The 2021 QB class has been a disaster… you didn’t refute that nor could you if you tried.
Lawrence was the first QB taken in 2021… you’re having trouble following a simple conversation. Sounds like a “you” problem.
Bullsht… he was a first rounder. No need to dance around. He’s a backup…
Dak Prescott, Drew Brees, a lot of guys were taken outside of the first round. And the best QB in the entire NFL Patrick Mahomes wasn’t a top five pick. So give me a break… Trevor Lawrence isn’t a generational talent, he was #1 overall.
He’s not a starter, he’s a backup. The past two games he has thrown 3 interceptions and done Mac Jones things. The more he plays the more of a liability he is.
That team would be stupid.
Ryan Leaf, Jarmarcus Russell, Akili Smith… shall I keep reciting all the QB’s drafted in the top three who sucked? Draft position isn’t why Mac Jones sucks, it just explains why the first rounder wasted on him sucked.
It’s a team sport. Record is a team stat.
He scored zero TD’s and had an interception, they won in spite of Mac.
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate the criticism. I also appreciate that others understand there isn't a lot to be gained about arguing over who is a backup and not a backup. In my book Gee No Smith is a backup who he got paid to be a starter, so indeed he is a starter, and that's what I see for Mac at some point in time as well.
The thing I'll push back in more detail is the idea that all first-rounders are the same. Most NFL analysts think the quality drops off somewhere after the 8th to 10th pick in most drafts. And of course there are outliers you can find. Tony Romo was a UDFA and had a pretty good NFL career. But in general the higher draft picks have more value and the proof is that teams will give up more resources to get the higher draft picks. The difference in value gets reflected in the draft value charts. Below we see a standard chart with the #1 overall getting 300 points and #15 getting 1050 points. So teams will give up almost three times as much resources to get the first overall pick than #15 where Mac Jones was taken. You also see the drop-off between #7 and #8 is 100 points but the drop between #8 and #9 is 50 points. This is the steepening in the drop off that I mentioned earlier.
Draft Pick Value Chart
I find the following to be interesting:
We use quadratic programming, approximate value, and adjustments to replacement level to compute the most accurate possible NFL draft value chart
thedatajocks.com
The black dots are their average values chosen as follows:
The single most important data point that went into our analysis is pro-football-reference’s approximate value statistic. In the simplest possible terms, approximate value is a way to measure how good a player was over the course of their career. It takes into account both a player’s dominance at their peak and their longevity. While not a perfect measure, a player with approximate value 50 was worth about twice as much as a player with approximate value 25.
This statistic formed the basis for our analysis. For each pick number, we computed the average approximate value of all players drafted at that pick. We only used the value that a player accrued for the duration of their tenure with the team that drafted them. For example, to estimate the value of the first overall pick, we first went through all the drafts since 1980 and tabulated all the first overall picks.
Using only the seasons that a player was on the roster of the team that drafted them is the correct choice because players don’t stay with one team their whole career. If they did, draft picks would be more valuable. Other analysts that have done similar work use career approximate value which doesn’t take this into account.
If you use a statistically significant approximation of value you still get the same kind of curve as the typical draft chart, exponential drop off favoring high draft picks.
