No, history manifestly says there is rarely excellent QB talent available after the first round. You just named fewer than a dozen guys reaching back 60 years to before the merger! There's been thousands of quarterbacks since then! Stidham may end up being a good player but the idea that anyone would expect him to come in as a first-time starter as a 4th round pick and raise up an offense that Tom Brady could not is laughable, and that's what we're talking about here (as opposed to rolling with Stidham to see what he's got and assuming at that point the season's probably a lost cause, unless the defense makes miracles happen).
(And, for what it's worth, a couple aren't even good analogies. Brees was the 32nd pick in the draft and was bad with the Chargers as a first-time starter; Steve Young was a 1st round supplemental pick who chose to play in the USFL and then was bad with the Bucs as a first-time starter; Staubach was drafted late because he would not be available for several years due to his Navy service and was 27 when he first played in the NFL; and Theismann was acquired for a 1st round pick by the Redskins from the Dolphins after playing a few years in the CFL.)
That list is just superbowl winners; there are a lot of good QB's who never won Superbowls.
I don't know what the overall stats say in terms of likelihood for a non-first round pick to be become a quality NFL starter. Since there are so many more lower round picks, my guess is that it is far more frequent than you think, averaging about one in each year's draft class.
For instance, in the 20 years 2000-2019,
15 of the pro-bowl QB's were
not drafted in the 1st round, vs
21 pro-bowlers who
were 1st round picks.
So you're almost as likely to get a quality starter after the 1st round as to get one in the 1st round.
I think if this board was told our new QB was to be a Dak Prescott (4th round) or Tony Romo (undrafted) there'd be a lot less pessimism about the future after Brady inevitably departs.
Not saying Stidham has done anything yet except drop to the 4th round based on his horrid last year of play at Auburn, but he is being coached by the guy who developed Brady and went with him over a #1 overall pick, when everyone else thought Brady was at best a puny game manager who couldn't beat out Drew Henson.
Also keep in mind that the Brady == GOAT talk wasn't credible outside of Boston until he was paired with Randy Moss -- IMO the GOAT wide receiver -- and Rob Gronkowski -- IMO the GOAT tight end. In 2005, Brady was still thought of as a game manager, and the GOAT talk was from Pats fans who pointed out that he was a winner.
I
do believe Brady is the GOAT, but he's gotten a lot of help in New England. IMO, this last year's problems were in a large part do to the retirement of Gronkowski with his unparalleled skill set simultaneously leveraging both the run game and the passing game even in his last year. Huge loss, and almost as difficult to replace as Brady.
