Treatise from the "Gang of 14" (Long Read)

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Treatise from the “Gang of 14”:

I see a lot of dissent from the True Fans on the board that those of us who continually express the primacy of a franchise quarterback are not adding any kind of insight or support to our opinions, merely insults. In the interests of refutation, I am going to skip any form of attack in this post in order to demonstrate to you what our argument is, and the history that we have on the board of supporting said argument with pointed, and factual examples.

Why do we believe in obtaining a franchise QB?

It’s quite simple. It is the most important piece of a team that will successfully contend for a number of years. Look back on the last several dynasties or near-dynasties in the NFL.

The Steelers of the 70’s had Bradshaw
The 49ers of the 80’s and 90’s had Montanal who then bridged seamlessly to Steve Young
The Cowboys of the 90’s had Troy Aikman
The Bills of the 90’s had Jim Kelly
The Broncos of the 80’s and 90’s had John Elway
The Patriots of this decade have Tom Brady
The Colts of this decade have Peyton Manning
The Steelers of this decade have Ben Roethlisberger

8 teams, all of them had franchise QBs. Most of them also had good to great defenses, but none of them didn’t have a franchise quarterback.

Here is why we don’t believe in defense above all else:

The 1980s Chicago Bears
The late 80’s-early 90’s Philadelphia Eagles
The Bucs of the 1990s and 2000s
The Ravens of this decade.

Many people consider the 1985 Bears to be the greatest team of all time, with the greatest defense of all time. What people forget is that the 1986 Bears had a better defense, setting NFL records for fewest points allowed. What they didn’t have was the same level of consistent play from the quarterback position as these other teams did. In spite of one of the most impressively talented units of all time on either side of the ball, they were essentially a one-hit wonder.

The Philadelphia Eagles of the Buddy Ryan era had some of the most dominant defenders of any era. Guys like Reggie White, Jerome Brown, Clyde Simmons, Seth Joyner, Eric Allen, Wes Hopkins, and Andre Waters. They led the NFL in both passing and rushing yardage allowed in 1991, the first team to do that in 16 years, and they missed the playoffs. In fact, that team did not win a single playoff game.

The Bucs of the last 10 years are another great example. Although they had an amazingly talented unit, Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice (120 sacks), Ronde Barber, Derrick Brooks, Booger McFarland, and John Lynch (among others), they routinely flamed out in the playoffs. They eventually won one Super Bowl, but with that kind of talent on one unit, it’s positively criminal that they weren’t in the Ch. Game or Super Bowl every year.

The 2000 Ravens had arguably the greatest or second greatest D of all time, but with only Trent Dilfer at the helm, and no other offensive weapons aside from Jamal Lewis, they flamed out quicker than Colin Farrell.

Now, with that being said, why do we want a franchise QB this year?
It comes down to this: we see Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez as two of the best quarterback prospects of the last five years.

Stafford has an amazing physical skillset. Here is a list of reasons I posted in support ofStafford some months ago:

• He has three years of starting experience in the SEC
  2. He comes from a pro offense
  3. He knows how to read a defense, and can audible into advantageous plays, recognizes the blitz
  4. He's willing to get pounded and get back up
  5. He's mobile
  6. He has good mechanics
  7. He has unbelievable arm strength
  8. He's played with a very marginal OL this year with three freshmen on it, and receivers who can't get separation, so he has to make NFL throws to get them the ball, he's not lobbing a rainbow up to a WR with 5 yards of separation.
  9. He's a leader and he's been under intense scrutiny since he was 16 years old.
  10. He's improved every year in college, despite having less and less talent around him to work with.

Combine that with reports of how teams were “blown away” by his board work, as well as the natural athleticism he showed in running the 40, and I don’t know how one wouldn’t be floored by this kid.

Why do we want Sanchez?

It’s a similar question with slightly different answers, but achieving the same result.

• Sanchez is a leader of men. It’s that simple. He’s naturally charismatic, and he has the aura around him that all great QBs do. He owns the room when he walks in. That confidence bordering on cockiness (minus Jeff George dickheadedness) is a great asset.
• He has textbook throwing mechanics
• He has dancer’s feet. The importance of this really cannot be stressed enough. The only coaching that he is going to need when coming into the league is how to read and react to NFL defenses. He’s about as close to mechanically flawless as anyone since the Human Juggs Machine, Carson Palmer
• He has very good arm strength (it’s not elite, but it’s more than good enough to make any throw).
• He comes from a pro offense
• He has four years of post high school experience. He’s worked on the scout team, he’s been a backup, he’s been a spot starter, and he’s been the man.
• He had great production with a team that had good, but nowhere near elite, talent around him. This isn’t the 2004 Trojans. They aren’t anywhere near as talented.

Granted, both prospects have their warts. Every prospect has question marks. People employ revisionist history far too often when evaluating players after the fact.

What did Joe Montana or Tom Brady have that made them jump off the page to someone?
Peyton Manning was considered potentially maxed out as a prospect, a QB with little upside.
John Elway never even went to a bowl game, was he really a “winner”? He was also a very generously listed “6’3”. Look at him next to Peyton Manning and see if he’s really 6’3”, and yet the same questions are used to discount Stafford and Sanchez.

Many of you will beg the following question:

Why not defense in this draft?
It’s quite simple:

• The draft is seven rounds. We have six other picks
• This draft lacks elite talent on defense at the top
• Next year’s draft has two of the most ridiculously talented freaks at DE of the last decade (Carlos Dunlap and Everson Griffen), as well as better safety, LB, DT, and CB prospects across the board. It is a draft of defense
• Borrowing on 3, there is a draft after this year. The 2009 Chiefs have a 0% chance of winning anything meaningful. This is a solid 3 year rebuilding process. If you want to see this team built correctly, you should look to 2011

Why do you hate Aaron Curry?

We don’t. The fact of the matter is that Aaron Curry, for all the safety that he brings as a draft pick, and for all his physical gifts, cannot change games.

He has no history of rushing the passer. He expressed confidence in his ability to learn to do so, but he’s never done it. That makes him as big of a project at that job as any safety Carl ever tried to move to corner.

Cover backers make tackles in space and take away the 3^rd-5^th receiving options. That’s great, but it’s also like saying that middle relievers are more important than starting pitchers. Both contribute to the win, but the starter has far more chances to affect the outcome of the game.

Curry, for all his projections, has also never played Mike. That will also entail a position move.

Let’s address additional follow up questions:

“Why are you ‘QB or bust’ no matter who the QB?” and “Why do you want to reach for any QB?”

• We aren’t
• We don’t.

No one here is saying we should take Freeman at 3, or think that Rhett Bomar or Nate Davis are the kinds of guys who could carry a franchise. It’s folly.

“Why is the spread so bad? Look at the #s QBs put up!”

The quarterback, his pedigree, and his experience are paramount. With the proliferation of the spread in college football, it will become more and more difficult in order to properly evaluate quarterbacks and how they translate to the pro game.

The spread works for the same reason that the option worked. There is simply not enough speed on college defenses to contain it, and defense is a chain, the weakest link causes the failure of all. Given that talent is spread so thin on college defenses, most teams have to trot out fourth corners that run like NFL defensive ends. Combine that with the fact that college players don’t devote the same amount of time to film study and coaching as their pro counterparts, and college defenses run more simplistic schemes.

This leads to soft zone defenses with corners playing way off. WRs don’t get jammed at the line, and their free release, when combined with a quasi-prevent D, allows them to kill the opposing defenses by paper cut, or if a single tackle is missed or assignment blown, by guillotine.

Furthermore, college quarterbacks from the spread are running a two read system, and they do not read the defenses in front of them. Look at any spread team before the snap. Watch how the QB looks to the sideline for instructions from the offensive coaching staff on what the defense across from him is. NFL QBs need to make as many as four reads on any given passing play that isn’t a max protect situation.

The spread is a great equalizer for teams like Missouri and Kansas that don’t have elite talent but want to exploit the lack of 1-80 talent on other teams. It is not a solution to an NFL defense, where everyone is talented, and where the schemes are more exotic.

It faces the same fate as the Run-N-Shoot: Kill the Quarterback.
When these things are taken into account, as well as the fact that all spread quarterbacks need to learn how to take snaps from under center and proper footwork for 3,5, and 7 step drops, you have a huge learning curve that exponentially increases the bust rate for the prospect.

QB is the riskiest position to draft. We should draft a safer position
Aundray Bruce, Tony Mandarich, Pac Man, Robert Gallery, Leonard Davis, Troy Williamson, Charles Rogers, Ryan Sims, Wendell Bryant, the list goes on forever

No position is safe.

Why not draft Crabtree?

WRs from the spread don’t run a traditional NFL route tree. He has no experience in doing so, that increases his learning curve.

He lacks elite speed. WRs taken in the top 10 almost universally have elite speed

He lacks elite size.

He has a cracked foot

College stats are not a good predictor of NFL success. Look at Ron Dayne, Rashan Salaam, Timmy Chang, Jake Barton, Manny Hazard, or Alex Van Dyke

“Why not just draft a QB in the middle rounds?”

ChiefsCountry has compiled an impressive list of QBs who won the Super Bowl and where they were drafted.

So you want Thiggy as our quarterback.

How about these facts:
57% of the Super Bowls have been won by first round quarterbacks.
(Out of those quarterbacks only 3 were not top 10 picks)
40% of the Super Bowls won by top 5 picks.
21% have been won by 1st round quarterbacks that wasnt their original team (Dawson, Plunkett (2), Williams, Young, Dilfer)
16% of the Super Bowls were won by Montana and Brady
4% were Roger Staubuach's wins who would have went in the first if he wasnt going to Vietnam
14% were won by a 9th or lower (counting Warner who was Undrafted) and 4 of those wins were by Bart Starr & Roger Staubauch.
4% were won by second round quarterbacks
4% 3rd and 6th rounds picks that were not Montana or Brady
0% of the Super Bowls were won by a 7th round pick

http://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showpost....&postcount=129

Additionally, this was done before this year’s Super Bowl, in which another 1^st round quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, won.

Moreover, Scott Wright has an extensive breakdown of the profound failure rate of 2^nd and 3^rd round quarterbacks over the last 15 years on his site, NFLDraftCountdown.

“All you do is insult people”

Actually we don’t. We insult people a lot, but a large portion of that is born out of frustration for having the same argument ad infinitum and telling the same thing to people who don’t’ listen to what we say.

I realize that this list is not comprehensive. It’s merely hitting the high notes of the discussions that we have previously had. If anyone else from the Gang of 14 wants to add anything, feel free.

Thank you for your time,

HJ

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Matt Stafford is 25 years old. He needs some work, but I'm also not going to hold Jim Schwartz against him.

However, that's also the epitome of the Chiefs' problem WRT: QBs. The fans are fine punting on one every year, preaching patience, yet any QB who isn't throwing for 4000 yards and 35 TDs on a 14-2 team out of the gate is automatically a bust.

The truth is that you're only winning consistently if you have a QB, and you have to take a risk to get one. If you don't have one, you aren't winning anything anyway, so the only "risk" is fretting over 4-12 being demonstrably worse than 8-8 when both teams were DOA anyway.

but drafting a QB bust might set this franchise back years!

like imagine if we had to pay a QB 19 million a year and he turned out to be mediocre

[tooge]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.

You are correct. Never up, never in. I get it. However, so much of the Chiefs predicament has to do with Luck, and I don't mean the QB of the same name.

They weren't going to get Aikman from the Cowboys in that draft. They weren't getting Manning from the colts in that draft. They weren't getting Luck from the colts in that draft. They weren't getting Eli in that draft. Don't even bring up anything associated with Brady. That's complete luck. Hell, he was passed over for 6 rounds by all 32 teams, so that doesn't count. So, really, were talking about Rothlisberger and Warner as the only multiple SB appearance QB's that we could've had, and Warner was total luck as well. Quite frankly, Big Ben hasn't really created a dynasty, so it really boils down to teams falling into two categories for creating dynasties. One are the teams that just so happened to suck horribly the year right before a once in a generation QB came out, and the others are those that took a shot on a guy in later rounds and through injuries or just plain luck, the guy panned out (see Warner). Now, who knows, the chiefs could find themselves with a gen in Bray. It'll take an injury to see it this year most likely however.

I also admit that there was the one year that the Chiefs blew it. 1987. Plain and simple, they had it in front of them, and they blew it. Having said that, they weren't getting Elway, and Marino and Kelly never won shit as far as SB's go.

So, to sum up, yeah, I agree with you. I just think luck and circumstance play a much larger role than you do.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Again, how are you so sure that QBs are busts after one year? Peyton Manning won three games and threw a rookie record for interceptions.

You don't know if passing on Geno Smith or EJ Manuel was the right move yet; thinking you can close the book on a QB after a year is why it's always a good business move for the Chiefs to pass on them: their fans will always rationalize the decision.

So the Chiefs should've taken Geno or EJ in your opinion?

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by tooge

So the Chiefs should've taken Geno or EJ in your opinion?

If you draft a shitty QB and you end up 2-14 well guess what....you get a chance to draft another one pretty quick.

Or you can go 9-7 and draft a guard.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by Count Zarth

If you draft a shitty QB and you end up 2-14 well guess what....you get a chance to draft another one pretty quick.

Or you can go 9-7 and draft a guard.

Let me try to repeat that question to see if you and Hamas can actually answer it with a simple yes or no. Should the Chiefs have drafted Geno Smith or EJ Manuel in the last draft?

[tooge]

Originally Posted by Count Zarth

If you draft a shitty QB and you end up 2-14 well guess what....you get a chance to draft another one pretty quick.

Or you can go 9-7 and draft a guard.

Plus, according to Hamas, you can't judge them right away, so you certainly wouldn't want to draft another one too quickly.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by tooge

Let me try to repeat that question to see if you and Hamas can actually answer it with a simple yes or no. Should the Chiefs have drafted Geno Smith or EJ Manuel in the last draft?

Given the other options, yes.

[Jimmya]

I thinks it's really tough to predict the future. I also believe the E.J. has an opportunity to be a beast.

[Ebolapox]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Wasn't technically drafted.

hmmm... yeah, wasn't he supplemental draft though? brb

yep, supplemental. doesn't count?

edit:

yeah, technically, the pick wasn't cleveland's. still pretty much a cleveland draft pick though. farking technicalities

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by Brainiac

Your reasoning is spot on. The only flaw in your otherwise brilliant treatise is that it's not as easy to identify that franchise quarterback as you seem to think. Obviously Sanchez wasn't the guy. Perhaps Stafford could have been, and he sure looks great at times in Detroit, but I haven't seen Detroit in any Super Bowls since they selected Matt Stafford. So in other words, both quarterbacks identified in your treatise were failures.

Part of getting that franchise quarterback is timing and being lucky. The Colts were damn lucky TWICE because they had the #1 overall pick the year that the best quarterback of his generation was available. The Chiefs missed out on that by one stinking year. That's not a systemic organizational failure. That's bad ****ing luck, and it doesn't do any good to crucify Dorsey for (correctly) passing on Geno Smith last year and for not drafting a quarterback this year if they don't think he is truly the guy.

I disagree. It's not just bad luck. This franchise is legitimately QBphobic. It's been run by QBphobes. It hired other QBphobes. And I don't care what Reid and Dorsey were like before KC. Until they go out and draft some QBs, THEY are just continuing the tradition of QBphobic drafting that has been a staple of this franchise since Blackledge.

Let's forget even about 1st round QBs. The Chiefs have drafted three total QBs since 1998.

Let me repeat that again. As shitty and abysmal as the Chiefs have been at the QB position in that span from 1998-2013, they only attempted to draft a QB THREE times. In ANY round. Three times. James Killian, Brodie Croyle, and Ricky Stanzi. Three.

That's equal to the number of FBs they've drafted in that same span (George Layne, Shane Bannan, and Braden Wilson). It's equal to the number of picks they've spent on kickers and punters in that span (Dustin Colquitt, Justin Medlock, Ryan Succop).

That's 15 drafts. With the problems they've had at the QB position in those 15 years, only THREE times did they view a QB in ANY ROUND AT ANY PICK worthy of the best selection they could have made for the team?

I'm not even going to tally that as a percentage of their picks, but it's gotta be abysmal. That's at least 100 draft picks. And only 3 of them were spent on QBs.

That's not bad luck at all. That's ****ing stupidity. It's an ignorance and fear of the QB position.

I know Carl was at the head of 10 of those drafts. What's the excuse with Pioli and now Dorsey? Why are we still continuing to hire bozos for the front office who don't ever ****ing draft any QBs?

I really hope Dorsey does the right thing this year. Christ, it's not like the QB depth is that much better than the depth we've got at other positions. If anything, it's worse because there's absolutely no reason why we should be paying Daniel that much money or putting any amount of trust at all in Tyler Bray.

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by tooge

So the Chiefs should've taken Geno or EJ in your opinion?

Over Eric Fisher?

I mean, seriously, if we're going to use hindsight here, the answer is overwhelmingly yes. Ask any team out there and I'll bet they'd say the same thing after only one year.

[Hammock Parties]

The franchise also keeps hiring retread head coaches.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we keep getting retread QBs.

The one year we got a n00b head coach, he was overruled by a dumb GM, too.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by tooge

Funny thing is, you are preaching to the quire.

Always find something new and odd on CP. Unless you're actually talking about a collection of paper

[tooge]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Always find something new and odd on CP. Unless you're actually talking about a collection of paper

Heh

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Ebolapox

hmmm... yeah, wasn't he supplemental draft though? brb

yep, supplemental. doesn't count?

edit:

yeah, technically, the pick wasn't cleveland's. still pretty much a cleveland draft pick though. farking technicalities