April 29, 2021 • 22 mins
Coach Billick looks into the process of corporate recruiting with guest Aubree Jones and compares the similarities that Fortune 500 companies use to recruit talent to that of the NFL Draft. Bill Polian discusses the choice between Ryan Leaf and Peyton Manning, and Ozzie Newsome relates his decisions on his first-round QB picks of Kyle Boller, Joe Flacco, and Lamar Jackson. Coach Billick also looks at the precarious selections of late first-round QB picks.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Brian Billick, and this is the Q factor. It
proved informative to visit with business professionals who navigate this
process every day. Aubrey Jones is a senior director of
a multibillion dollar retailer, with her primary responsibility being in
talent acquisition. Most consistently, though, where hires had failed is when, um,
(00:27):
they're not a culture fits and sometimes it's really hard
to figure out how to build an algorithm around culture.
The culture is ultimately your competitive advantage. Bill Polian and
Jim Mora had the first overall pick and made the
(00:48):
pick of Peyton Manning, and it's worth revisiting what led
them to the final correct choice of taking Peyton Manning.
We looked at all the tape there was to look at,
and finally Jim Moore and I were coming back from
the workout and I said to Jim, you know what
(01:08):
a form of down two is? This? Peyton Manning shows
us everything that we believe is necessary to the chief
success in the national football altius for our entire careers. UM,
Bryan leafs as a question mark in a lot of areas.
If we don't go h with Peyton Manning, we're going
(01:28):
against the very things we've stood for throughout our careers,
the very convictions that that our careers have patums. There's
no position in sports more important or challenging to fill
than that of an NFL quarterback. We propose to follow
a small group of prospects their skills, stats, and character traits,
(01:51):
and track their performance and circumstances to see if we
could uncover patterns of what separates great from merely very
good to an outright bust, and to determine why this
process has failed so often, maybe even identifying a formula
that translates into identifying quarterback types in fields beyond the
football field. This is the Q Factor, Episode three, How
(02:15):
Did We Get Here? Part two? As we navigate through
this litany of abilities versus process in choosing the most
valuable asset any organization has in the NFL It's quarterback,
it proved informative to visit with business professionals who navigate
this process every day. Aubrey Jones is a senior director
(02:35):
of a multibillion dollar retailer, with her primary responsibility being
in talent acquisition. Her corporate view of navigating this process
of highly valued, highly compensated talent sounds like the kind
of conversation that should be going on in every draft
room around the NFL. You know, our talent acquisition is
as competitive a space as it feels like drafting a quarterback.
(02:58):
And there's a foundational algorithm in terms of some non
negotiables that that go into that equation. So you know
with people, we're talking cognitive ability, leadership capability, technical experience,
and so there's an algorithm that goes into that. And
you wait each of those things in a in a
certain way, and some of that's going to come from
(03:20):
the quantitative review of the candidate, and some of that
is going to come through the qualitative review, right, and UM,
you have to you have to marry those two things
and and sort of decide within that algorithm. First, what
are your guiding principles? Right? What goes into the algorithm?
What weight does it play? You're gonna have several different
(03:42):
data points, does one carry more than the other? And
then within those guiding principles, you really have to think about, Okay,
when any one of those data points are challenged, what
are non negotiables? Because you've historically seen it play out
between success, promotability, UM, retention, which is the return on
your investment. So you have to you have to really
(04:04):
understand where are you willing to negotiate your your algorithm
and where are you willing to show some flexibility by
you know, sort of laying both that quantitative and qualitative algorithm.
That's that's going to be sort of multifaceted. The idea
of creating these filters and and those points that are
(04:25):
non negotiable should resonate with every talent evaluator in every
NFL draft room, because that's got to be the core
where these decisions are made. And and so how do
you develop these filters and these non negotiable points in
choosing a high talented position like the quarterback position? Yeah,
(04:46):
I mean, I think honestly, it's it's doing the foundational
homework first, right, So it's let's look at the history
of the algorithm. Let's look at how has this played
out when we've made decisions in the past, and really
banking that and and that being the groundwork for saying
what works and what doesn't work. Where have we, you know,
gone against our gut and where did that play out
(05:09):
for us? And and and where did it you know,
where did we succeed and where did we fail? And
where where you know, where can we learn from that? Um?
When when you have that foundational history laid right, then
you lay around like, okay, what are my current objectives?
And really your current objectives are laid in a hopefully
multi year strategy UM to say, okay, how does my
(05:31):
history ladder up to where it is today? And then
how am I using that that algorithm which should hopefully
stand somewhat the test of that time? Um, how do
I how do I apply that to be able to
at least get me to the right filter? And now
this sounds like textbook in terms of the criteria, the algorithms,
the process, the filters, whatever terms you want to use,
(05:54):
and identifying the talents and attributes you're looking forward a quarterback.
But as we've also heard over the last few episodes,
is that there is a warping effect from outside influences,
the human aspect of it, that affect these decisions, do
they not? It is and there's usually there's usually reasons
(06:14):
for it. Right speed, the you know, the need is great, um,
and hey, it's better to be fast and slow, but
it's better to be slow than wrong. And you know
there's something in between there. So it's usually speed, um
cost um, the fact that you do have multiple people
in this decision making process. So it's not just your UM,
(06:37):
you know, your your player personnelit people and the akin
to in my retail world, your talent acquisition folks, it's
it's it's your coach, it's your position coast, it's your
hiring manager, um and listen, they have a need and
if they meet someone that they like and that they
can connect with and that they can see working with them,
it takes that supporting team to say, Okay, hang on,
let me zoom out for you and sort of present
(06:59):
the whole case so that you're seeing this not just
from the lens of your one conversation. But but what
we can do is we can say, here the seven
conversations they had, and here are the consistencies and the feedback.
Here are the data points that we're looking at. Here
are the other profiles that we've looked at. Here's why
we have or haven't hired them. Here's a similar profile
that already works for you. How's that working out? So
(07:22):
you know, you have to have the infrastructure around the
person who is ultimately either making the decision or you know,
saying I want this person, I don't care what you say. Um,
you have to have the infrastructure around that decision making
because there's gonna be a lot of factors that that
make you want to sacrifice sacrifice those principles, and it's
it's usually time and money. The process is also affected
(07:45):
by the level that you're hiring at. Certainly, hiring the
rank and file at any corporation is important, but the
process is different if you're talking about bringing on a CEO,
a CFO, a major director in the company, just like
the equivalent of bringing on a quarterback, that has a
heightened value in terms of what the organization is needing.
(08:10):
What's interesting is that, um, the complexity is there because
at the more junior levels, you're also assessing potential because
if you're really going to get the return on investment
on that more junior person, that person is going to
stay with you and that at some point they're going
to lead part of the organization. So in some ways
you're using the more senior level algorithm and and and
(08:31):
sort of philosophy on more junior person because again, you
want to avoid the need decision making, right you want
to grow from within, you want to promote from within. Yes,
sometimes you have to go out and you have to
buy a certain sort of experiences. So the guiding principles
and the and them, the sort of factors that go
into the equation are actually similar because at the junior
(08:52):
levels it's potential. At the more senior levels, it's it's
demonstrating results, right, and so it's it's a little more
complicated did um at the senior levels because when you
have access to more information, you have a longer body
of work, UM, you have more more examples that you
can you can lean into, you have more success, you
also have more failure UM. And hey, by the way,
(09:16):
those decisions at those levels are much more high stakes, right.
You're paying six figures sometimes seven on those decisions. And
by the way, the expectation on the return of the
investments a lot faster for the person who's coming out
of school, you know, making seventy whatever the number is, UM,
you know, the burnout right on faster. Okay, well we
(09:39):
lost a year and we lost fifty grand, you'd make
the mistake at the more senior levels or the organization, Well,
we actually lost a year, We lost a million dollars
and we actually set ourselves back strategically. Miss Jones had
a great term for when the process overwhelmed the selection,
when you deviate from the criteria that you've set for
(10:03):
any of the reasons we've outlined, whether it particularly being
need as we know Need as a terrible evaluator, that
leads to these types of mistakes. But I think the
situations that have failed the fastest is where we've had
the candidate lead the process versus us lead the candidate
through the process. And usually that happens when you're either
(10:27):
uncomfortable or afraid of making a decision and listening to
these multiple factors that typically lead to a mistake, whether
it be in the corporate world or whether it pertains
to taking any position, let alone a quarterback position in
the NFL. But as fraught as that process is, with
all those problems, there's still one overwriting issue that each
(10:52):
organization has to address first or they have no chance
of evaluating this process accurately. Most consistently, though, where hires
have failed is when, um, they're not a culture fit.
And sometimes it's really hard to figure out how to
(11:13):
build an algorithm around culture. The culture is ultimately your
competitive advantage. So companies have to figure out how to
measure it so that they can assess that fits as
much as they can technical experience, cognitive ability, because culture,
(11:33):
cultural assimilation, the speed at which with that can happen,
culture building, culture preparedness. Whether you're the assistant who just
got out of school and they're starting or the CEO
that's being put into the position, they have impact on culture.
You have to be able to measure that. And the
candidates who have failed coming in are those who were
(11:54):
not good cultural fits. And again, it's all those things
that I explained that that let us go stray on
on our convictions behind leaders that we know that would
be successful and would help build and prepare our culture.
Everything that we've just outlined displayed itself in the draft
class that included Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. We've already
(12:18):
alluded to that draft, and let's remember that these two
athletes were both very highly rated. Of course, in hindsight,
there's any number of people that say, oh, no, no,
I knew Ryan Leaf wasn't going to be very good,
and they're lying through their teeth. He was very highly rated,
and these players were as we used to say touching.
There are some people that thought Peyton Manning had tapped
(12:39):
out at his abilities because of his pedigree where he
came from, the way he was coached, that he was
about as good as he was going to be, and
that Ryan Leaf had a much bigger upside. And so
all the processes that we were just talking about came
into play in terms of the selection of Peyton Manning
versus Ryan Leaf. And of course Bill pole In and
(13:01):
Jim Mora had the first overall pick and made the
pick of Peyton Manning. And it's worth revisiting what led
them to the final correct choice of taking Peyton Manning.
I think the answer to that is yes. And I'll
share this this anecdote with you. Um. You know the
Peyton Manning Ryan Leaf choice. Uh, hard choice, I asked Bill.
(13:26):
The Bill rolls the way in. He took a look.
He was he had his opinion, which I valued very highly.
We looked at all the tape there was to look at,
and finally Jim Moore and I were coming back from
the workout and I said to Jim, you know what
it boils down to is this Peyton Manning shows us
(13:47):
everything that we believe is necessary to achieve success in
the National Football League, both of us for our entire careers.
Um Ryan leafs as a question mark in a lot
of areas. If we don't go uh with Peyton Manning,
we're going against the very things we've stood for throughout
our careers, the very convictions that that our careers have
(14:09):
taught us. So in the end, UH, if that's called
going with your gut, that's fine by me. I think
it's more staying with the principles and the convictions that
you have about the position and making the choice that way,
rather than being um stampeded by by outside influence or
(14:30):
noise or whatever whatever you want to call it. I
would be remiss if at this point I didn't revisit
my personal experience in this process at drafting a first
round quarterback. In our case, it was in two thousand
three with Kyle Boehler. And I've always said there's two
things They're gonna get you fired quick in there in
anything else in the National Football League as a head coach,
(14:52):
one missing on a first round choice at quarterback. Secondly,
is not making a first round pick of quarterback and
that quarterback going on to be pretty good. In two
thousand three, it was a fairly rich quarterback environment. There
were four quarterbacks, Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, and
(15:13):
Rex Grossman. Carson Palmer was clearly the number one pick
Cincinnati had made that evident from the get going, and
went on and had a solid career in the National
Football League. Left Wich, Bowler, and Grossman left which going
at seven, Bowler to US at the Ravens at nineteen,
and then Rex Grossman going to the Chicago Bears at
twenty two. In hindsight, when you look through the filters
(15:36):
that we've just talked about, all should have likely fallen
to be maybe early second round picks. But because of need,
and as we've said, need is a terrible evaluator, these
quarterbacks got pulled up into the early part of the
first round. Of course, Kyle Boehler ended up not working
out for us. It's a young man that had all
(15:58):
the attributes checked, all the box is, but was the
ultimate in the whole didn't equal to some of the parts,
or the some of the parts didn't equal the whole.
Ozzy Knewsom, who was a part of drafting three such quarterbacks,
Kyle Bowler, Joe Flacco, and Lamar Jackson obviously all with
different results. As an outstanding perspective in terms of the
(16:21):
process of evaluating and procuring all three quarterbacks. Well, if
you go back to Kyle, you know, I remember us,
you know, being in California going to work out him,
you and feel and uh, we liked the athleticism. We
saw the big arm, you know, and we had to plan.
(16:42):
And the plan was, you know what, we were going
to run the football and we were gonna throw out
and when they didn't, they took away the house. You know,
then you know what, we run the football. We either
go make him play you know, seven or eight in
the box. And if they did that, we was going
through it. And and Kyle had the big arm, he
had everything else, but he lacked some accuracy. You know,
(17:03):
in order to be a solid quarterback in this league,
you have to be accurate. When it came to Joe,
it still was the same thing. Uh, you know, we
still had the same model that we were looking at.
And you know, a guy with a big arm. Joe
was a lot more accurate than uh than Kyle walth
(17:24):
which it showed up, uh, but didn't have that maybe
the personality that that Kyle didn't. So he needed some
strong people around him to help him to carry him through. Uh,
you know, not from a middle stand but just from
a leadership standpoint. And then you get to Lamar, and
Lamar was differ than the three of them, the two
(17:48):
of them, and you know, he had some accuracy issues, okay, okay,
but he he was a great leader. He was a
very humble guy. But we felt like Lamar had upside,
you know, that hadn't really been tapped. And so you know,
it was a consistus of everybody in the room, Let's
(18:09):
get this guy a chance. Okay. But I think what
we've seen with Lamar is they've decided to shuffle the
deck into Lamar's favor and say, Okay, we're not going
to change him to be a West Coast quarterback. We're
gonna allow him to be Lamar, you know, And I
think that's what the difference is. Of course, this was
not an isolated instance where need was a primary driver
(18:32):
in the decision to take a quarterback this high. It's
happened repeatedly throughout the NFL. The most recent comes to
mind is in two thousand eleven, which was the draft
in which Cam Newton was taking number one overall, again
kind of a choice that was outside the algorithm or
the matrix of the time, and that he brought a
(18:53):
skill set that really hadn't flourished in the National Football League,
that of a big, physical running quarterback that could be sustained.
And the Carolina Panthers obviously hit pay dirt in taking
Cam Newton and thinking outside the box and doing so.
The other three quarterbacks taken in the first round that
year were number eight Jake Locker, who went to the
Tennessee Titans, Number ten Blame Gabbert who went to the
(19:16):
Jacksonville Jaguars, and number twelve Christian Ponder who went to
the Minnesota Vikings. Each were with teams that had an
over whelming need at the quarterback position and pulled these
quarterbacks up from what probably should have been late first
round or probably second round picks. It's noteworthy that the
(19:38):
pick of that draft was Andy Dalton, a second round
pick who's had a solid career with the Cincinnati Bengals
for years and is at a level where probably Locker, Gabbert,
and Ponder probably should have been taken. I mentioned earlier
that well they maybe should have fallen to the latter
round or the louder picks in the first round. But
(19:59):
in look at that history, you've got to look long
and hard before you decide to take someone because they
fall to that latter part of the first round for
a reason, they fall out of the early part of
the first round for whatever reasons, people isolate and probably
rightfully so and maybe shouldn't be first round picks, or
because of need, they get drawn up out of the
(20:20):
second round. Now there are some exceptions. You look at
Aaron Rodgers, who is twenty four overall in two thousand
five uh. And you can look at Lamar Jackson clearly
most recently part of our two thousand eighteen group, that
clearly her showing that they can be spectacular quarterbacks. But
when you look at the list of quarterbacks over the
last twenty years, taken from twenty to thirty two in
(20:42):
the first round, it's a who's who of mistakes, from
JP Lossman to Brady Quinn, Brandon Wheaton, Johnny Manzel, Jason Campbell,
Tim Tebow, Paxton lynch Uh, Patrick Ramsey, Teddy Bridge. Wall
Water is still one that we're deciding whether he can
play or not. Now, Drew Brees is in that selection,
but he was actually the first pick of the second
(21:03):
round due to a forfeited pick during the course of
the draft. So this idea that well, we'll just take
this quarterback later in the first round, Well, if he's
going to drop later into the first round, there's probably
a good reason why he is dropping to that position.
So we've spent these past three episodes identifying how we
got here, what the process is, what has worked and
(21:27):
what hasn't worked, and the criteria we should be looking
at in making these decisions. In the episodes to follow,
we're gonna do a deep dive about what is it
about the quarterback position that makes it so unique and
so hard to identify. We're gonna look at how you
need to extrapolate from a fixed set of data into
(21:49):
an area that can't always be quantified just by the data,
and we'll do that via our sample class of the
two thousand eighteen quarterback draft class that include u Baker Mayfield,
Sam Donald, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Lamar Jackson. And
then finally we'll look as if the game is actually
(22:10):
changing and have the parameters changed as to how we
should look at these quarterbacks. The Q Factor and the
Q Factor Audio Book are available online and wherever books
are sold.
I'm Brian Billick, and this is the Q factor. It
proved informative to visit with business professionals who navigate this
process every day. Aubrey Jones is a senior director of
a multibillion dollar retailer, with her primary responsibility being in
talent acquisition. Most consistently, though, where hires had failed is when, um,
(00:27):
they're not a culture fits and sometimes it's really hard
to figure out how to build an algorithm around culture.
The culture is ultimately your competitive advantage. Bill Polian and
Jim Mora had the first overall pick and made the
(00:48):
pick of Peyton Manning, and it's worth revisiting what led
them to the final correct choice of taking Peyton Manning.
We looked at all the tape there was to look at,
and finally Jim Moore and I were coming back from
the workout and I said to Jim, you know what
(01:08):
a form of down two is? This? Peyton Manning shows
us everything that we believe is necessary to the chief
success in the national football altius for our entire careers. UM,
Bryan leafs as a question mark in a lot of areas.
If we don't go h with Peyton Manning, we're going
(01:28):
against the very things we've stood for throughout our careers,
the very convictions that that our careers have patums. There's
no position in sports more important or challenging to fill
than that of an NFL quarterback. We propose to follow
a small group of prospects their skills, stats, and character traits,
(01:51):
and track their performance and circumstances to see if we
could uncover patterns of what separates great from merely very
good to an outright bust, and to determine why this
process has failed so often, maybe even identifying a formula
that translates into identifying quarterback types in fields beyond the
football field. This is the Q Factor, Episode three, How
(02:15):
Did We Get Here? Part two? As we navigate through
this litany of abilities versus process in choosing the most
valuable asset any organization has in the NFL It's quarterback,
it proved informative to visit with business professionals who navigate
this process every day. Aubrey Jones is a senior director
(02:35):
of a multibillion dollar retailer, with her primary responsibility being
in talent acquisition. Her corporate view of navigating this process
of highly valued, highly compensated talent sounds like the kind
of conversation that should be going on in every draft
room around the NFL. You know, our talent acquisition is
as competitive a space as it feels like drafting a quarterback.
(02:58):
And there's a foundational algorithm in terms of some non
negotiables that that go into that equation. So you know
with people, we're talking cognitive ability, leadership capability, technical experience,
and so there's an algorithm that goes into that. And
you wait each of those things in a in a
certain way, and some of that's going to come from
(03:20):
the quantitative review of the candidate, and some of that
is going to come through the qualitative review, right, and UM,
you have to you have to marry those two things
and and sort of decide within that algorithm. First, what
are your guiding principles? Right? What goes into the algorithm?
What weight does it play? You're gonna have several different
(03:42):
data points, does one carry more than the other? And
then within those guiding principles, you really have to think about, Okay,
when any one of those data points are challenged, what
are non negotiables? Because you've historically seen it play out
between success, promotability, UM, retention, which is the return on
your investment. So you have to you have to really
(04:04):
understand where are you willing to negotiate your your algorithm
and where are you willing to show some flexibility by
you know, sort of laying both that quantitative and qualitative algorithm.
That's that's going to be sort of multifaceted. The idea
of creating these filters and and those points that are
(04:25):
non negotiable should resonate with every talent evaluator in every
NFL draft room, because that's got to be the core
where these decisions are made. And and so how do
you develop these filters and these non negotiable points in
choosing a high talented position like the quarterback position? Yeah,
(04:46):
I mean, I think honestly, it's it's doing the foundational
homework first, right, So it's let's look at the history
of the algorithm. Let's look at how has this played
out when we've made decisions in the past, and really
banking that and and that being the groundwork for saying
what works and what doesn't work. Where have we, you know,
gone against our gut and where did that play out
(05:09):
for us? And and and where did it you know,
where did we succeed and where did we fail? And
where where you know, where can we learn from that? Um?
When when you have that foundational history laid right, then
you lay around like, okay, what are my current objectives?
And really your current objectives are laid in a hopefully
multi year strategy UM to say, okay, how does my
(05:31):
history ladder up to where it is today? And then
how am I using that that algorithm which should hopefully
stand somewhat the test of that time? Um, how do
I how do I apply that to be able to
at least get me to the right filter? And now
this sounds like textbook in terms of the criteria, the algorithms,
the process, the filters, whatever terms you want to use,
(05:54):
and identifying the talents and attributes you're looking forward a quarterback.
But as we've also heard over the last few episodes,
is that there is a warping effect from outside influences,
the human aspect of it, that affect these decisions, do
they not? It is and there's usually there's usually reasons
(06:14):
for it. Right speed, the you know, the need is great, um,
and hey, it's better to be fast and slow, but
it's better to be slow than wrong. And you know
there's something in between there. So it's usually speed, um
cost um, the fact that you do have multiple people
in this decision making process. So it's not just your UM,
(06:37):
you know, your your player personnelit people and the akin
to in my retail world, your talent acquisition folks, it's
it's it's your coach, it's your position coast, it's your
hiring manager, um and listen, they have a need and
if they meet someone that they like and that they
can connect with and that they can see working with them,
it takes that supporting team to say, Okay, hang on,
let me zoom out for you and sort of present
(06:59):
the whole case so that you're seeing this not just
from the lens of your one conversation. But but what
we can do is we can say, here the seven
conversations they had, and here are the consistencies and the feedback.
Here are the data points that we're looking at. Here
are the other profiles that we've looked at. Here's why
we have or haven't hired them. Here's a similar profile
that already works for you. How's that working out? So
(07:22):
you know, you have to have the infrastructure around the
person who is ultimately either making the decision or you know,
saying I want this person, I don't care what you say. Um,
you have to have the infrastructure around that decision making
because there's gonna be a lot of factors that that
make you want to sacrifice sacrifice those principles, and it's
it's usually time and money. The process is also affected
(07:45):
by the level that you're hiring at. Certainly, hiring the
rank and file at any corporation is important, but the
process is different if you're talking about bringing on a CEO,
a CFO, a major director in the company, just like
the equivalent of bringing on a quarterback, that has a
heightened value in terms of what the organization is needing.
(08:10):
What's interesting is that, um, the complexity is there because
at the more junior levels, you're also assessing potential because
if you're really going to get the return on investment
on that more junior person, that person is going to
stay with you and that at some point they're going
to lead part of the organization. So in some ways
you're using the more senior level algorithm and and and
(08:31):
sort of philosophy on more junior person because again, you
want to avoid the need decision making, right you want
to grow from within, you want to promote from within. Yes,
sometimes you have to go out and you have to
buy a certain sort of experiences. So the guiding principles
and the and them, the sort of factors that go
into the equation are actually similar because at the junior
(08:52):
levels it's potential. At the more senior levels, it's it's
demonstrating results, right, and so it's it's a little more
complicated did um at the senior levels because when you
have access to more information, you have a longer body
of work, UM, you have more more examples that you
can you can lean into, you have more success, you
also have more failure UM. And hey, by the way,
(09:16):
those decisions at those levels are much more high stakes, right.
You're paying six figures sometimes seven on those decisions. And
by the way, the expectation on the return of the
investments a lot faster for the person who's coming out
of school, you know, making seventy whatever the number is, UM,
you know, the burnout right on faster. Okay, well we
(09:39):
lost a year and we lost fifty grand, you'd make
the mistake at the more senior levels or the organization, Well,
we actually lost a year, We lost a million dollars
and we actually set ourselves back strategically. Miss Jones had
a great term for when the process overwhelmed the selection,
when you deviate from the criteria that you've set for
(10:03):
any of the reasons we've outlined, whether it particularly being
need as we know Need as a terrible evaluator, that
leads to these types of mistakes. But I think the
situations that have failed the fastest is where we've had
the candidate lead the process versus us lead the candidate
through the process. And usually that happens when you're either
(10:27):
uncomfortable or afraid of making a decision and listening to
these multiple factors that typically lead to a mistake, whether
it be in the corporate world or whether it pertains
to taking any position, let alone a quarterback position in
the NFL. But as fraught as that process is, with
all those problems, there's still one overwriting issue that each
(10:52):
organization has to address first or they have no chance
of evaluating this process accurately. Most consistently, though, where hires
have failed is when, um, they're not a culture fit.
And sometimes it's really hard to figure out how to
(11:13):
build an algorithm around culture. The culture is ultimately your
competitive advantage. So companies have to figure out how to
measure it so that they can assess that fits as
much as they can technical experience, cognitive ability, because culture,
(11:33):
cultural assimilation, the speed at which with that can happen,
culture building, culture preparedness. Whether you're the assistant who just
got out of school and they're starting or the CEO
that's being put into the position, they have impact on culture.
You have to be able to measure that. And the
candidates who have failed coming in are those who were
(11:54):
not good cultural fits. And again, it's all those things
that I explained that that let us go stray on
on our convictions behind leaders that we know that would
be successful and would help build and prepare our culture.
Everything that we've just outlined displayed itself in the draft
class that included Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. We've already
(12:18):
alluded to that draft, and let's remember that these two
athletes were both very highly rated. Of course, in hindsight,
there's any number of people that say, oh, no, no,
I knew Ryan Leaf wasn't going to be very good,
and they're lying through their teeth. He was very highly rated,
and these players were as we used to say touching.
There are some people that thought Peyton Manning had tapped
(12:39):
out at his abilities because of his pedigree where he
came from, the way he was coached, that he was
about as good as he was going to be, and
that Ryan Leaf had a much bigger upside. And so
all the processes that we were just talking about came
into play in terms of the selection of Peyton Manning
versus Ryan Leaf. And of course Bill pole In and
(13:01):
Jim Mora had the first overall pick and made the
pick of Peyton Manning. And it's worth revisiting what led
them to the final correct choice of taking Peyton Manning.
I think the answer to that is yes. And I'll
share this this anecdote with you. Um. You know the
Peyton Manning Ryan Leaf choice. Uh, hard choice, I asked Bill.
(13:26):
The Bill rolls the way in. He took a look.
He was he had his opinion, which I valued very highly.
We looked at all the tape there was to look at,
and finally Jim Moore and I were coming back from
the workout and I said to Jim, you know what
it boils down to is this Peyton Manning shows us
(13:47):
everything that we believe is necessary to achieve success in
the National Football League, both of us for our entire careers.
Um Ryan leafs as a question mark in a lot
of areas. If we don't go uh with Peyton Manning,
we're going against the very things we've stood for throughout
our careers, the very convictions that that our careers have
(14:09):
taught us. So in the end, UH, if that's called
going with your gut, that's fine by me. I think
it's more staying with the principles and the convictions that
you have about the position and making the choice that way,
rather than being um stampeded by by outside influence or
(14:30):
noise or whatever whatever you want to call it. I
would be remiss if at this point I didn't revisit
my personal experience in this process at drafting a first
round quarterback. In our case, it was in two thousand
three with Kyle Boehler. And I've always said there's two
things They're gonna get you fired quick in there in
anything else in the National Football League as a head coach,
(14:52):
one missing on a first round choice at quarterback. Secondly,
is not making a first round pick of quarterback and
that quarterback going on to be pretty good. In two
thousand three, it was a fairly rich quarterback environment. There
were four quarterbacks, Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, and
(15:13):
Rex Grossman. Carson Palmer was clearly the number one pick
Cincinnati had made that evident from the get going, and
went on and had a solid career in the National
Football League. Left Wich, Bowler, and Grossman left which going
at seven, Bowler to US at the Ravens at nineteen,
and then Rex Grossman going to the Chicago Bears at
twenty two. In hindsight, when you look through the filters
(15:36):
that we've just talked about, all should have likely fallen
to be maybe early second round picks. But because of need,
and as we've said, need is a terrible evaluator, these
quarterbacks got pulled up into the early part of the
first round. Of course, Kyle Boehler ended up not working
out for us. It's a young man that had all
(15:58):
the attributes checked, all the box is, but was the
ultimate in the whole didn't equal to some of the parts,
or the some of the parts didn't equal the whole.
Ozzy Knewsom, who was a part of drafting three such quarterbacks,
Kyle Bowler, Joe Flacco, and Lamar Jackson obviously all with
different results. As an outstanding perspective in terms of the
(16:21):
process of evaluating and procuring all three quarterbacks. Well, if
you go back to Kyle, you know, I remember us,
you know, being in California going to work out him,
you and feel and uh, we liked the athleticism. We
saw the big arm, you know, and we had to plan.
(16:42):
And the plan was, you know what, we were going
to run the football and we were gonna throw out
and when they didn't, they took away the house. You know,
then you know what, we run the football. We either
go make him play you know, seven or eight in
the box. And if they did that, we was going
through it. And and Kyle had the big arm, he
had everything else, but he lacked some accuracy. You know,
(17:03):
in order to be a solid quarterback in this league,
you have to be accurate. When it came to Joe,
it still was the same thing. Uh, you know, we
still had the same model that we were looking at.
And you know, a guy with a big arm. Joe
was a lot more accurate than uh than Kyle walth
(17:24):
which it showed up, uh, but didn't have that maybe
the personality that that Kyle didn't. So he needed some
strong people around him to help him to carry him through. Uh,
you know, not from a middle stand but just from
a leadership standpoint. And then you get to Lamar, and
Lamar was differ than the three of them, the two
(17:48):
of them, and you know, he had some accuracy issues, okay, okay,
but he he was a great leader. He was a
very humble guy. But we felt like Lamar had upside,
you know, that hadn't really been tapped. And so you know,
it was a consistus of everybody in the room, Let's
(18:09):
get this guy a chance. Okay. But I think what
we've seen with Lamar is they've decided to shuffle the
deck into Lamar's favor and say, Okay, we're not going
to change him to be a West Coast quarterback. We're
gonna allow him to be Lamar, you know, And I
think that's what the difference is. Of course, this was
not an isolated instance where need was a primary driver
(18:32):
in the decision to take a quarterback this high. It's
happened repeatedly throughout the NFL. The most recent comes to
mind is in two thousand eleven, which was the draft
in which Cam Newton was taking number one overall, again
kind of a choice that was outside the algorithm or
the matrix of the time, and that he brought a
(18:53):
skill set that really hadn't flourished in the National Football League,
that of a big, physical running quarterback that could be sustained.
And the Carolina Panthers obviously hit pay dirt in taking
Cam Newton and thinking outside the box and doing so.
The other three quarterbacks taken in the first round that
year were number eight Jake Locker, who went to the
Tennessee Titans, Number ten Blame Gabbert who went to the
(19:16):
Jacksonville Jaguars, and number twelve Christian Ponder who went to
the Minnesota Vikings. Each were with teams that had an
over whelming need at the quarterback position and pulled these
quarterbacks up from what probably should have been late first
round or probably second round picks. It's noteworthy that the
(19:38):
pick of that draft was Andy Dalton, a second round
pick who's had a solid career with the Cincinnati Bengals
for years and is at a level where probably Locker, Gabbert,
and Ponder probably should have been taken. I mentioned earlier
that well they maybe should have fallen to the latter
round or the louder picks in the first round. But
(19:59):
in look at that history, you've got to look long
and hard before you decide to take someone because they
fall to that latter part of the first round for
a reason, they fall out of the early part of
the first round for whatever reasons, people isolate and probably
rightfully so and maybe shouldn't be first round picks, or
because of need, they get drawn up out of the
(20:20):
second round. Now there are some exceptions. You look at
Aaron Rodgers, who is twenty four overall in two thousand
five uh. And you can look at Lamar Jackson clearly
most recently part of our two thousand eighteen group, that
clearly her showing that they can be spectacular quarterbacks. But
when you look at the list of quarterbacks over the
last twenty years, taken from twenty to thirty two in
(20:42):
the first round, it's a who's who of mistakes, from
JP Lossman to Brady Quinn, Brandon Wheaton, Johnny Manzel, Jason Campbell,
Tim Tebow, Paxton lynch Uh, Patrick Ramsey, Teddy Bridge. Wall
Water is still one that we're deciding whether he can
play or not. Now, Drew Brees is in that selection,
but he was actually the first pick of the second
(21:03):
round due to a forfeited pick during the course of
the draft. So this idea that well, we'll just take
this quarterback later in the first round, Well, if he's
going to drop later into the first round, there's probably
a good reason why he is dropping to that position.
So we've spent these past three episodes identifying how we
got here, what the process is, what has worked and
(21:27):
what hasn't worked, and the criteria we should be looking
at in making these decisions. In the episodes to follow,
we're gonna do a deep dive about what is it
about the quarterback position that makes it so unique and
so hard to identify. We're gonna look at how you
need to extrapolate from a fixed set of data into
(21:49):
an area that can't always be quantified just by the data,
and we'll do that via our sample class of the
two thousand eighteen quarterback draft class that include u Baker Mayfield,
Sam Donald, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Lamar Jackson. And
then finally we'll look as if the game is actually
(22:10):
changing and have the parameters changed as to how we
should look at these quarterbacks. The Q Factor and the
Q Factor Audio Book are available online and wherever books
are sold.
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