Tom Rock @TomRock_Newsday
The days of setting the franchise back a decade with a whiff at a first-round QB are over. Miss badly? Big whoop. Try again in 2-3 years. Keep swinging until you hit. Embrace the inexact nature of the evaluation process and maximize your chances.
49ers, Eagles have done just fine after big misses. Bears and Jets trying to do same. Can’t win in NFL without elite QB play, so why waste time with good but not elite quarterbacks?
If I had an NFL franchise I would never sign a quarterback to a second contract without a SB appearance in the first four years. Once you find that guy hold on to him for dear life. But if you don’t have that guy… Next!
Elite QBs help, but you still need to be dominant in multi-facets of the game.
I don’t agree with one every year as Terps suggests. I agree with every 2-3 so you always have a pipeline of guys you are working with.
Their problem may be more inside the building, no?
Plus the whole concept of “the giants would be taking the 4th best QB” thing that is supposedly some big negative…yet no one care if they take the 3rd best WR.
QB hell isn’t getting a QB pick wrong, QB hell is refusing to acknowledge the mistake.
You have to figure it out as soon as 2 years in.
If you are convinced you got the right guy, build around him. If not, cut bait and try again.
In the modern NFL, a perfectly reasonable approach.
Hopefully, our current brain trust understands this.
We will know Thursday night.
If you have a first ballot hall of fame QB your chances of winning the SB go up enourmously - Mahomes, Brady, P. Manning, Rodgers, Big Ben arguably Eli. Over the last 25 years those six people have won something like 70% of the SBs. Guys how have won not on that list - Dilfer, Johnson, Brees, Wilson, Foles, Flacco, Strafford. I see that as one guy who probably should be on the first list, 1 guy who was great for a short while, two good to really good QBs but not elite, one marginal starter, and two guys who are not starter caliber QBs. So you have roughly 7 guys who have been drafted (two first picks, a 10th pick, a 26th pick, a 2nd rounder, a 3rd rounder, and a 6th rounder) who you are trying to get. If you try every draft it would be quite reasonable to go the rest of your life and not hit.
If there is a guy available who you think can be the guy available at anytime in the draft you take him. But you can't continually structure your draft around trying to find the guy. You have to build a team and hope to get lucky or get it right at some point, or build a good enough team to make a run without an elite guy.
Had a lot of other pieces in place.
Exactly what the Giants do not.
Bills shouldn't have paid Allen. Chargers shouldn't have paid Herbert. The Ravens shouldn't be paying Jackson the most money, again. There's a line drawn, and I get what he's saying, but a SB appearance isn't it. Playoff performance is something I'd pin super importance to, and not regular season success. Your Lamar, Dak, Kirk, and previously before the Rams, Stafford's of the world.
I do agree the Giants should be swinging more. But your chances are less by not taking them in the 1st round. You lose value by trading back up and trading away future, premium assets.
Their best player was a RB who was a top 8 pick. Maybe we should try it again ;)
Haha
And they haven't won more than 7 games in a season since drafting Darnold and haven't appeared in a playoff game since Mark Sanchez was QB 14 years ago.
the article is full of contradictions.
and using the Jets as an example of how missing on QB isn't that bad is downright laughable since practically everyone on the planet thinks that team is a playoff team with a functional QB.
If you have a first ballot hall of fame QB your chances of winning the SB go up enourmously - Mahomes, Brady, P. Manning, Rodgers, Big Ben arguably Eli. Over the last 25 years those six people have won something like 70% of the SBs. Guys how have won not on that list - Dilfer, Johnson, Brees, Wilson, Foles, Flacco, Strafford. I see that as one guy who probably should be on the first list, 1 guy who was great for a short while, two good to really good QBs but not elite, one marginal starter, and two guys who are not starter caliber QBs. So you have roughly 7 guys who have been drafted (two first picks, a 10th pick, a 26th pick, a 2nd rounder, a 3rd rounder, and a 6th rounder) who you are trying to get. If you try every draft it would be quite reasonable to go the rest of your life and not hit.
If there is a guy available who you think can be the guy available at anytime in the draft you take him. But you can't continually structure your draft around trying to find the guy. You have to build a team and hope to get lucky or get it right at some point, or build a good enough team to make a run without an elite guy.
Your logic is flawed. You have other picks to build up the team. But the game within the game in the NFL is to obtain an elite QB. Without obtaining a top QB, you are fighting over table scraps. Prime example: the NYG 2017-2023. How do you like what you've seen?
By using his logic would you not resign Josh Allen?
True, the Browns (being the Browns) have not executed this with even 1% of the intelligence as the 9'ers or the Eagles. But it doesn't negate the strategy.
One person who gets his driver's license and abruptly drives into a lake doesn't negate the benefit of driving.
There is also a big difference between taking a QB at your pick and massively trading up for one. Do the latter and get it wrong and you will set your team back by five years because of the loss of draft capital.
And they haven't won more than 7 games in a season since drafting Darnold and haven't appeared in a playoff game since Mark Sanchez was QB 14 years ago.
the article is full of contradictions.
and using the Jets as an example of how missing on QB isn't that bad is downright laughable since practically everyone on the planet thinks that team is a playoff team with a functional QB.
The Jets example is incomplete, but I think Rock included them because they're a franchise that has moved on from two highly-drafted QBs fairly quickly. They just haven't yet found an adequate answer at the position, but the overall result in not doing so likely isn't any worse than it would have been had they kept Darnold or Wilson.
Not what he’s saying at all
Quote:
The new Browns have been running that approach for the last 25 years and counting through various methods (draft, trades, big free agent contracts) and hasn't worked.
True, the Browns (being the Browns) have not executed this with even 1% of the intelligence as the 9'ers or the Eagles. But it doesn't negate the strategy.
One person who gets his driver's license and abruptly drives into a lake doesn't negate the benefit of driving.
They haven’t and yet have still won more games since 2018 (50) than the Giants (34), have more playoff appearances and the same amount of playoff wins.
Eli is an interesting exception of getting to the SuperBowl after the first contract. (Since 2000, I think Warner and Ben are the only others, not mentioned here, to get to a SB on a second contract. Apologies if I'm wrong about that)
Eli is an interesting exception of getting to the SuperBowl after the first contract. (Since 2000, I think Warner and Ben are the only others, not mentioned here, to get to a SB on a second contract. Apologies if I'm wrong about that)
Matt Ryan
In the modern NFL yeah probably.
Since Stefanski and Berry have taken over, they've been a very solid team. Berry was with them between 2016-2018 too and probably had a hand in selecting Baker Mayfield. Maybe he wasn't a Stefanski guy, so they moved on. Baker finds success elsewhere and the Browns are force fed the rapist because their owner wanted him.
If the Browns had a semi decent QB play, then they would be Super Bowl contenders. Defense is fantastic and making plays like trading 5th rounders for Amari Cooper. Their move for Jerry Jeudy is nice, day 3 picks, however paying him 3 years and $41M guaranteed is bunk. Great pieces altogether though.
Would you call it fair to pay Watson what he wanted? I wouldn't, and we don't need hindsight to prove that right.
I'd say not necessarily throwing top 10 picks at it every year, but every year a new QB should be in the mix. Either eventually you find a guy, you find a better guy, or you find a guy you can flip for more picks.
Now - if the economics levels out, and a mid-tier QB is willing to take a mid-tier contract that doesn't kill the cap, this strategy could be revised. The problem is, you don't want a Daniel Jones situation at all cost.
Oops.
Let's compare the NFL from 30 years ago to today to find a fallacy in this approach.
That's like saying it's a good idea to draft a RB number 1 because Bo Jackson was the first overall pick in 1986.
Stop being stuck in the past.
Thankfully we're on year 6 of Daniel Jones, we couldn't be any luckier!
+1. Great QB is ideal, but there are very few of them. Dominating the LOS is at least as important.
If you have a first ballot hall of fame QB your chances of winning the SB go up enourmously - Mahomes, Brady, P. Manning, Rodgers, Big Ben arguably Eli. Over the last 25 years those six people have won something like 70% of the SBs. Guys how have won not on that list - Dilfer, Johnson, Brees, Wilson, Foles, Flacco, Strafford. I see that as one guy who probably should be on the first list, 1 guy who was great for a short while, two good to really good QBs but not elite, one marginal starter, and two guys who are not starter caliber QBs. So you have roughly 7 guys who have been drafted (two first picks, a 10th pick, a 26th pick, a 2nd rounder, a 3rd rounder, and a 6th rounder) who you are trying to get. If you try every draft it would be quite reasonable to go the rest of your life and not hit.
If there is a guy available who you think can be the guy available at anytime in the draft you take him. But you can't continually structure your draft around trying to find the guy. You have to build a team and hope to get lucky or get it right at some point, or build a good enough team to make a run without an elite guy.
Why do you say Big Ben and then “arguably” Eli? Eli was at least as good as the rapist.
Either they were on a second contract or they were signed to one later by their team or by the SB winner (Eli, Mahomes, Brady, Ben all in the latter side of this - they all won SB's on their rookie deal, but also won SB's on their 2nd contracts).
Almost no SB winning QB just won on a rookie deal and then was let go.
no precedent, no historical basis, no success or track record for what is being suggested.
Even if you look at QB's like Stafford who won after signing their second contract but were traded. it's still not what some of you are suggesting.
Even the outlier examples like Nick Foles still don't fit the don't pay QB narrative.
The only arguments you can make against a 2nd contract are players like Joe Flacco I guess. He got paid after winning a SB, and was MVP, but rosters often suffer after winning a SB because everyone gets "amplified" and paid more - not just QB's.
Either way it's a ridiculous concept to simply have a blanket no QB 2nd contract except for...when you can never be sure of the except for conditions until you find out.
This is made even more ludicrous because the Favre - Rodgers or Montana - Young pipelines are beyond rare. you put yourself in spot from paying a QB to needing a QB and I'd rather pay the QB I have then have to find one on the hopes of "it's just 2-3 years of shittiness if we're wrong then we can just look again" it doesn't have to be a decade. Well guess what 2-3 years can be 3-4 and then two misses and where you are? almost at a decade.
Some of you deserve bad football teams run by stupid people.
Just by the nature of the game QBs have a shorter leash. See Rosen, Darnold, Mayfield, Wilson, etc. That's not some new or noteworthy theory. However, extending it to the extreme that the QB must reach the Super Bowl in the 1st 4 years is just stupid