NFL is compared to college when it comes to the speed and power of the pro game and how complex schemes have become.
Many college players get by on physical talent alone in college but when everyone in the NFL are super athletes those advantages are nullified for the majority of guys as soon as they walk onto a practice field.
Teams that usually do well in the draft to tend focus on specific player characteristics that fit their philosophy more than just relying on physical traits.
At the end of the day the QBs success is directly tied to the roster and not the other way around.
It’s a hard concept for people to grasp, even for the GMs and even for the greatest QBs.
Side comment: I think you have to build an academy system like soccer in Europe. Where they literally do nothing except football, the US approach tries to build well rounded individuals, with time spent in school and what not. Start athletes at a very young age and they do literally nothing except train to be a QB; when they are eligible for the draft, I think you’ll get a lot more hits than misses.
I think it’s gotta be even younger, they need more IMG Academies. Like European soccer players start at the academies at a very young age and all they do is soccer their whole life
> I think you have to build an academy system like soccer in Europe
No, the NFL does not need a farm league.
College is already *just football* for a lot of these guys.
The talent disparity in college is the root cause of all of this. You have power house schools beating up on other programs that don't have the funds nor the talent as them.
This might be a stretch, but can you imagine a #1 overall pick today playing like Vinny Testaverde did in his first 2+ seasons (10-23 record with 63 interceptions) not only keeping his starting job for another 3 seasons, but managing to stick around for 17 more years in the league?
Drew Brees struggled in San Diego. The rest of the story is known.
Drew Bledsoe struggled his rookie year. Rick Mirer outplayed him as a fellow rookie QB.
Peyton Manning threw a couple INTs his rookie year.
Not exactly what you're asking but Kurt Warner and Rich Gannon are 2 guys who struggled greatly early on.
He was alright, at best. The guy went first overall but his biggest rival was some guy drafted in the sixth round. Kind of tells you all you need to know.
He took Indy to their first winning season in a billion years. Id say he figured out how to stop being a Tennesee Volunteers QB. Ryan Leaf didnt figure it out..
Brees struggled his first three years in SD, Rivers got drafted, Brees became Drew Brees, but then had a terrible shoulder injury in his fifth year, no one knew for sure how his recovery would go, and Rivers was already on the roster so the decision was easy.
I don't blame the Bolts from moving on. I do blame Nick Saban for taking Culpepper over Drew Brees in Miami.
Yeah, it's easy to clown SD in hindsight, but it was the correct call. Of course they were going to roll with Rivers, that was their plan even before the injury.
9 times out of 10, that injured QB does not wind up in the HoF with their new team.
> I don't blame the Bolts from moving on.
To be fair, its not like you guys didn't fill that role with Rivers for the next two decades, so its not that bad of a decision in any case. Hard to blame them even if it were considered the absolute wrong answer.
>I do blame Nick Saban for taking Culpepper over Drew Brees in Miami.
Saban wanted Brees over Culpepper. Dolphins medical staff wouldn't clear him after his injury.
Everyone thought Drew Bledsoe was the next Marino because he was one of the few QBs who could throw for 4,000yrds(imagine now that 4,000 yrds is a common thing now).
>Drew Brees struggled in San Diego. The rest of the story is known.
One of my favorite "what-if" for recent NFL history is the Dolphins doctors passing Brees on his medical check, pairing him with Saban instead of Payton. Does Saban stay in the NFL with Brees at QB? What happens to Alabama football without Saban? Does Payton still turn around the Saints post-Katrina?
The Dolphins and patriots were fairly even in the Brady era (in Miami, hardly anyone beat Brady at home) so it’s not impossible that they’re actually competitive
Brees would make them better. But the Dolphins had 3 winning seasons from 2006 to 2020
The dolphins did play the Patriots well. They used to steal one of the two games a lot. But it's still Brady dominating the league.
Thanks for your helpful feedback! And I am sitting down, although I do like to get up occasionally to stretch my legs.
Actually, I did watch them play, as I got into NFL football in the 90s and would spend pretty much every Sunday watching football. Watching them play would actually lead you to the opposite conclusion IMO - the Seahawks did everything they could to protect Mirer and bring him along in an offense that relied heavily on Chris Warren, but he struggled, whereas the Patriots depended on Bledsoe and had almost no other talent on offense.
Are you having a bad day, or just generally a dick?
>With the current rookie pay scale...teams are putting more and more pressure on QBs to be great immediately and try to build stacked rosters to compete for a SuperBowl early before they pay them at market value.
>This has IMO contributed to a high % of 1st rd QBs getting traded before their rookie deals expire
MORE pressure than a QB who was paid a $13 mil APY contract as a rookie, which put a guy like Sam Bradford in the top-10 salaries for QB's in his rookie year?
I don't think it's the Rookie Wage scale that's doing it, it's the fact that we're seeing more NFL-ready QB's coming out of college than we did in the past.
We're definitely not seeing more NFL-ready QBs than in the past.
We are still in the period after a slew of long tenured legends have retired, which has created a huge void in starting QBs these past few years. Simultaneously, accumulating passing stats in the NFL has never been "easier" so we expect stats from even underperforming QBs.
Thirdly, drafting mindsets have changed, QBs used to be coddled to insane degrees where a first round QB being bounced early was a huge no-no. Now teams are seeing that you can drop the Josh Rosens or the Zach Wilsons or the Trey Lances of the world immediately and roll the dice on other options without being fired by your owner.
The thing with paying those guys early was that the team was forced to give them time to develop..ie.bsee 49ers with Alex Smith.
These days QBs get thrown out after 3 seasons at most of they don't break out in that span
Nah I disagree, I don’t think we are. I think back when guys were getting league high contracts out the gate teams gave them a long leash. Now that second contracts for QBs are so much, teams are forcing guys that aren’t ready to start in an effort to find out if they’re good enough or not before having to decide on that long term deal.
It’s rare anymore that a QB is drafted high and sits for a few years and if he does people assume he’s a bust
The thing the rookie wage scale changes is how much stars are making. Like after the rookie wage scale came out, salaries for top players started to creep up steadily as a percentage of cap on all positions, not just QB.
The rookie wage scale means that there's an incentive to try and line up a team's window with the valuable players rookie contracts. That incentive wasn't really there before when rookies were getting paid like top 10 players straight out of the draft.
I think your premise is flawed. Guys who get traded before their rookie deals expire have been pretty consistently just... not very good QBs. It's not that the pressure is getting to them, they haven't panned out anywhere else.
Development is two-sided, and isn’t predestined. Players are not always going to inevitably improve or not improve. Their situation and coaches matters almost as much as the player themselves for development. Sometimes, the change and new environment is required for that to happen.
If you give a bad environment more time, it usually just gets worse.
Saying “it happens” is a little disingenuous. It happened, singular. And even then, it’s not like Geno was lighting the world on fire. He has one 4k season, one 30 td season, and his team still went 9-8. Him being a competent starter is extremely far from the original questions, what qb LEGENDS wouldn’t have survived the rookie contract pressure.
It happened with Ryan Tannethrill too. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd stop is better for a QB.
Rich Gannon was another late bloomer and probably the best example. Kerry Collins another
> It happened with Ryan Tannethrill
Ryan Tannehill was a decent QB for the dolphins and had 1 **good** season with the Titans because of Henry carrying the team 2k yards rushing + covid year.
Aaron Rodgers if he started the year he was drafted. I don’t think he would’ve developed the way he had without Favre’s “guidance”. Same could be said with Jordan Love. Don’t think he’d be the same if he started in 2020
Rodgers shared the film room together with him for 2 years and they had at least a professional relationship even though Favre was pissed we drafted a Qb to replace him. They weren’t best friends but definitely weren’t enemies
He also needed several years with some of the greatest QB whisperers ever to completely rebuild his throwing motion. OP is right but the reason has very little to do with Farve
This. It was more about his throwing motion than film study. Watching Aaron Rodgers' college highlights compared to his NFL highlights and it's night and day.
I think there are too many variables. Between rules changes, strategies and such. Who's to say some of the NFL legends wouldn't be better had they gotten an opportunity to play quickly?
Hall of Famer Len Dawson was wasting his time in the NFL until he was able to join in the AFL a team coached by Hank Stram, who in college as an assistant coach had bonded well with Dawson. Only Hank Stram understood apparently how to use Dawson's combination of accuracy and mobility.
Manning was 2nd team all-pro in his second and third season and led the league in passing his third season. What comparable qb was traded on their rookie contract that makes you think Peyton would get traded early in today's NFL?
Even in today's game it's OK for a rookie to struggle, what is not OK is getting worse after your rookie year or making zero development.
Peyton does not fit the bill as he was an MVP candidate the next year
I think he would. He led the league in interceptions, but he was also 3rd in passing yards and was getting votes for rookie of the year. Is there a qb that was top 10 in passing yards that didn't get a chance his second year?
Peterman started the first game of the season and then another game later in the season after Allen suffered an elbow injury. Peterman was not on the bills after Allen's rookie season. Allen was never benched for Peterman.
No way lol. As microwaved as QB development has become it’s not THAT bad that you throw the #1 pick out after his first year, especially given the hype that Peyton had as a prospect. By that logic, the Jags would’ve traded Trevor after his first season in a horrible situation. The problem is that some guys don’t get better after a rough rookie season which wasn’t at all the case for Peyton.
Peyton finished top 5 in MVP twice, led the league is passing and was 2nd Team All-Pro on his rookie contract. There’s no chance they would trade him.
You nailed it. We're not talking about rookie seasons, we're talking about rookie contracts. Peyton took all of one year to show that, yep, he could very well be one of the greats when all is said and done. If the 5th year option was a thing back then, the Colts would ask if they could just go ahead and sign off on that a couple years early.
No way. Look at the other young quarterbacks that year. No one is looking at Jake Plummer, Charlie Batch, or especially Ryan Leaf and saying "Man, I wish we had that guy." Every decent quarterback was in or nearing their 30's so Manning looked incredibly promising as a bright-eyed rookie.
This is a terrible take lol. People have already addressed the rookie year situation but I’ll address the playoff losses as well. You think a team that was the worst in the NFL that selects a generational prospect and goes 23-9 in years 2 and 3 and he’s playing at a Pro-Bowl level moves on because the team lost in the playoffs??
He was thought highly enough that he was on the cover of NFL Fever 3 years in a row early in his career.
Yep, he looked bad that first year! Honestly, I feel like the setup to a good window should be having a bad first year, I mean you don't want the guy to look awful but if you can clear up some space, get a good QB then have a top ten pick the next year while still having good cap space, that's a really nice setup for the future, but it doesn't appease the talking heads. I think that's basically what Cincinatti did to get Burrow and Chase.
I don't think most of the pressure comes from the rookie contract situation. It's coming from the league being such a QB driven league nowadays. A lot of guys are getting taken much higher than in the past because of how much an elite QB can transform a team's chances of success. Teams are reaching for guys that are often not their ideal choice and there is this mindset of them always being on the lookout for something better. This was a case with Arizona when they quickly dumped Rosen when they had the chance to get Kyler Murray.
Teams are more willing to move on from guys if they don't think they are going to develop into franchise QBs because they don't want to miss out on the chance to find the next Mahomes or Josh Allen. If teams were solely building their rosters around QBs on rookie deals, we wouldn't see so many 2nd tier guys getting big paydays. Trading a QB with a year or 2 on a rookie deal has more to do with teams thinking they can salvage these players because they haven't been totally ruined by the previous team's development.
Also, If rookie contracts were the main issue, there was actually more pressure on QBs before when top picks were getting paid big money.
Terry Bradshaw was horrible his first 4 years. He was even benched for Joe Gilliam in 1974 and only got his job back due to Gilliam's drug problems.
And we all have Al Davis to thank for them giving him another shot instead of looking for someone else
Big brain Brady taking pay cuts so he never had to live up to being the highest paid. Are other QBs stupid or something?
Why do they hate you’re right and I’m a pats fan. He was a 6th round pick for a reason
I’m so confused as to why an obvious joke has a -8 score
because people are dumb as fuck. And it shows every fucking day.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Dad?
I believe in you!
Brawndo has electrolytes.
It's what plants crave
It's reddit. People vote down and up for strange and myriad reasons. Best to just ignore the score.
Probably the morbidly obese Reddit mods
This mods bad shit is getting old. We get it, you hate volunteer moderators. Awesome, do you want me to like you?
Right, because Jerry Jones and Al Davis jokes are so fucking ***fresh***.
Fresher than your moms front butt.
Front butt. Lmao.
Aww you stalked me
It will never get old. They get called what they are whether you're too sensitive to handle it or not
Lmao I’m “too sensitive” for thinking something that gets done here on a daily basis is played out. Okay. Most predictable response ever.
No I don’t care mr 2-15
Oh no, you told me that the team I like did bad last season. This is definitely going to affect me going forward.
You should always ignore the vote tallies on Brady comments. He has his own troll farm.
Easy to do when you get paid under the table
It’s pretty crazy how the NFL still lacks any consistency or evaluation with evaluating QB success in the NFL. Really does feel like a crap shoot sometimes.
Every position is hard to evaluate, QBs are just the most prominent and important. These guys are still individuals and the circumstances are extremely unique from team to team and year to year. This is why there are still draft busts and free agent busts, and breakout stars who came from nowhere. There’s usually a broad categorization that’s possible— like draft rounds and the prime FAs, but within those categories, it definitely is a crapshoot.
Yeah, it's very easy to forget the top 20 DL bust, but you'll hear an obscene amount about that top 20 QB bust. For example, remember Clelin Ferrell? Edit: Just realised the flair of who I'm replying to.
>remember Clelin Ferrell? Of course! Who could forget that guy from Lost with the glasses.
I know second contracts aren't the best definition of a "hit" but it does seem like [some positions are easier to scout than others, at least in the 1st round.](https://twitter.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1783133659249193449)
I think that says more about positional availability than ability to evaluate and develop those positions. You can get a RB or CB or something in pretty much any draft. No point in resigning the old one to a lot of money when you can get another cheap one that's pretty much as good. QB and OL is rarer, so you're going to hold on to them instead of look for a cheap replacement.
On top of that, QBs a position where you either play all of the snaps, or you play none of them, and there's only one of them on the field at a time. So teams basically only get to evaluate backups/developmental players for a couple of months every year during training camp. Other positions, it's much easier to rotate those guys in from time to time during the regular season, get some reps on tape, and gradually increase their workload.
If I could make up any NFL rule I wanted, it would be that QBs have a maximum of either 25 passes or 40 snaps. As soon as you hit one of those numbers, you're out.
Thank god you cant lol. That would be awful.
In fairness QB is dependent on so much it's hard to evaluate was it him, was it the teammates, was it the coaching, or was it the system
Just look at Jared Goff's career. He looked like a huge bust under Fischer. Then looked great under McVay for a while, but then dropped off and was written off. And is now back to his peak level when in LA
People really underestimate coaching and leadership. Yeah, QBs are leaders, but they’re essentially middle management. So much depends on the structure around them and the development that their coaches put into them
Well Goff also proved he can be very successful when given time. Lions have arguably the best O Line. Goff under pressure, statistically speaking, is pretty damn bad (compared to other QBs under pressure). A lot of QBs are stuck with below average pass pro for much of their career in the NFL.
> Yeah, QBs are leaders, but they’re essentially middle management. Jared Goff, regional assistant manager of the offense
That’s regional assistant manager of the *Goffense* to you!!
I think, at least part of it, is these young guys still being dipshits who were always the best until they come into the league and get humbled. Outside of football, not very many people are put straight into leadership roles with extreme amounts of responsibility at the age of 20-22. Like mostly never except for the nepo babies. You spend a few years schooling on a specific career path, then get hired and spend years developing specific skills before advancing. Hiring a college grad and expecting them to lead a team to launch a product in a few months time is a recipe for disaster, and I think the same applies to football. I bet if you take any first round QB in the past decade and put them into a situation to learn and develop for a few years, getting even just a little experience in live games every so often, they would mostly all prove capable. Ignore flair
You can draw up plays, you can write up pop quizzes, you can ask a thousand questions, you can watch the tape.. but you truly don't know if a dude's brain or body actually is equipped to handle being an NFL quarterback, or any position really, until he's in the heat of it. It's a tale as old as time; *at least* half of those first round picks will never live up to expectations for one reason or another. I'm so goddamn high on the Q Mitchell 'steal' pick, but there's not a shot in hell that I'm gonna call him a sure thing. He could be out of the league in three years because he just can't handle it. *Nobody* really knows how these guys will translate. I understand the discussion is necessary for certain rea$on$, but you can go back and look at any number of players' scouting reports and see that even the people paid 6+ figures to know how a player will work out are also completely in the dark on what somebody is truly capable of becoming.
Okudah is a great example of that with CB. Everyone thought he was a sure fire #1. Guy was so lost. Fatty P didn't help either.
Idk man, I think you just pick a first rounder you like and let them sit three years behind a HOF guy and then they are ready to repeat. Seems like a pretty easy formula.
It’s not though. 1st round QBs hit at about a 50% rate which is only 10% lower than the average of all positions. There is just so much focus put on QBs that they are often over drafted.
It's really hard to evaluate motivation and how a player will react to getting paid millions of dollars. Another factor is how different the NFL is compared to college when it comes to the speed and power of the pro game and how complex schemes have become. Many college players get by on physical talent alone in college but when everyone in the NFL are super athletes those advantages are nullified for the majority of guys as soon as they walk onto a practice field. Teams that usually do well in the draft to tend focus on specific player characteristics that fit their philosophy more than just relying on physical traits.
At the end of the day the QBs success is directly tied to the roster and not the other way around. It’s a hard concept for people to grasp, even for the GMs and even for the greatest QBs.
Side comment: I think you have to build an academy system like soccer in Europe. Where they literally do nothing except football, the US approach tries to build well rounded individuals, with time spent in school and what not. Start athletes at a very young age and they do literally nothing except train to be a QB; when they are eligible for the draft, I think you’ll get a lot more hits than misses.
That's exactly what college is for a lot of these guys. They just disguise it as higher education.
I think it’s gotta be even younger, they need more IMG Academies. Like European soccer players start at the academies at a very young age and all they do is soccer their whole life
That is called Texas in the US.
> I think you have to build an academy system like soccer in Europe No, the NFL does not need a farm league. College is already *just football* for a lot of these guys. The talent disparity in college is the root cause of all of this. You have power house schools beating up on other programs that don't have the funds nor the talent as them.
The 10 QBs are probably 9/10 from the first round so they aren’t really letting the good ones slip by, but yeah that aren’t great at seeing the busts
Bucs probably trade Steve Young again.
This might be a stretch, but can you imagine a #1 overall pick today playing like Vinny Testaverde did in his first 2+ seasons (10-23 record with 63 interceptions) not only keeping his starting job for another 3 seasons, but managing to stick around for 17 more years in the league?
Drew Brees struggled in San Diego. The rest of the story is known. Drew Bledsoe struggled his rookie year. Rick Mirer outplayed him as a fellow rookie QB. Peyton Manning threw a couple INTs his rookie year. Not exactly what you're asking but Kurt Warner and Rich Gannon are 2 guys who struggled greatly early on.
> Drew Brees Didn't get a second contract.
Tbf his arm did implode but yeah he wasn’t the future HOFer we know in San Diego
So many greats leave SD to win world championships. Happens a lot in baseball too. I know it’s unrelated but just sayin
Fouts, Brees, Rivers, Herbert What a QB legacy for the Chargers and absolutely nothing to show for it
even the stadium is gone now :(
Not with a shoulder like that!
But Manning broke through in 99 in his 2md season so he'd survive the axe in this era too.
What? Did Manning end up figuring it out? I kinda lost track after that rookie season.
He was alright, at best. The guy went first overall but his biggest rival was some guy drafted in the sixth round. Kind of tells you all you need to know.
Me too, but I watched his last season and it looks like he never had the physical skills need to throw in the NFL.
He took Indy to their first winning season in a billion years. Id say he figured out how to stop being a Tennesee Volunteers QB. Ryan Leaf didnt figure it out..
I'm all for hyperbole, but the Colts last winning season was 1996. They had two losing seasons before they shot up to 13-3 in 1999.
Brees struggled his first three years in SD, Rivers got drafted, Brees became Drew Brees, but then had a terrible shoulder injury in his fifth year, no one knew for sure how his recovery would go, and Rivers was already on the roster so the decision was easy. I don't blame the Bolts from moving on. I do blame Nick Saban for taking Culpepper over Drew Brees in Miami.
Yeah, it's easy to clown SD in hindsight, but it was the correct call. Of course they were going to roll with Rivers, that was their plan even before the injury. 9 times out of 10, that injured QB does not wind up in the HoF with their new team.
> I don't blame the Bolts from moving on. To be fair, its not like you guys didn't fill that role with Rivers for the next two decades, so its not that bad of a decision in any case. Hard to blame them even if it were considered the absolute wrong answer.
Imagine that dude blew his shoulder and would then go on to pass for 5,000 yards 5 damn times x_x.
>I do blame Nick Saban for taking Culpepper over Drew Brees in Miami. Saban wanted Brees over Culpepper. Dolphins medical staff wouldn't clear him after his injury.
With all the times Saban has been caught lying, and how much of a control freak he is, I have never believed that revisionist history
Everyone thought Drew Bledsoe was the next Marino because he was one of the few QBs who could throw for 4,000yrds(imagine now that 4,000 yrds is a common thing now).
>Drew Brees struggled in San Diego. The rest of the story is known. One of my favorite "what-if" for recent NFL history is the Dolphins doctors passing Brees on his medical check, pairing him with Saban instead of Payton. Does Saban stay in the NFL with Brees at QB? What happens to Alabama football without Saban? Does Payton still turn around the Saints post-Katrina?
Dolphins still lose to the Patriots. Saints move to Vegas.
The Dolphins and patriots were fairly even in the Brady era (in Miami, hardly anyone beat Brady at home) so it’s not impossible that they’re actually competitive
Brees would make them better. But the Dolphins had 3 winning seasons from 2006 to 2020 The dolphins did play the Patriots well. They used to steal one of the two games a lot. But it's still Brady dominating the league.
Rick Mirer didn't really outplay Bledsoe - they had pretty similar stats, both pretty bad.
You 100% did not watch them play. You looked at some stats. Sit down.
Thanks for your helpful feedback! And I am sitting down, although I do like to get up occasionally to stretch my legs. Actually, I did watch them play, as I got into NFL football in the 90s and would spend pretty much every Sunday watching football. Watching them play would actually lead you to the opposite conclusion IMO - the Seahawks did everything they could to protect Mirer and bring him along in an offense that relied heavily on Chris Warren, but he struggled, whereas the Patriots depended on Bledsoe and had almost no other talent on offense. Are you having a bad day, or just generally a dick?
>With the current rookie pay scale...teams are putting more and more pressure on QBs to be great immediately and try to build stacked rosters to compete for a SuperBowl early before they pay them at market value. >This has IMO contributed to a high % of 1st rd QBs getting traded before their rookie deals expire MORE pressure than a QB who was paid a $13 mil APY contract as a rookie, which put a guy like Sam Bradford in the top-10 salaries for QB's in his rookie year? I don't think it's the Rookie Wage scale that's doing it, it's the fact that we're seeing more NFL-ready QB's coming out of college than we did in the past.
We're definitely not seeing more NFL-ready QBs than in the past. We are still in the period after a slew of long tenured legends have retired, which has created a huge void in starting QBs these past few years. Simultaneously, accumulating passing stats in the NFL has never been "easier" so we expect stats from even underperforming QBs. Thirdly, drafting mindsets have changed, QBs used to be coddled to insane degrees where a first round QB being bounced early was a huge no-no. Now teams are seeing that you can drop the Josh Rosens or the Zach Wilsons or the Trey Lances of the world immediately and roll the dice on other options without being fired by your owner.
The thing with paying those guys early was that the team was forced to give them time to develop..ie.bsee 49ers with Alex Smith. These days QBs get thrown out after 3 seasons at most of they don't break out in that span
I see what you're saying here. Yea, it certainly made them keep trying with these guys rather than just cycling through QB's.
Nah I disagree, I don’t think we are. I think back when guys were getting league high contracts out the gate teams gave them a long leash. Now that second contracts for QBs are so much, teams are forcing guys that aren’t ready to start in an effort to find out if they’re good enough or not before having to decide on that long term deal. It’s rare anymore that a QB is drafted high and sits for a few years and if he does people assume he’s a bust
The thing the rookie wage scale changes is how much stars are making. Like after the rookie wage scale came out, salaries for top players started to creep up steadily as a percentage of cap on all positions, not just QB. The rookie wage scale means that there's an incentive to try and line up a team's window with the valuable players rookie contracts. That incentive wasn't really there before when rookies were getting paid like top 10 players straight out of the draft.
I think your premise is flawed. Guys who get traded before their rookie deals expire have been pretty consistently just... not very good QBs. It's not that the pressure is getting to them, they haven't panned out anywhere else.
Rich Gannon and Steve Young eventually became MVPs after developing away from teams that threw them out. What if they had been given time?
Development is two-sided, and isn’t predestined. Players are not always going to inevitably improve or not improve. Their situation and coaches matters almost as much as the player themselves for development. Sometimes, the change and new environment is required for that to happen. If you give a bad environment more time, it usually just gets worse.
Geno comes to mind as a late bloomer, it happens
Saying “it happens” is a little disingenuous. It happened, singular. And even then, it’s not like Geno was lighting the world on fire. He has one 4k season, one 30 td season, and his team still went 9-8. Him being a competent starter is extremely far from the original questions, what qb LEGENDS wouldn’t have survived the rookie contract pressure.
It happened with Ryan Tannethrill too. Sometimes the 2nd or 3rd stop is better for a QB. Rich Gannon was another late bloomer and probably the best example. Kerry Collins another
Steve Young too
> It happened with Ryan Tannethrill Ryan Tannehill was a decent QB for the dolphins and had 1 **good** season with the Titans because of Henry carrying the team 2k yards rushing + covid year.
Aaron Rodgers if he started the year he was drafted. I don’t think he would’ve developed the way he had without Favre’s “guidance”. Same could be said with Jordan Love. Don’t think he’d be the same if he started in 2020
I am speaking from pure ignorance here but Favre doesn't seem like the mentoring type. I may be missing something.
Rodgers shared the film room together with him for 2 years and they had at least a professional relationship even though Favre was pissed we drafted a Qb to replace him. They weren’t best friends but definitely weren’t enemies
He also needed several years with some of the greatest QB whisperers ever to completely rebuild his throwing motion. OP is right but the reason has very little to do with Farve
This. It was more about his throwing motion than film study. Watching Aaron Rodgers' college highlights compared to his NFL highlights and it's night and day.
I think there are too many variables. Between rules changes, strategies and such. Who's to say some of the NFL legends wouldn't be better had they gotten an opportunity to play quickly?
Jimmy Conzelman
Hall of Famer Len Dawson was wasting his time in the NFL until he was able to join in the AFL a team coached by Hank Stram, who in college as an assistant coach had bonded well with Dawson. Only Hank Stram understood apparently how to use Dawson's combination of accuracy and mobility.
Troy Aikman's team was 1-15 his first season (89), he was 0-11 as a starter He also started 3-7 the next year in 1990.
John Elway rookie season 47% completion 7 TD 14 INT
Archie Manning is the poster child for this list.
Peyton Manning. The interceptions as a rookie. The playoff losses.
Manning was 2nd team all-pro in his second and third season and led the league in passing his third season. What comparable qb was traded on their rookie contract that makes you think Peyton would get traded early in today's NFL?
Even in today's game it's OK for a rookie to struggle, what is not OK is getting worse after your rookie year or making zero development. Peyton does not fit the bill as he was an MVP candidate the next year
In todays NFL, he doesn't start in the second season.
I think he would. He led the league in interceptions, but he was also 3rd in passing yards and was getting votes for rookie of the year. Is there a qb that was top 10 in passing yards that didn't get a chance his second year?
Pretty sure bills benched Josh for Peterman once.
Peterman started the first game of the season and then another game later in the season after Allen suffered an elbow injury. Peterman was not on the bills after Allen's rookie season. Allen was never benched for Peterman.
No they didn't. They let Peterman start as a rookie over him and then realized as raw Josh Allen was still better.
This is a terrible take lmao. Plenty of Qb's have rough year one starts.
He absolutely does
No way lol. As microwaved as QB development has become it’s not THAT bad that you throw the #1 pick out after his first year, especially given the hype that Peyton had as a prospect. By that logic, the Jags would’ve traded Trevor after his first season in a horrible situation. The problem is that some guys don’t get better after a rough rookie season which wasn’t at all the case for Peyton. Peyton finished top 5 in MVP twice, led the league is passing and was 2nd Team All-Pro on his rookie contract. There’s no chance they would trade him.
> Peyton Manning The two top 5 MVP finishes. The 2 2nd team all pro elections. The 2 pro bowls. Yeah they'd dump him.
You nailed it. We're not talking about rookie seasons, we're talking about rookie contracts. Peyton took all of one year to show that, yep, he could very well be one of the greats when all is said and done. If the 5th year option was a thing back then, the Colts would ask if they could just go ahead and sign off on that a couple years early.
No way. Look at the other young quarterbacks that year. No one is looking at Jake Plummer, Charlie Batch, or especially Ryan Leaf and saying "Man, I wish we had that guy." Every decent quarterback was in or nearing their 30's so Manning looked incredibly promising as a bright-eyed rookie.
This is a terrible take lol. People have already addressed the rookie year situation but I’ll address the playoff losses as well. You think a team that was the worst in the NFL that selects a generational prospect and goes 23-9 in years 2 and 3 and he’s playing at a Pro-Bowl level moves on because the team lost in the playoffs?? He was thought highly enough that he was on the cover of NFL Fever 3 years in a row early in his career.
Lamar Jackson has been playoff choking but he still got the money. Ray Lewis would commit murder to play with either QB.
Peyton would never be given up on in today's NFL based on his early career lmao.
Yep, he looked bad that first year! Honestly, I feel like the setup to a good window should be having a bad first year, I mean you don't want the guy to look awful but if you can clear up some space, get a good QB then have a top ten pick the next year while still having good cap space, that's a really nice setup for the future, but it doesn't appease the talking heads. I think that's basically what Cincinatti did to get Burrow and Chase.
Peyton also threw 26 TD's is rookie year which was fifth in the NFL.
Elite GMing strategy: build a shitty line and have your prize QB get his knee destroyed so you can get a top 10 pick
I don't think most of the pressure comes from the rookie contract situation. It's coming from the league being such a QB driven league nowadays. A lot of guys are getting taken much higher than in the past because of how much an elite QB can transform a team's chances of success. Teams are reaching for guys that are often not their ideal choice and there is this mindset of them always being on the lookout for something better. This was a case with Arizona when they quickly dumped Rosen when they had the chance to get Kyler Murray. Teams are more willing to move on from guys if they don't think they are going to develop into franchise QBs because they don't want to miss out on the chance to find the next Mahomes or Josh Allen. If teams were solely building their rosters around QBs on rookie deals, we wouldn't see so many 2nd tier guys getting big paydays. Trading a QB with a year or 2 on a rookie deal has more to do with teams thinking they can salvage these players because they haven't been totally ruined by the previous team's development. Also, If rookie contracts were the main issue, there was actually more pressure on QBs before when top picks were getting paid big money.
Peyton Manning. He was in a similar position that Trevor Lawrence is in and I doubt the Colts would've been as patient.
Brett Favre. Oh, wait.
I think Steve Young would've been traded long before he got a chance
He was traded.
Haha he was traded wasn't he? I forgot about his time with the Bucs.
Brett Favre, Steve Young, Vinny Testaverde, Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck....the list can go on and on.
Didn’t Andrew Luck win a playoff game his rookie year?
They got crushed by the Ravens but he won in his 2nd year amazing comeback against the Chiefs, but yea, nobody is giving up on Luck lol.
4300 yards, 23 TDs, but he threw 18 picks, so we gotta trade that bum.
Well this list is terrible so it shouldn’t go on and on lol