OT: 2021 NFL QB Prospects List or 1st Round Discussion

[SHOWTIME15]

That's why I don't think Lawrence is some magical savior. Brady himself was the 7th QB taken. I think a lot of it is development and hard work after being drafted. No QB taken is even half of what they need to become without a ton of hard work and improvement. Andrew Luck was supposed to be a sure thing too...

Andrew Luck was fine. Injuries derailed his career. He took his team to a number of AFCCGs...not exactly Peyton-esque, but still way better than many first round QBs.

At the end of the day you have to look at Lawrence and see how he does against good competition. He's played well against some of the top teams in the country so that should tell you something. Lawrence can develop here, as opposed to Jete, Jax, Houston, and Atlanta.

 

[Doctor DDS]

QB numbers in college have exploded just like in the NFL so extrapolating them to future success seems like a major challenge. I watched some of the Clemson-BC game and the backup to Lawrence had a 73% completion percentage, 340 yards passing, 2 TDs and no picks. How much is the talent advantage and/or system and how much is it the player?

 

[NYCPATS4LIFE]

QB numbers in college have exploded just like in the NFL so extrapolating them to future success seems like a major challenge. I watched some of the Clemson-BC game and the backup to Lawrence had a 73% completion percentage, 340 yards passing, 2 TDs and no picks. How much is the talent advantage and/or system and how much is it the player?

I believe the backup was a 5 recruit and the number 1quarterback coming out of high school. It helps to have talent around no doubt.

 

[Doctor DDS]

Andrew Luck was fine. Injuries derailed his career. He took his team to a number of AFCCGs...not exactly Peyton-esque, but still way better than many first round QBs.

At the end of the day you have to look at Lawrence and see how he does against good competition. He's played well against some of the top teams in the country so that should tell you something. Lawrence can develop here, as opposed to Jete, Jax, Houston, and Atlanta.

Luck took his team to a number of AFCCG's? True if that number is 1. And in that 1 game he was 12-33 for 126 yards and 2 picks in a 45-7 loss. Overall he was 4-4 in the playoffs with lousy numbers. 12 TDs and 13 picks.

 

[Ring 6]

Not true. Fields is a passer who can run not the other way around. He was last year and this year in two games is completing 87.4% while throwing downfield plenty. Not to say he's as good as this future hall of famer but he's more Russell Wilson than Lamar Jackson.

I disagree. I’ve seen every game he has played. The offense is designed to run and create easy passes. He never throws into a tight window. He is more runner than thrower but the scheme allows him to throw successfully.

 

[farn]

Luck took his team to a number of AFCCG's? True if that number is 1. And in that 1 game he was 12-33 for 126 yards and 2 picks in a 45-7 loss. Overall he was 4-4 in the playoffs with lousy numbers. 12 TDs and 13 picks.

I'm with you, Doc... People aroung here love Luck when in fact the tanking for him was an epic failure. I don't think anyone was hoping for major blowout in an AFCCG as his peak. He wasn't injured for the entirety of his career.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Luck took his team to a number of AFCCG's? True if that number is 1. And in that 1 game he was 12-33 for 126 yards and 2 picks in a 45-7 loss. Overall he was 4-4 in the playoffs with lousy numbers. 12 TDs and 13 picks.

Ok, so it's 1 AFCCG. The bottom line is Luck was a good QB stuck on a bad team. You have to take some context into account. There are better examples of 1st overall picks gone bust like David Carr or Jamarcus Russell. Luck isn't one of them.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Just saw Mac Jones from Alabama brought up as a Heisman candidate. Why not him? Efficient game manager. Takes care of the ball. Could be Phil Simms. Could be 01-04 Brady.

.

 

[BelichickFan]

Just saw Mac Jones from Alabama brought up as a Heisman candidate. Why not him? Efficient game manager. Takes care of the ball. Could be Phil Simms. Could be 01-04 Brady.

Jones has been great this year. Tons of weapons but, to be fair, so did Burrow. Bringing up Jones kind of makes the point. He's likely competing with Strong to be the 5th/6th QB this year.

Lawrence
Fields
Lance
Wilson
Jones/Strong.

Which means we'll draft a DT.

The order will change but there's looking like 6 who are at least as good as Garrapolo when he was drafted.

Speaking of Jimmy I could see SF moving on.

 

[lancerman]

It’s a crapshoot. In the last 21 years 16 QBs were drafted #1 overall. They were the can’t miss franchise changer. The only one to win a SB was Eli Manning.

Huge difference between consensus can’t miss picks like Elway/Manning/Luck and now Lawrence who almost everyone see’s coming a mile away and is about as NFL ready as you can get.... and guys like Mayfield, Goff, Eli, Murray etc who were the best prospect in the draft but there was the understanding that they were not going to be world beaters out the gate.

Also using Super Bowls as the end all be all metric if extremely faulty and really kinda shows that we’ve been a bit spoiled. One it presumes the team is actually functionable. The Browns are a disaster to hold it all on Mayfield is stupid. Then you have outlier situations like Brady who is a 6th rounder that ate up 6 rings. That’s not an occurrence that happened in the 35 SB’s before Brady and likely won’t happen for the next 30 after he retires. So it’s prone to outliers. Likewise Nick Foles won a SB but he’s not someone you would ever want here long term.

1998: Peyton Manning. Won 2 SB’s. Consistent contender.

1999: Tim Couch. Was on the Browns. Franchise is a disaster. The second pick was McNabb who changed a losing franchise into a winning one and went 4 NFCCG’d in a row including a SB and then another.

2000: bad QB draft. None in the top 10

2001: Michael Vick. Was a strong franchise QB. Probably the proto type for modern running QB’s. Nobody would say he didn’t make Atlanta relevant.

2002: David Carr, bust

2003: Carson Palmer was a good franchise QB. Very good. Got plagued with injuries later

2004: Eli Manning. 2 SB’s. The next QB was Rivers who made the Chargers relevant again. The next was Ben 2SB’s

2005: Alex Smith who had a strong career as a franchise QB. Not super elite but he was strongly consistent and limited mistakes and could win with a good team

2006: No number 1 overall. Vince Young was the only top 5 QB. He was good. He has injury issues.

2007 Jamarcus Russell. Bust. It was also a bad class and he was the only QB worth taking in round 1

2008: not a number 1, but Ryan was the first QB taken at 3. MVP and made a SB. Complete franchise guy. Falcons are happy with him

2009. Stafford. Franchise QB. Every one considers him solid. Stuck on Lions who are garbage

2010 Bradford. Again decent but had injury issues that derailed his career.

2011 Cam Newton. I know it’s in vogue to **** on him. But he’s been a solid player his first 10 years, was an MVP, made the SB, made his franchise relevant last decade. Later on injury issues hurt.

2012 Luck. Nobody considers him a failure. Brought a bad team to the playoffs on impact was in a conference title game his 2nd year, injuries and bad protection reigned his career. His franchise killed him. The board would kill for a healthy Luck

2013: terrible QB draft. First was chosen at 16. N/A

2014: again a bad draft. The Jaguars needed somebody so they got Bortles, but he wasn’t hyper like you were talking and a team like the Texans that could have used a QB skipped him for a DE

2015. Winston.. this was not a cant miss prospect. He’s consistently been the same dude he was in college. Just the best of a bad bunch.

2016: Goff. Solid starter. Made a SB. Was considered an MVP candidate after Mahomes in 2018. Still part of competetive teams.

2017. Mayfield. He’s decent. Not great but the best the Browns ever had. Was rookie of the year. Has pulled out some solid wins. The time since he’s been drafted has been the best for that franchise.

2019: Murray. Currently leading a winning team that used to be abysmal.

2020. Burrow. Looks great but the Bengals will get him killed.

Most ended up being franchise QB’s. This last decade Winston and Bradford were the only outright number 1 overall busts. One was an injury thing than other was a guy part of weak draft that ended up being the same guy he was in college. Yeah there are a handful of busts overall. But you mostly had solid starters. That’s not including all the other guys that were drafted early that had great careers.

Hate to break it to you.... Tom Brady ain’t walking through that door. You could pick in the 6th round every draft for 20 years and you won’t find a guy half as good as Brady.

Now if we go by your metric of SB winners. Since 2000 outside of Brady: Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson. Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning. Drew Brees. Aaron Rodgers. Eli Manning. Joe Flacco. Wilson. Foles. Mahomes. Nobody on this site would want Dilfer, Johnson or Foles a long term.

So.... you have Ben (11th overall), Peyton 1 overall, Eli 1 overall, Flacco 18th overall, Rodgers 24th overall (who was considered a massive draft slide), Brees 32 overall, Mahomes 10th overall and Wilson 75 overall. The only multi winners are two number 1’s and an 11, the only that would be outside the first round in the modern draft structure is Wilson. So I guess you can hope for some once in a generations slides. But really even then most of those are organizational.

 

[lancerman]

I'm with you, Doc... People aroung here love Luck when in fact the tanking for him was an epic failure. I don't think anyone was hoping for major blowout in an AFCCG as his peak. He wasn't injured for the entirety of his career.

I hate to break it to you but you go around the league and say Luck didn’t live up to hype and wasn’t worth it you would be laughed out of the room. He never had a losing season in any year he played, instantly dragged an awful team to the playoffs and each year was improving (wildcard first year, divisional second year, AFCCG third year) then he started getting injured because his team sucked and he was getting pulverized behind a line so bad they had to get rid of the GM. The last full year he played he dragged his team to the playoffs again.

Also let’s look at who he lost to in the playoffs

2012- Ravens who went on to win the SB.
2013- Patriots
2014- Patriots who went on to win the SB
2018- Chiefs in Patrick Mahomes MVP year.

He wasn’t losing to scrubs. He lost to two SB champions and the hottest team in the league. His worst lost was to the Patriots in 2013 who were fighting for the number 1 seed with the Broncos. And those were not good Colts teams

 

[Ring 6]

Huge difference between consensus can’t miss picks like Elway/Manning/Luck and now Lawrence who almost everyone see’s coming a mile away and is about as NFL ready as you can get.... and guys like Mayfield, Goff, Eli, Murray etc who were the best prospect in the draft but there was the understanding that they were not going to be world beaters out the gate.

Also using Super Bowls as the end all be all metric if extremely faulty and really kinda shows that we’ve been a bit spoiled. One it presumes the team is actually functionable. The Browns are a disaster to hold it all on Mayfield is stupid. Then you have outlier situations like Brady who is a 6th rounder that ate up 6 rings. That’s not an occurrence that happened in the 35 SB’s before Brady and likely won’t happen for the next 30 after he retires. So it’s prone to outliers. Likewise Nick Foles won a SB but he’s not someone you would ever want here long term.

1998: Peyton Manning. Won 2 SB’s. Consistent contender.

1999: Tim Couch. Was on the Browns. Franchise is a disaster. The second pick was McNabb who changed a losing franchise into a winning one and went 4 NFCCG’d in a row including a SB and then another.

2000: bad QB draft. None in the top 10

2001: Michael Vick. Was a strong franchise QB. Probably the proto type for modern running QB’s. Nobody would say he didn’t make Atlanta relevant.

2002: David Carr, bust

2003: Carson Palmer was a good franchise QB. Very good. Got plagued with injuries later

2004: Eli Manning. 2 SB’s. The next QB was Rivers who made the Chargers relevant again. The next was Ben 2SB’s

2005: Alex Smith who had a strong career as a franchise QB. Not super elite but he was strongly consistent and limited mistakes and could win with a good team

2006: No number 1 overall. Vince Young was the only top 5 QB. He was good. He has injury issues.

2007 Jamarcus Russell. Bust. It was also a bad class and he was the only QB worth taking in round 1

2008: not a number 1, but Ryan was the first QB taken at 3. MVP and made a SB. Complete franchise guy. Falcons are happy with him

2009. Stafford. Franchise QB. Every one considers him solid. Stuck on Lions who are garbage

2010 Bradford. Again decent but had injury issues that derailed his career.

2011 Cam Newton. I know it’s in vogue to **** on him. But he’s been a solid player his first 10 years, was an MVP, made the SB, made his franchise relevant last decade. Later on injury issues hurt.

2012 Luck. Nobody considers him a failure. Brought a bad team to the playoffs on impact was in a conference title game his 2nd year, injuries and bad protection reigned his career. His franchise killed him. The board would kill for a healthy Luck

2013: terrible QB draft. First was chosen at 16. N/A

2014: again a bad draft. The Jaguars needed somebody so they got Bortles, but he wasn’t hyper like you were talking and a team like the Texans that could have used a QB skipped him for a DE

2015. Winston.. this was not a cant miss prospect. He’s consistently been the same dude he was in college. Just the best of a bad bunch.

2016: Goff. Solid starter. Made a SB. Was considered an MVP candidate after Mahomes in 2018. Still part of competetive teams.

2017. Mayfield. He’s decent. Not great but the best the Browns ever had. Was rookie of the year. Has pulled out some solid wins. The time since he’s been drafted has been the best for that franchise.

2019: Murray. Currently leading a winning team that used to be abysmal.

2020. Burrow. Looks great but the Bengals will get him killed.

Most ended up being franchise QB’s. This last decade Winston and Bradford were the only outright number 1 overall busts. One was an injury thing than other was a guy part of weak draft that ended up being the same guy he was in college. Yeah there are a handful of busts overall. But you mostly had solid starters. That’s not including all the other guys that were drafted early that had great careers.

Hate to break it to you.... Tom Brady ain’t walking through that door. You could pick in the 6th round every draft for 20 years and you won’t find a guy half as good as Brady.

Now if we go by your metric of SB winners. Since 2000 outside of Brady: Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson. Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning. Drew Brees. Aaron Rodgers. Eli Manning. Joe Flacco. Wilson. Foles. Mahomes. Nobody on this site would want Dilfer, Johnson or Foles a long term.

So.... you have Ben (11th overall), Peyton 1 overall, Eli 1 overall, Flacco 18th overall, Rodgers 24th overall (who was considered a massive draft slide), Brees 32 overall, Mahomes 10th overall and Wilson 75 overall. The only multi winners are two number 1’s and an 11, the only that would be outside the first round in the modern draft structure is Wilson. So I guess you can hope for some once in a generations slides. But really even then most of those are organizational.

You are arguing tanking a season (any win this year has no value) based upon Stafford, Goff and Alex Smith being good QBs. Ugh.

Look you are all over the page here. You dismiss facts by diminishing whatever conflicts with the argument you are trying to make.

The argument was “you either have a franchise QB or you don’t win”
I hand shown that roughly half the championships are won by guys not considered franchise QBs, and that must first rounders don’t turn out all that great. I used #1 pick to tie it in with tanking but there are dozens of QBs taken in the first round that have failed miserably.
Im not interested in a conversation where we revise history and say things like “everyone knew he would be great” or “he was the #1 pick because w drying else sucked” it’s too subjective and you have proven to be a guy who tries to call subjective opinions facts, so it gets us nowhere.

Yes the better qb you have the your team is. No you don’t lose on purpose to draft a an higher because most of them get you nowhere. Dismantling your team and losing on purpose so you can draft a QB makes you the jets with Sanchez, then darnold then whoever is next or the never ending circus in Cleveland.

 

[farn]

I hate to break it to you but you go around the league and say Luck didn’t live up to hype and wasn’t worth it you would be laughed out of the room. He never had a losing season in any year he played, instantly dragged an awful team to the playoffs and each year was improving (wildcard first year, divisional second year, AFCCG third year) then he started getting injured because his team sucked and he was getting pulverized behind a line so bad they had to get rid of the GM. The last full year he played he dragged his team to the playoffs again.

Also let’s look at who he lost to in the playoffs

2012- Ravens who went on to win the SB.
2013- Patriots
2014- Patriots who went on to win the SB
2018- Chiefs in Patrick Mahomes MVP year.

He wasn’t losing to scrubs. He lost to two SB champions and the hottest team in the league. His worst lost was to the Patriots in 2013 who were fighting for the number 1 seed with the Broncos. And those were not good Colts teams

What you say is true.

This is also true : he kept being mentioned as the best QB to come out since Manning. Anyone who’d have been told the day he was drafted that he was going to peak at “getting blown out of the AFCCG” and be a playoff INT-machine would have accepted that would be disappointing.

He lost to good teams. That is weak. So what ? He was drafted to bring championships. You are happy with “more wins than losses”.

 

[italian pat patriot]

If they land one or two in the draft I’d be ecstatic to have either. However if we don’t, I’d rather draft the best wr available and make a trade back up into the late first or early second to get the qb. However there Are also two good first round te’s available this upcoming draft as well. We got holes.

Please..
Please not a WR in the first round...

 

[lancerman]

What you say is true.

This is also true : he kept being mentioned as the best QB to come out since Manning. Anyone who’d have been told the day he was drafted that he was going to peak at “getting blown out of the AFCCG” and be a playoff INT-machine would have accepted that would be disappointing.

He lost to good teams. That is weak. So what ? He was drafted to bring championships. You are happy with “more wins than losses”.

That has to do with injuries largely driven by his inept team not protecting him. It has nothing to do with his quality as a player. If he was on our team he’d have been a Super Bowl winner at some point and wouldn’t have retired due to injury.

He was on a bad team and he was dragging bad teams to the playoffs and only losing to high end contenders. That bad team was also the reason his career ended prematurely

You can set the metrics however you want, but there aren’t reasonable NFL fans that think Luck was a failure. He was on a bad team and a major impact right away. If Luck came out of retirement right now and could prove he was 100% healthy, he’d be having everyone throwing money at him. Including us

 

[farn]

That has to do with injuries largely driven by his inept team not protecting him. It has nothing to do with his quality as a player. If he was on our team he’d have been a Super Bowl winner at some point and wouldn’t have retired due to injury.

He was on a bad team and he was dragging bad teams to the playoffs and only losing to high end contenders. That bad team was also the reason his career ended prematurely

You can set the metrics however you want, but there aren’t reasonable NFL fans that think Luck was a failure. He was on a bad team and a major impact right away. If Luck came out of retirement right now and could prove he was 100% healthy, he’d be having everyone throwing money at him. Including us

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

 

[lancerman]

You are arguing tanking a season (any win this year has no value) based upon Stafford, Goff and Alex Smith being good QBs. Ugh.

Look you are all over the page here. You dismiss facts by diminishing whatever conflicts with the argument you are trying to make.

The argument was “you either have a franchise QB or you don’t win”
I hand shown that roughly half the championships are won by guys not considered franchise QBs, and that must first rounders don’t turn out all that great. I used #1 pick to tie it in with tanking but there are dozens of QBs taken in the first round that have failed miserably.
Im not interested in a conversation where we revise history and say things like “everyone knew he would be great” or “he was the #1 pick because w drying else sucked” it’s too subjective and you have proven to be a guy who tries to call subjective opinions facts, so it gets us nowhere.

Yes the better qb you have the your team is. No you don’t lose on purpose to draft a an higher because most of them get you nowhere. Dismantling your team and losing on purpose so you can draft a QB makes you the jets with Sanchez, then darnold then whoever is next or the never ending circus in Cleveland.

1. Your first argument was a faulty one that anyone who follows college draft prospects wouldn’t take seriously. Arguing as though guys like Goff and Winston were remotely in the same cant miss category of QB as Lawrence is just blatant lack of knowledge. Lawrence is special because he’s already in that pro ready style and succeeding at a high level. He’s the best prospect since Luck who was the best since Manning, who was the best since Elway. He’s somebody that has a low floor of franchise QB.

2. The argument isn’t and never was “you only win with a franchise QB”. It was that franchise QB’s keep teams competitive long term. Yes you can win with Foles in the perfect circumstance of him having an incredible stretch of games that he will never replicate and your team being dominant and already a contender. Yes you can win with Dilfer or Johnson one time if you have a historically great defense.

However you would NEVER go with the strategy of planning for lightening to strike. It would be totally irresponsible

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Jones has been great this year. Tons of weapons but, to be fair, so did Burrow. Bringing up Jones kind of makes the point. He's likely competing with Strong to be the 5th/6th QB this year.

Lawrence
Fields
Lance
Wilson
Jones/Strong.

Which means we'll draft a DT.

The order will change but there's looking like 6 who are at least as good as Garrapolo when he was drafted.

Speaking of Jimmy I could see SF moving on.

Excellent post. I agree completely. What round do you think Mac Jones would go? I'd totally be on board with spending 2021 high picks at DT, or MLB, or OLine, and get a mid-round QB like Mac Jones. Groom some young QB who will dedicate his entire life 100 hours a week to football getting better, and be a good field game manager. I like this too because Mac would have experienced all the SEC competition and be used to pressure. It's like Montana came from Notre Dame which at the time was a pressure cooker powerhouse, and Brady from a pressure cooker powerhouse at the time in Michigan (practiced against HOF and Heisman winner DB Charles Woodson).

 

[Ring 6]

1. Your first argument was a faulty one that anyone who follows college draft prospects wouldn’t take seriously. Arguing as though guys like Goff and Winston were remotely in the same cant miss category of QB as Lawrence is just blatant lack of knowledge. Lawrence is special because he’s already in that pro ready style and succeeding at a high level. He’s the best prospect since Luck who was the best since Manning, who was the best since Elway. He’s somebody that has a low floor of franchise QB.

2. The argument isn’t and never was “you only win with a franchise QB”. It was that franchise QB’s keep teams competitive long term. Yes you can win with Foles in the perfect circumstance of him having an incredible stretch of games that he will never replicate and your team being dominant and already a contender. Yes you can win with Dilfer or Johnson one time if you have a historically great defense.

However you would NEVER go with the strategy of planning for lightening to strike. It would be totally irresponsible

Not faulty at all. Look at all of the #1 and all
other first round picks that have failed. There is no guarantee at all. Destroying your team for the right to pick a long shot is fools gold.
You build the best team you can with the best QB you can get. Having a strong team that wins with ok QB play is not lightning in a bottle. Having a crappy team elevated by a first round draft pick QB is much less common.

 

[Doctor DDS]

That has to do with injuries largely driven by his inept team not protecting him. It has nothing to do with his quality as a player. If he was on our team he’d have been a Super Bowl winner at some point and wouldn’t have retired due to injury.

He was on a bad team and he was dragging bad teams to the playoffs and only losing to high end contenders. That bad team was also the reason his career ended prematurely

You can set the metrics however you want, but there aren’t reasonable NFL fans that think Luck was a failure. He was on a bad team and a major impact right away. If Luck came out of retirement right now and could prove he was 100% healthy, he’d be having everyone throwing money at him. Including us

Luck was a massive disappointment in hindsight. He was certainly not a bust but he never came close to all of the hype. He was a solid starting QB period. Playing in a dome in a pass happy era, he finished his short career with a Quarterback rating of 89.5 and a post season rating of 73.4. 4 post season wins in his entire career. He never had a 16 game stretch as good as the one Tannehill just had.