No incoming NFL rookie is saddled with more pressure than a quarterback drafted in the first round. Yet for every John Elway, Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning? all No. 1 overall picks ? there is a Jeff George, David Carr and JaMarcus Russell? yep, all No. 1 overall picks.
By Kirby Lee, US Presswire
The Raiders cut Jamarcus Russell just more than three years after drafting him with the first overall pick.
By Kirby Lee, US Presswire
The Raiders cut Jamarcus Russell just more than three years after drafting him with the first overall pick.
Yet when it comes to finding that franchise quarterback, it seems general managers have recently become sharpshooters after decades of being crapshooters.
In the last three drafts, seven quarterbacks have been taken in the first round. Three ? the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan, the Baltimore Ravens' Joe Flacco and the New York Jets' Mark Sanchez ? led their teams to the playoffs as rookies while a fourth, St. Louis' Sam Bradford, fell a win shy of the postseason after the Rams finished 1-15 the year before his 2010 arrival.
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Of the previous 37 signal callers taken in Round 1 (dating to 1992), only Pittsburgh Ben Roethlisberger led his team to the playoffs in his first year, 2004, when the Steelers reached the AFC Championship Game. Sanchez already has played in two conference title games, Flacco has been to one. Both have tied an NFL record by winning four postseason road games.
"The importance of that position has increased even more in recent years," says Carolina Panthers GM Marty Hurney, whose team will make the first pick ? likely a quarterback ? of the draft.
Is art finally becoming science when evaluating these players? Can teams enlisting Cam Newton, Blaine Gabbert and possibly another handful of quarterbacks in Thursday night's first round reasonably expect to compete for a Super Bowl berth this fall? Why is success suddenly coming so quickly at a position often renowned as the toughest in sports?
"Two thousand and eight was such a benchmark draft," says Thomas Dimitroff, the man who anointed Ryan with his first selection (No. 3 overall) as a rookie GM that spring.
"That's not patting the Falcons and Ravens (who took Flacco 15 spots after Ryan) on the back. But in this newer era for first-time head coaches and general managers, we must capitalize now.
"There's that much more of a sense of urgency."
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Rookies together in 2008, coach John Harbaugh and Flacco have gone to the playoffs in all three years of their partnership. Rex Ryan and Sanchez are 2-for-2 in their two-year joint tenure with the Jets.
The blueprint also seems to be working in Detroit (Matthew Stafford), St. Louis (Bradford) and Tampa Bay (Josh Freeman).
Insulating a young signal caller, letting him watch and hoping he bears fruit as part of a 3-to-5 year plan is no longer boilerplate.
"You might as well go down fighting with your quarterback vs. waiting in vain for the right guy," says Dimitroff, whose Falcons have reached the playoffs twice under Ryan ? in 2008 and as the NFC's top seed last year.
"If there's an opportunity to have a quarterback put W's in the win column, then let's move."
'The good ones ... separate themselves'
But history reveals drafts littered with first-round flameouts and journeymen at quarterback.
Of the 29 taken in Round 1 between 1997 and 2007 ?? only six remain with the team that drafted them, and that includes the Cincinnati Bengals' Carson Palmer (who has vowed to never again play for them) the San Francisco 49ers' Alex Smith (who will be an unrestricted free agent) and the Tennessee Titans' Vince Young (the team says it will part with him).
Even the ones who pan out can take a while. Coach Jimmy Johnson and Aikman were part of a 1-15 Dallas Cowboys team as rookies in 1989. Even Manning was only 3-13 in his freshman season with the Indianapolis Colts.
Trent Dilfer, who was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sixth overall in 1994 and was 38-38 in six seasons with the franchise, thinks he knows why the NFL's young guns have been more potent lately.
"They're so much more prepared emotionally ? college football is so huge," says Dilfer, now an ESPN analyst. "They're treated like pros the moment they step on campus. They learn to handle adversity quicker."
In many cases, college players get bona fide NFL coaching.
"The influence of coaches that have come back from the NFL that are coaching collegiately have brought more of an NFL mentality to college football," says North Carolina coach Butch Davis, who served as the Cleveland Browns head coach from 2001-04.
Davis cites his program, Alabama's under Nick Saban (two years as head coach of the Miami Dolphins), and Stanford ? which just sent its head coach and former NFL assistant Jim Harbaugh to lead the 49ers ? as examples.
"When the pro scouts come here, they go look, 'He has been doing for four years absolutely everything that they're gonna ask him to do in the West Coast offense,' as opposed to the guys that are running the spread option. It all translates."
Ryan was groomed at Boston College by Jeff Jagodzinski, a former NFL offensive coordinator. Sanchez played at USC for Pete Carroll, who's now on his third NFL head coaching stint with the Seattle Seahawks.
There are other theories, specifically that the recent wave of rookie winners is an anomaly attributed as a cluster of rare talents quickly pressed into service.
"We're a quarterback-deprived league, and we have been for many years," says Kurt Warner, who led the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals to three Super Bowls before retiring into an NFL Network job.
"Bottom line, the good ones are good, and they separate themselves."
Ravens director of player personnel Eric DeCosta agrees.
"You can't just look at a trend ? it has to do with specific players," he says.
Some teams still opt for a lengthy marinating process. The Green Bay Packers took Aaron Rodgers with the 24th pick of the 2005 draft then sat him behind Brett Favre for three seasons. The San Diego Chargers waited two years before opting to play Philip Rivers and part with Drew Brees.
Even teams without established stars can be loathe to roll out a player who's not ready. The Browns waited nearly two seasons before deploying 2007 first-rounder Brady Quinn as a starter, and even then it didn't work. Despite the opening day success stories since 2008, the Buccaneers waited until Week 9 to start Freeman in 2009.
"That's the way you should develop a quarterback," says ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr of Rodgers. "What would have happened if he had gone to the Redskins? I don't think he'd have been Aaron Rodgers right now. He probably would have been kicked to the curb. But he developed. ? Now he's a potential Hall of Famer and has a Super Bowl ring."
Warner thinks the Bucs were wise to sitFreeman the first half of his rookie year, even as the team struggled to an 0-7 start behind Byron Leftwich and Josh Johnson. Freeman led Tampa to its first win in his first start before compiling a 10-6 ledger in 2010.
"When you sit a bit, expectations subside," Warner says.
No sure thing this year
On Thursday night the questions turn to teams that may harbor outsized expectations amid a crop of players who may not be ready to pay immediate dividends.
"In our league 'rebuilding' is not a good word," said coach Leslie Frazier of the Minnesota Vikings, who needs to replace retired Favre but has the running game and defense to support a potential rookie. "I don't think you can be afraid of going with a young quarterback if he's the right guy."
Is Newton or Gabbert such a guy?
"The problem this year is there's not one quarterback I could pound the table for and tell you is Sam Bradford or Matt Ryan," says NFL Network chief draft analyst Mike Mayock.
Which doesn't mean there won't be a first-round run Thursday night that could encompass a half-dozen of them.
"If you don't have a franchise quarterback, you don't have a prayer of getting to the Super Bowl," Mayock says.
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