Would you TRADE Sam for the #1 pick?

[jgb]

18 minutes ago, CTM said:

It's not so much of a mystery.

Top screenshot is QBase's top picks of past 20 years (not sure when this was assembled as Baker Mayfield made this cut)

Griffen got hurt after setting the league on fire.

Leftwhich was a jag

John Beck and Ponder a bust

Pretty good hit rate, compare that to the bottom which is filled with losers. This is publiclly available and wildly circulated, you'd hope / think / imagine billion dollar franchises have access to even better analytical data.

Yet here we are in 2019 and people still act like drafting a QB is akin to getting drunk, putting a blindfold and and throwing a dart at a dart board.  Even wrose, flagrantly innumerate jagaloons like Mac still get FO jobs and still draft QB's like Hackenberg. Mind boggling.

 

 

You should be a GM ? 

[Patriot Killa]

It’s gonna be okay guys. We can draft Arch Manning in like 3 or 4 years if nothing else works out. The Manning brothers little nephew.

It’s said he is further along as in HS then Eli and Peyton ever were. 

PS. Sam will work out though. This is mostly just to bring a little attention toward Arch. I think he’s gonna be really good.

 

[jgb]

47% on this poll is "YES" to trade Darnold. Jets fans are too clever by half.

[Jetsfan80]

8 hours ago, Smashmouth said:

we  know nothing of QB prospects . Its the position everyone gets wrong over and over 

 

6 hours ago, CTM said:

Good grief 

 

Can you blame him for that perspective?  He got duped by schmucks like Pennington and Sanchez. 

Of course he now thinks its a total crapshoot, rather than a matter of his own ability to parse out the information that matters when projecting a QB's future success.  

We don't have a surefire way of predicting which QB's will be awesome.  But we certainly can determine the sh*tty ones well in advance.  Mark Sanchez was inaccuarate and lacked college experience; the 2 most important factors to determine a failure at QB.  Hence he was a guaranteed failure.  But it took some longer than others to figure that out. 

Being able to rule out certain QB's is pretty damn important.  It prevents you from investing in guys like Christian Hackenberg.

[Jetsfan80]

3 hours ago, nj meadowlands said:

My name is nj meadowlands and I will die on the Joe Burrow Is Not Actually Good hill, right next to my neighbor T0m on his Jamal Adams Sucks hill.

So the lesson is, stay away from LSU guys?  lol.

[CTM]

6 minutes ago, Jetsfan80 said:

 

 

Can you blame him for that perspective?  He got duped by schmucks like Pennington and Sanchez. 

Of course he now thinks its a total crapshoot, rather than a matter of his own ability to parse out the information that matters when projecting a QB's future success.  

We don't have a surefire way of predicting which QB's will be awesome.  But we certainly can determine the sh*tty ones well in advance.  Mark Sanchez was inaccuarate and lacked college experience; the 2 most important factors to determine a failure at QB.  Hence he was a guaranteed failure.  But it took some longer than others to figure that out. 

Being able to rule out certain QB's is pretty damn important.  It prevents you from investing in guys like Christian Hackenberg.

It's pretty good at predicting good ones too

[Jetsfan80]

3 minutes ago, CTM said:

It's pretty good at predicting good ones too

Yep.  Certainly better than the average scout. 

Couple it with the "eye test" and standard prospect evaluations and you've got a pretty good idea of what you're getting in a QB.

[rangerous]

1 hour ago, y2k8 said:

That's a ridiculous response.  If you take away the Pats, you don't have a large enough sample size.

Besides, I just rattled off a bunch of QBs who still manage to disprove the QB on a rookie contract theory.

Are they outliers too?  LOL

 

 

the nfl has been in existence for 100 years.  therefore there are only 100 championship games and way fewer superbowls.  there's no way it big data any way you want to slice it.  removing the patsies as outliers is perfectly acceptable.  and even their your piddling number of second contract qb's really doesn't prove much especially since big ben and eli made it on their rookie deals.  if there were rookie deals in 1965 namath would still be on his rookie deal as would bradshaw, montana, rypien, favre, aikman, and so on.

[Sperm Edwards]

5 hours ago, jgb said:

Kudos on calling it right, but at the time the scouts were roughly evenly split. A public ESPN poll at the time was 64% of Leaf and 36% for Manning as to which should go #1.

"In an ESPN SportZone poll asking who the best player in the upcoming draft was, 64% of people answered Leaf compared to just 36% that plumped for Manning from over 45,000 respondents. That’s a colossal goof by everybody, not just the insiders evaluating the two quarterbacks. Leaf was seen by many as the better prospect, not just by a select few lunatics or people that didn’t correctly do their homework in the lead up to the Draft."

+1

To some there was a similar question between Mahomes & Watson. Watson was easily the more polished and pro-ready; Mahomes the higher ceiling based on that cannon arm of his (particularly in comparison to Watson's arm that took him out of the top draft slot outright - where he'd have been if he didn't throw 45mph or whatever it was at the combine - down to 12th). Swap the radar gun and Watson moves from 12 to 1 while Mahomes drops from 10 to the bottom of the round, if he stayed in the 1st round at all. 

Similar with Leaf (and to be fair, others before and after him). Teams see what they want to see. You're taking a QB you want to lock your team into the next great one not the next pretty good one, and with a weaker arm then everything else has to fall into place as hoped. In Peyton Manning's case, it did. 

But yeah I remember it well (though I remember it being a closer split, it hardly matters). It was largely seen as a coin toss. Seems amazing in hindsight, to those who weren't really following it in real time, but there was no obvious consensus for Manning back then -- except among people who are after-the-fact liars. 

[Sperm Edwards]

On 1/14/2020 at 12:25 PM, y2k8 said:

You can't simply remove data points from your theory because they don't align with your conclusion.

The fact of the matter is that most of the teams that reach the Super Bowl do not have QBs on their rookie contracts. This will be the first time since the 2012 season that the QB of the AFC representative in the Super Bowl was not named Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

Cam Newton, Matt Ryan, Eli Manning (2nd SB), Drew Brees, Big Ben (2nd, 3rd Sb), were not on rookie deals when they played in the most recent Super Bowls. 

It definitely makes it easier to build a good team when your QB is on a rookie deal, but I'd rather over pay for a great QB than try to win a championship without one and cap space.

True, but they weren't in the meaty years of their contracts either. Also by the time Darnold gets his extension, franchise QBs will continue to rise more than the cap itself rises, and will be pushing upwards of 20% of a team's salary cap. It was simply much lower back then, and drafting a QB with a very high pick didn't provide much discount over a veteran pro bowler, if it provided any discount at all. 

One of the best examples - if not the best - of a rookie contract advantage, famously, is Russell Wilson. He won 7 playoff games in his first 4 seasons (including the 2 superbowls) when his cap hit was less than a rounding error. In the 4 years since his first veteran contract(s) really showed up on the salary cap, it's been just 2 playoff wins, and both were 1-and-done in separate seasons. That's despite becoming a better and more seasoned passer.

Matt Ryan isn't a great example - nor is any comparative rookie/non-rookie analysis before 2011 - because he was drafted before the CBA that restructured rookie contracts. He was making veteran money on his rookie deal, so in comparison to veterans, a top-5 pick rookie QB contract back then wasn't any sort of bargain. Ryan became the rare exception that's even close to a 2020+ analogy, as you'll see below. His cap hit was $24MM, or about 15% of the salary cap in 2016. It's analogous to about $31MM on a contract signed today, which I doubt Atlanta would be able to get if 2020 was a similar time of Ryan's career, but at least it's in the ballpark. Again, even still, he is the exception:

Cam Newton's veteran contract may have been signed in 2015 (the year they went to the SB) but from a cap hit standpoint it didn't hit yet (his cap number was still just $13MM; it didn't enter the $20MM+ range until 2016 and beyond). So Cam was like 9% of the team's salary cap in the one year they made it to the SB. What are the odds that we get Darnold at 9% of the team's cap limit in any year of any extension (about $18MM/year in 2020)? About zero, unless he's just not a good or healthy QB at the time. 

Drew Brees is another poor example because his first veteran contract with the Saints was severely depressed due to hitting free agency with a torn labrum. That deal was $10MM/year. The going rate for signing such a QB, when it's Darnold's turn after the new CBA, will be 4x that. The salary cap hasn't proportionally gone up 4-fold since Brees signed that deal in 2006, and won't within the next 2 either. The proportional equivalent would be 1.7x the $10MM/year contract Brees signed back in 2006. If we can get Darnold on an extension at $17MM/year, then I agree salary isn't a factor. Since it's likely to be at least double that amount, I don't agree it's a good comparison. Adding to the poor comparison, this was before the 2010 CBA that slotted rookie salaries much lower than 2006 (when Brees signed this) through the 2010 season. 

Eli Manning was in year 1 of a contract extension when he got his 2nd ring. His cap hit was $14.1MM on a $120MM cap. But even that's sort of an exception as it was year 1 of a new CBA that followed an uncapped season. I don't know all the ways it affected what every playoff/SB contender did in those 2010-2011 offseasons, but any Jets fan knows it wasn't nothing. Even with that unknown factor, new QB contracts are now proportionally some 50% higher than Eli's $14MM hit on a $120MM cap (under 12%). Take away a $7MM starter from that team - without cherry-picking the worst one in hindsight - and tell me their season still ends the same.

Roethlisberger's 2nd contract was an early extension that began in 2008. His base salary was artificially low that year, though, because it was still part of his rookie contract (only the SB was the new part for that season). His cap number would have been somewhere around $8.5-9.0MM on a $116MM ceiling (about 7.5% of the team's salary cap, or today's equivalent of $14-15MM). 2010 he only had a cap number about $2MM higher, in what was an uncapped year anyway, but with a loose guideline of $120MM; still about 8%. Again, if we could extend Darnold for 8% of the team's cap, it's a different conversation.

It's not just rookie vs veteran contracts, it's lower percentage vs higher percentage of the team's salary cap, and how much is left to fill in the rest of the starting roster. Most of the players you listed had half the cap hit or less, in their SB seasons, than Darnold's new baseline will be. 

There are other examples of very cheap QBs - whether on slotted rookie contracts or not - being a huge help (Wentz/Foles, Goff, Flacco, Smith/Kaepernick, ffs even Rex Grossman, and in a week we may find also Mariota/Tannehill added to the list). It's a greater proportion than one thinks, particularly in the AFC, since there's only one cheating Tom Brady and only one Peyton Manning. 

[ChuckkieB]

Can we give Darnold more than two years (and get a real supporting roster around him) before we throw him in the trash and look for a shiny new toy?  We've waited a lifetime (literally) to get a player of Darnold's caliber and potential, and Jets fans are ready to move on already.  

Jets fans can never enjoy nice things.  It's true.  It's science.  

 

 

[jgb]

2 hours ago, Sperm Edwards said:

+1

To some there was a similar question between Mahomes & Watson. Watson was easily the more polished and pro-ready; Mahomes the higher ceiling based on that cannon arm of his (particularly in comparison to Watson's arm that took him out of the top draft slot outright - where he'd have been if he didn't throw 45mph or whatever it was at the combine - down to 12th). Swap the radar gun and Watson moves from 12 to 1 while Mahomes drops from 10 to the bottom of the round, if he stayed in the 1st round at all. 

Similar with Leaf (and to be fair, others before and after him). Teams see what they want to see. You're taking a QB you want to lock your team into the next great one not the next pretty good one, and with a weaker arm then everything else has to fall into place as hoped. In Peyton Manning's case, it did. 

But yeah I remember it well (though I remember it being a closer split, it hardly matters). It was largely seen as a coin toss. Seems amazing in hindsight, to those who weren't really following it in real time, but there was no obvious consensus for Manning back then -- except among people who are after-the-fact liars. 

If it was such an easy call to differentiate a HOF QB prospect from a bust and punchline QB, you’d think over half the scouts and the public would be on the right side. Instead 2/3 of fans (who else would vote in an online ESPN poll in 1998?) couldn’t tell prime rib from a greasy dump.

[y2k8]

35 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

True, but they weren't in the meaty years of their contracts either. Also by the time Darnold gets his extension, franchise QBs will continue to rise more than the cap itself rises, and will be pushing upwards of 20% of a team's salary cap. It was simply much lower back then, and drafting a QB with a very high pick didn't provide much discount over a veteran pro bowler, if it provided any discount at all. 

One of the best examples - if not the best - of a rookie contract advantage, famously, is Russell Wilson. He won 7 playoff games in his first 4 seasons (including the 2 superbowls) when his cap hit was less than a rounding error. In the 4 years since his first veteran contract(s) really showed up on the salary cap, it's been just 2 playoff wins, and both were 1-and-done in separate seasons. That's despite becoming a better and more seasoned passer.

Matt Ryan isn't a great example - nor is any comparative rookie/non-rookie analysis before 2011 - because he was drafted before the CBA that restructured rookie contracts. He was making veteran money on his rookie deal, so in comparison to veterans, a top-5 pick rookie QB contract back then wasn't any sort of bargain. Ryan became the rare exception that's even close to a 2020+ analogy, as you'll see below. His cap hit was $24MM, or about 15% of the salary cap in 2016. It's analogous to about $31MM on a contract signed today, which I doubt Atlanta would be able to get if 2020 was a similar time of Ryan's career, but at least it's in the ballpark. Again, even still, he is the exception:

Cam Newton's veteran contract may have been signed in 2015 (the year they went to the SB) but from a cap hit standpoint it didn't hit yet (his cap number was still just $13MM; it didn't enter the $20MM+ range until 2016 and beyond). So Cam was like 9% of the team's salary cap in the one year they made it to the SB. What are the odds that we get Darnold at 9% of the team's cap limit in any year of any extension (about $18MM/year in 2020)? About zero, unless he's just not a good or healthy QB at the time. 

Drew Brees is another poor example because his first veteran contract with the Saints was severely depressed due to hitting free agency with a torn labrum. That deal was $10MM/year. The going rate for signing such a QB, when it's Darnold's turn after the new CBA, will be 4x that. The salary cap hasn't proportionally gone up 4-fold since Brees signed that deal in 2006, and won't within the next 2 either. The proportional equivalent would be 1.7x the $10MM/year contract Brees signed back in 2006. If we can get Darnold on an extension at $17MM/year, then I agree salary isn't a factor. Since it's likely to be at least double that amount, I don't agree it's a good comparison. Adding to the poor comparison, this was before the 2010 CBA that slotted rookie salaries much lower than 2006 (when Brees signed this) through the 2010 season. 

Eli Manning was in year 1 of a contract extension when he got his 2nd ring. His cap hit was $14.1MM on a $120MM cap. But even that's sort of an exception as it was year 1 of a new CBA that followed an uncapped season. I don't know all the ways it affected what every playoff/SB contender did in those 2010-2011 offseasons, but any Jets fan knows it wasn't nothing. Even with that unknown factor, new QB contracts are now proportionally some 50% higher than Eli's $14MM hit on a $120MM cap (under 12%). Take away a $7MM starter from that team - without cherry-picking the worst one in hindsight - and tell me their season still ends the same.

Roethlisberger's 2nd contract was an early extension that began in 2008. His base salary was artificially low that year, though, because it was still part of his rookie contract (only the SB was the new part for that season). His cap number would have been somewhere around $8.5-9.0MM on a $116MM ceiling (about 7.5% of the team's salary cap, or today's equivalent of $14-15MM). 2010 he only had a cap number about $2MM higher, in what was an uncapped year anyway, but with a loose guideline of $120MM; still about 8%. Again, if we could extend Darnold for 8% of the team's cap, it's a different conversation.

It's not just rookie vs veteran contracts, it's lower percentage vs higher percentage of the team's salary cap. Most of the players you listed had half the cap hit or less, in their SB seasons, than Darnold's new baseline will be. 

There are other examples of very cheap QBs - whether on slotted rookie contracts or not - being a huge help (Wentz/Foles, Goff, Flacco, Smith/Kaepernick, ffs even Rex Grossman, and in a week we may find also Mariota/Tannehill added to the list). It's a greater proportion than one thinks, particularly in the AFC, since there's only one cheating Tom Brady and only one Peyton Manning. 

I appreciate your thoughtful response. While I realize you were trying to refute my examples, I think it essentially re-enforces the main point I was making. 

On Sunday we saw two games, one had the two best bargains at QB facing one another. The other had two of the highest paid QBs in the game. 

The one thing almost all of these playoff teams have in common is that they have really good QB play. There is a reason this position gets paid so much. But worrying about the rookie window is a useless exercise.

Consider: The early numbers being put up by Mahomes, Watson, Jackson, etc are going to force these AFC playoff teams to set salary records paying their guys.  Sam Darnold is not nearly on pace to command that kind of team share of salary and as long as his performance is trending in the right direction, the Jets could do very well for themselves extending him for a lot less when these other guys reset the market.
You have to keep in mind that every team is dealing with this dynamic and Sam's slower start can actually be a long-term benefit for the franchise.   

And if Sam takes a giant leap forward in 2020 and passes for over 4000 yards and 30 TDs with less than 10 INTS?  Wow, what a great problem we would have.

[Smashmouth]

4 hours ago, Jetsfan80 said:

 

 

Can you blame him for that perspective?  He got duped by schmucks like Pennington and Sanchez. 

Of course he now thinks its a total crapshoot, rather than a matter of his own ability to parse out the information that matters when projecting a QB's future success.  

We don't have a surefire way of predicting which QB's will be awesome.  But we certainly can determine the sh*tty ones well in advance.  Mark Sanchez was inaccuarate and lacked college experience; the 2 most important factors to determine a failure at QB.  Hence he was a guaranteed failure.  But it took some longer than others to figure that out. 

Being able to rule out certain QB's is pretty damn important.  It prevents you from investing in guys like Christian Hackenberg.

Both QB's showed flashes of Promise Sanchez did well in the playoffs and showed he could come back in games in his 3rd season I honestly think we ruined him by continuously changing his WR's and never letting him build anything or get used to anything. He showed he played well in the hurry up but it was never implemented because Rexy figured that might have an effect on his Defensive stats. 

Pennington was just broken by Injury because his first year starting he turned our season around from a 1-4 start and made the playoffs only to get beat by a better team in the Raiders in the playoffs.

So I'm not going to bash those guys for things that were out of their control.

That being said 90% of what a QB does is in his head and his work ethic, neither of which can be tested until they start playing real games in the NFL. Some of these college players if not all of these college players never feel any pressure until they reach that next level and most just crumble. Imagine how many QB's never make it to the NFL who might just have that "X factor" but we'll never know. Joe Montana was drafted in the 3rd round Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round because they just didn't look the part how wrong the entire NFL was on those guys and how wrong they are on guys with tremendous physical talent who just don't have the brain power to deal with pressure, does not mean they are stupid in any way its just a certain way the brain needs to process information as an NFL QB that these guys have never faced in their lives and only a select few can actually do it at an elite or even very good level. 

So yes its always a crap Shoot based on the one unknown that always makes a great QB.

[Sonny Werblin]

8 hours ago, Matt39 said:

Wilson  was 24 his rookie season. Unless it's a Weinke type of situation I dont see how the age is overly relevant.The contract starts once you enter the league, regardless of age. There's no redshirting. 

Playing time matters. By the time Wilson was 24 and a rookie in the NFL he had been the starter for almost 3 full seasons at NC State and another full season at Wisconsin. He was essentially a 4 year starter before he entered the NFL.

Burrows will be older than Darnold and has only one year of starting experience in college. Was it a dream season? Who knows?  The kid was in college for 5 years and there ain’t much tape of those first 4 years. He may be a HOFer. But, if you pick him, you’d better damn well do your work to figure out why things did not work out for him until he got to LSU.

BTW, i think he looked great, but sometimes a season happens where you catch lightening in a bottle and you can never replicate your success. 

[CTM]

6 hours ago, Sperm Edwards said:

But yeah I remember it well (though I remember it being a closer split, it hardly matters). It was largely seen as a coin toss. Seems amazing in hindsight, to those who weren't really following it in real time, but there was no obvious consensus for Manning back then -- except among people who are after-the-fact liars. 

So you admit 1/2 the people liked Manning but anyone claiming so is an after the fact liar ?  Is that what that says ?

[Sperm Edwards]

19 hours ago, y2k8 said:

I appreciate your thoughtful response. While I realize you were trying to refute my examples, I think it essentially re-enforces the main point I was making. 

On Sunday we saw two games, one had the two best bargains at QB facing one another. The other had two of the highest paid QBs in the game. 

The one thing almost all of these playoff teams have in common is that they have really good QB play. There is a reason this position gets paid so much. But worrying about the rookie window is a useless exercise.

Consider: The early numbers being put up by Mahomes, Watson, Jackson, etc are going to force these AFC playoff teams to set salary records paying their guys.  Sam Darnold is not nearly on pace to command that kind of team share of salary and as long as his performance is trending in the right direction, the Jets could do very well for themselves extending him for a lot less when these other guys reset the market.
You have to keep in mind that every team is dealing with this dynamic and Sam's slower start can actually be a long-term benefit for the franchise.   

And if Sam takes a giant leap forward in 2020 and passes for over 4000 yards and 30 TDs with less than 10 INTS?  Wow, what a great problem we would have.

I started a reply yesterday but got sidetracked.

Even with my prior comment, lengthy as it is, I do believe there's something to be said for bird in hand. 

I'm not as concerned about Burrow's arm strength. Average is good enough. Watson doesn't even have that and he was one of the league's best young QBs almost immediately. It's a nice thing to have, because there will be some passes one can make that the other can't, but you're talking about a very low percentage of pass attempts.

I'll tell one thing that concerns me about him, though. Opinions and future predictions on skill aside, how much has Burrow gotten hit (and how much has he been hit really badly)? Once he starts getting punished weekly, like an NFL QB whose talent doesn't overmatch almost every (if not every) opponent, will he have Bradford's career?

While an extreme example, Bradford isn't exactly a puny guy yet it's obvious his body hasn't held up well. Sure he got injured his junior year before getting drafted, but he didn't get injured until he first got injured, if you catch my drift (channeling my inner Booger McF here). Despite 2 prior years of being a model of good health as starter, which is comparable to Burrow's experience to date, since that 3rd year starting at Oklahoma he's been a walking injury report for most of his time since. 

Also yes he's not been challenged by lesser talent on his side of the ball going up against formidable talent on the defenses he's faced. It's a concern, even though the consensus is he'll be an excellent pro. While I've no reason to believe otherwise, it's not the same as being tested the same way others have been. Same rationale used why teams don't typically draft Division 3 QBs with a #1 pick (granted, another extreme example, but it's to make a point about being challenged the same as one's drafted peers).

[Sperm Edwards]

15 hours ago, CTM said:

So you admit 1/2 the people liked Manning but anyone claiming so is an after the fact liar ?  Is that what that says ?

No -- that people now saying there never was really a decision to be made, and that it was actually obvious even at the time. There are some of them around.

[section314]

I remember the year people were debating who should go #1, Drew Bledsoe or Rick Mirer? Ah, the good ol days.?

[Philc1]

1 minute ago, section314 said:

I remember the year people were debating who should go #1, Drew Bledsoe or Rick Mirer? Ah, the good ol days.?

Remember when Bill Parcells got rid of Glenn Foley in favor of Rick Mirer two weeks before Vinny got hurt? Ah, the good ol days