2 in the first round
2 outside the first round.

That's the thing. No matter how people try to slice it, it's going to come up the same. You don't need the 1st round QB. You don't need the home grown QB.

Suck for Luck and you've got a decade + of likely great QB play and contention. Can't get Luck? Ok, draft a midget in the 3rd round and you can win the SB before Luck ever even gets close.

It's about scouting and fortune. San Diego is a great example of this.

Ryan Leaf - Drew Brees - Eli Manning/Phillip Rivers

1st round QB doesn't equal success, elite QB play does

There's been like one elite QB drafted in the last decade?

Tom Brady - 2000
Peyton Manning - 1998
Aaron Rodgers - 2005 (barely makes it under the decade mark)
Drew Brees - 2001, 2nd round (elite?)


Ben Roethlisburger - 2004 (even if you consider him truly elite)
Matt Ryan - no
Andrew Luck - maybe he will be
Wilson - 2nd round
Kaepernick - 2nd round
Romo - undrafted

Drafting a 1st round QB doesn't automatically mean anything. Hell most of the 1st round QB's that people around here just HAD to have are busts.

EVERY fan wants an elite QB but this fantasy that grabbing one in the 1st round means you win is bullshit.

Surely I have missed something.
Surely you nor anyone else is suggesting that we should go the way of the 27% instead of going with the 73% that have been successful.

73% of 1st round QBs have been successful and won a Superbowl for the team that drafted them? :spock:

Yeah I didn't get where the correlation was coming from either. I figured I must have missed something in some other posts or something. That is why I was asking for a fill me in. I missed it kind of thing.

8 out of the last ten Super Bowls winners had 1st round QBs, but when you take out the repeats, it's only been 4 different ones. None of them won without a great defense to lean on. The only guy who did was Brees who is part of the non-1st round club and not even with the team that drafted him.

That said, I'm all for the Chiefs taking their own first round QB. Just don't see the need to exaggerate the importance of it.

I don't know about Brees winning without defensive help. They were among the best in the league in forcing turn overs right?

I just remember Sharper having 9 INTs and their defense knocking the hell out of Farve all game long.

I've never argued either point.

The only thing that remains true is this:

A defense that gets hot late in the season and during the playoffs always trumps any QB play.

What does this mean? Regardless of what you have at QB, you always need a good team around him first if you want to win anything.

I've said that several times, which is why I've used the first 3 rounds as a guide a few times in this thread. And no one has said it's easy to find/draft an elite QB or that drafting first round QBs guarantees success. It's about TRYING to develop talent at arguably the most important position in sports and not ignoring it for thirty ****ing years.

I know CP is very black and white on such things, but FFS, it's not that hard.

trying ... yes

grabbing one in the 1st round of every draft JUST BECAUSE ... no

Of course, who the hell is arguing that?

That's why I find the argument that "Smith is average because he needs a running game. Smith sucks because he needs a good defense to win. Smith sucks because he needs a good offensive line. Smith needs good players around him in order to succeed, therefore he is a shit QB." To be absolutely ludicrous and ignorant.

No QB in the history of the game has been able to win a Superbowl without a great team around them.

Joe Montana wouldn't be Joe Montana without all of the pieces around him from the coaching staff, to the great weapons that he played with, to the 49ers defenses that were among the most dominant in the 80s and in the history of the NFL.

Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl, yet he's considered by some people as the greatest QB to ever play the game. So why did the "greatest QB to ever play the game" never win the Superbowl? Do you want to guess the primary reason given? Because he didn't have a great team around him.

:LOL:

You guys are getting so technical you are starting to miss the bigger picture. Whether a guy is picked in the 1st round or 2 picks out of the 1st round is somewhat irrelevant. Whether a team drafts a QB or gets a top free agent like Denver did, is somewhat irrelevant.

The point is, if you are one of the 20 teams that doesn't have a top QB, it is imperative to seek one, and the best method of seeking one is to pick the best prospect you can identify as high in the draft as possible when you get an opportunity to do so.

There are no givens, and there are always exceptions such as Russell Wilson being taken in the 3rd round. Such people usually have some warts (Wilson is very short) that cause GMs to fall back on conventional wisdom rather than just evaluate the talent on his college tape. So it happens that a quality QB falls in the draft.

The reason it GENERALLY takes a 1st round draft pick to acquire a top young QB prospect out of college, is because the collective evaluation of the NFL community tends to do a pretty good job of culling the top raw material from the rest. But the factors that go into becoming a successful NFL QB, let alone a top QB, are so varied, that it is like trying to predict the weather a month from now. There are too many intangible variables once the QB prospect is on the team and being coached.

Does the young QB have adequate coaching? Are the coaches really committed to developing the young QB above all else?

You would think this would be an obvious "yes". It always baffled me how the 49ers could take Alex Smith as the top pick in the draft, showing obvious faith in his ability to be an elite QB, and give him a $50 million contract -- and then NEGLECT his early development. How on God's green earth is this possible? But it happened. It is baffling a franchise would not protect their $50 million investment more jealously.

Some young QBs get eaten up because the GM never invests in offensive line protection and the young QB never gets to practice his craft under ideal conditions while he is developing. He is just running for his life back there.

Or a GM fails to get good receivers for the QB to work with, so the QB fails over and over and the coaches attribute the failure to the young QB, not the poor receivers.

Some just have bad luck and get injured over and over like Bradford. They will give up on him.

There are many factors that are needed for a young QB to become a top QB. He needs the right physical and mental attributes and drive and coach ability and commitment, right out of the gate. He needs smart, wise and committed coaches who won't cheat him on development or short cut his development to "win now", which never works anyway. He needs a strong enough supporting cast in line play and receivers and a running game, to let him execute the offense as the coaches envision.

But all of this starts with the right raw material for a QB prospect. And far and away the best odds of obtaining that raw material is to draft your own QB as high in the 1st round as is necessary to capture him. It is not a be all and end all, but it is the start NEEDED to have a franchise QB.