The Art of Drafting a QB

The quarterback touches the ball during every play, so it makes sense that teams would go to great lengths to find the right talent, especially when it comes to picking a QB during the Draft. On this episode of the NFL explained. podcast, Mike Yam and Michael Robinson talk about all the considerations that teams take into account under this special circumstance. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
NFL Explained is a production to the NFL in partnership
with I Heart Radio. It's a brand new addition to
the NFL Explained podcast. Mike yam joined as always by
my good friend Michael Robinson. I thought about you when
I was getting dressed this morning. What yeah, he hear

(00:28):
me out. You and I were doing the NFL Total
Access podcast together and I got made fun of for
not having large muscles, so I said I would wear
an extra small shirt the next time that we worked together.
I did not go down that path, but I believe me,
when I was putting the sweater on this morning, I
was like, do I go Do I go s medium?
And I was like, you know, no, I can do it. Yeah.

(00:48):
I thought you were gonna say, do I go do
some push ups? Or I didn't work out the smaller clothes.
I actually I actually worked out this morning, which is
part of the I felt swell swoll, So I thought
I could have, but I decided not to go down
that past. Legitimately excited for today's podcasting. By the way,

(01:11):
I always talk about the dms that are coming in
legit so many great questions. Mail bag episode was terrific.
We got more mail Bag episodes down the road. This
one I'm excited about because I think you are uniquely
qualified to discuss this topic. It's all about how to
draft a quarterback, why it's so hard to get it right.

(01:32):
But I'm gonna start with an old school cliche. Hardest
thing in sports is to hit a baseball. Are you
buying that or no? It's very tough to hit a baseball, dude,
like it is. But to me, what a quarterback has
to do to manipulate a defense, to be able to
read a defense, to be able to understand what the
offensive game plan is, to understand what the team game

(01:54):
plan is. Oh yeah, and you've got other three pound
grown men who run a four or five who are
trying to come rip your head off. That's tough, Yams,
That's really tough. And I had a coach one time, Mike,
and give us an example. We told us that we
passed around of football, and then we just talked about
what the football meant to us. And you start to
realize that football is everybody's hopes and dreams and everything

(02:16):
in The quarterback touches that damn thing every single play
that lets you know how important he is. To the team. Yeah,
this is not for this episode, but that's why to
win m v P is so hard if you're not
a quarterback. I actually think there's a case for some
guys that are not quarterbacks this year. You and I
have talked about that office that's for another episode. But
the argument, obviously playing quarterback being ridiculously hard to do

(02:40):
is really significant and in a lot of ways really valid.
There's so much information. You got analytics, you've got game film.
The hardest thing, though, to do is not maybe playing quarterback,
it's actually finding a quarterback and then drafting that person.
We just finished up we twelve of the NFL season.
There's so much hype and hooplat hype might be the

(03:02):
word hooplat is. I don't even know if hooplaws really
technic lee a word it is today about what's happening
in New York, right, I mean, Zach Wilson gets drafted
second overall and instead it's Mike White who goes in.
Wilson gets benched. I was listening to the NFL Network
insider Mike Arefolo talk about this on one of our shows,

(03:24):
and he said, no, man like this idea that Zach
Wilson might not be the quarterback anymore. The Jesse's like,
draft position matters, and that's why his time New York
might not be done at this point. But throwing the
football the idea of like boosting your stock, I mean,
Zach Wilson, I think back man, he's zapp b y you.
There was this past you know what I'm talking about.

(03:46):
There's this video that went viral before the draft. He's
rolling out and he's throwing him. Daniel Jeremiah had a
tweet and he's like, yo, Sam Donald did the same
thing in an actual NFL game. How much, though, do
you think moments like that impacted where Zack was taken
in the draft? Well, I think Zach Wilson, in his
agent and his pre draft team did a marvelous job

(04:09):
of a marketing Zach Wilson, of controlling his pro day
and making sure that you are situated the things that
maybe what's his special power, which is the arm angles
in the arm talent. But I remember that viral video
and I remember saying, yeah, I mean that's a really
good pass. He's kind of rolling to the left and
he kind of launched itn't it And he went all
the way back to the right. That's a that's a

(04:30):
big boy throw. But uh, can he read single safety,
middlefield safety open or not? Can he just hit three
steps and just hit the regular pass. That's what I
was interested in seeing. And at the end of the day,
when when you see these pro days and you see,
you know, especially today's quarterback and how today's Pro days
are manipulated by passing gurus and all of those things,

(04:53):
they're almost showing the offensive coaches exactly what they want
to see as opposed to showing maybe some of the
negative aspects of the quarterback that maybe we saw on
tape that maybe now that quarterback is better at I
also think we gravitate towards the big armed guys, like
I think back to Thanksgiving because you can see they

(05:15):
can see it exactly. Josh Allen makes a throw towards
the end of that game and David carrs working Thanksgiving
with David Carr, and David's like, watch this throw. It
never leaves the screen. And until he said that, I
was like, oh damn, he's right, Like, you don't see
throws like that. I saw this zip pass that's there.
But it's really fascinating and you've highlighted a lot of

(05:36):
these throws. It's not always about the the you know,
the hundred mile an hour fastball, getting back to baseball.
Sometimes it's that touch pass, that intermediate past. Like we've
highlighted some of those throws, and not every quarterback can
make that throw. And I think to your point, that's
really important. It is very important. And you know, yeams,
you know, I played a lot of different positions in
this game. You know, I blocked at a high level,

(05:57):
tackled at a high level on special teams. I've caught
the ball at a high level in college. All of
those things and all of those different positions that I've played,
ex specially the receiver side of things. You notice that
there's two parts to a catch. There's the throw and
there's the quarterback and all of those things that there's
also the catch and understanding how the ball is, when
the when the receiver gets it and right. And a

(06:19):
lot of these quarterbacks because when we're young, we're taught, oh,
we want to have these big strong arms, so we
want to put as much heat on it as we
want because again, like you said, that jumps off the tape.
That gets us the style points that gets us the
cool points when at the end of the day, if
that nose is down and the ball is coming too
fast six times out of tend, that receiver is probably
gonna drop it. And so you had to figure out,

(06:41):
I know when I played quarterback, you started had to
figure out, how can I make that nose come up?
How can I make the ball a little bit more
catchable for the wilde receiver? And then then my numbers
will go up. I think those are some of the
things that in this generation of quarterback and that we're
starting to see young quarterbacks start to acentuate a little bit.
And you can see it in two A to a
tongue of our lore. I mean, look at his timing

(07:02):
and anticipation. That is that kid's superpower, and it's his
timing and anticipation is at a level that not a
lot of quarterbacks in this league have. How hard is it?
Because this is just part of the evaluation process that
I want to get you on, But there's no way
for you to tell. Every Sunday we watch games and
there's at least one quarterback who makes a throw Guys

(07:22):
like I don't know, fifteen feet from him and he's
throwing it like he's forty feet from him and I
can't get over. I'm like, man, you don't. How can
you not evaluate the distance like a golfer who goes
out in the golf course, like I'm not taking my
driver out when I get to the green right, Like
the feel of that stuff like that's hard to measure. Oh,
it's very much hard to measure. That's why you have

(07:43):
to look at so much tape on these quarterbacks, man,
I mean, and look at the types of throws that
these guys have had and how they will their teams
two wins. Because at the end of the day, all
of these quarterbacks before they got to the National Football
League at the top, you know, topping their game and
they all figure out ways to win games exclusively off
of the off of their talents and offer their arms.

(08:04):
All right, So I want to take everyone and back
draft five quarterbacks taken in the first round, including Wilson.
Third quarterback taken was Trey Lance out of North Dakota State.
I was actually covering the Niners for NFL Network and
there was all this conversation around if they were going
to go and take Tray and and maybe Mac Jones
was in the mix. Justin Fields was also there, but

(08:25):
third quarterback was Trey Lance. He basically played one season
and coming out of high school he had no Power
Five college offers, So the hype meter just continued to
build for this guy. Didn't turn over the ball a ton.
What he was able to do in the play action
past that was something that was really attractive to Kyle
Shanahan remember having conversations with him about that. But does

(08:46):
the media actually play a role in which players are
gaining momentum? Like, take me through this evaluation process, to
be honest with you, Like, I didn't think the Niners
I was there. I didn't think they were going to
take Trey Lance. Like there was a real mac Jones conversation.
There was real Justin Fields conversation, and and yet here

(09:06):
it was the smart Dakota State kid that's to do
that they went with. It's crazy MS, how the National
Football League has changed in such a relatively short time.
I came out in the two thousand six draft. You're
talking about the quarterbacks in the draft. The big knock
on me. I was Big Ten Player of the year.
Hasman final was one of the top college players in

(09:26):
the country playing quarterback, and the knock on me at
the quarterback position was I didn't have enough game reps.
That's what they told me. They said, we really don't
feel comfortable giving you an opportunity. I heard this from
multiple teams because they said, you know, the Matt Lioners,
Da Vinci Young's of this draft, they just have five
thousand more game reps than you. Fast forward to one

(09:49):
and you're talking about Tree Lance. You know, high school year,
high school, only one year of college football, didn't play
in the Power of Five. But yet he gets drafted
third overall. I mean, that's what a way that this
game has changed. But when you talk about the media
influencing decision makers, look, I don't think it's wrecked in
the regard of you know, um, a general manager calling

(10:10):
Michael Robinson or Daniel Jeremiah and saying, hey, uh, what
do you think about this guy, or you know, just
looking at us on television and making their professional opinion
based off of that. But I will say this, all
decision makers have family and friends jams. All of them do,
whether it's they have a young people in their family, wives,
or whatever the case may be. And those people watch

(10:30):
the media. So I will say decision makers can be
indirectly influenced by the media, just based off of the
conversations they have, by the people closer to them in
their circles, right, their family members and things like that,
watching people on NFL network like myself giving their opinions,
and that's how I can see that a decision maker
gets kind of I don't know, um kind of gets

(10:52):
influenced in the peripheral of the evaluation process. But I
will say that the good people in media, yams, the
great people in media talk to real decision makers in
the National Football League, and oftentimes if a guy's name
is rising up, you know, rising up the ranks and
gaining a lot of momentum, it's not by mistake. Oftentimes
there's a decision makers somewhere in the National Football League

(11:13):
that's telling that media person, oh, yeah, this is the
guy that we want to put our hands on, and
that's why the name is rising. You know, I respect
you a tons So if you're talking and I'm on
my phone, I'm not like texting Twitter, right, So I
made reference to the fact that I was at that
draft and you said something about your starts in college

(11:34):
and immediately I thought about a stat that I was
using in a lot of my reports. I love technology.
I was able to find it. So check this out
about Trey Lads seventeen college starts, three hundred and eighteen attempts. Like,
think about that. Seventeen college starts is one thing like
that doesn't really register. I know it's not a lot,
but three eighteen attempts that's crazy. Up until that point,

(11:58):
the last ten Super Bowl winning quarterbacks thirty five career
starts and over twelve hundred attempts. That's what they did
in Edge. So think about the amount of experience that translates,
and that this kind of feeds into the draft conversation
that we're having right now. Some gms might prioritize, Hey,
give me the guy that's thirty five career starts in

(12:20):
twelve attempts, and John Lynch and Shanahan said, no, no, no,
I'm good the guy with seventeen college starts and three
and eighteen attempts. I see something in him that I
think I can work with. I'm gonna roll with this dude. Well,
And I also think John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are
just looking at their roster and saying, hey, all right,
is this roster good enough to absorb a quarterback that

(12:43):
doesn't have that much experience, because we're gonna go to
some growing paintre that the difference between those thirty five
starts for other Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in the seventeen
for tree Lance, I mean, you can't just get the
You just can't make that stuff up. I mean, that's
real experience that he does not have, but you make
it up in the roster that you surround him with. Now,
the question is still out on whether Tree Lance has

(13:05):
enough of ability to elevate this offense. Tom will tell
all right, welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcasts. Mike
Yam and Rob with you. Okay, so it's really easy
to Monday morning quarterback drafts, like we can all do
it in the moment. Though generally speaking, the guys that

(13:27):
we think really highly of, we want our teams to
go and get those kinds. So you kind of gave
me a little bit of a glimpse of the evaluation process.
I want you to take listen to some of these
notable misses by GMS man. I feel bad putting these
dudes on blast, but it isn't Baker Mayfield, Sam Donald
Day go before Josh Allen criminal criminal. And I know

(13:50):
there's a decision maker in the National Football League that
listens to this show because we've had some conversations about it.
I'm not gonna put his name out there, but this
dude was all on Baker Mayfield when he was coming on.
I remember telling this dude, bro, you are nuts. Something's
wrong on with you, and I was right. But I'm
just saying, so those are a couple of misses. How

(14:11):
about this though, Josh Rosen going twenty two spots ahead
of criminal Lamar Jackson. That's not good. Okay, defend that
one though, or maybe like it's once again easy to
Monday Morning quarterback this thing. But there were concerns about Lamar.
I mean people were talking about him not even being
a quarterback in the NFL. Yeah, but the concerns won't
because of Lamar and his ability to concerns were because

(14:32):
the National Football League and their coaches were archaic and
didn't believe that a guy with this type of ability
can lead an office successfully for the long haul. And
Lamar Jackson has proven all of that stuff wrong. I mean,
it just is, and you look at Josh Rosen. Yes,
he reminded me sometimes in his release of Aaron Rodgers
at times. But you just look at the way the

(14:52):
kid came up, and you wondered his passion for the game,
and it turned out, I don't know if Josh Rosen
loves the game like that? All right. Well, the year
before that, the Bears actually traded up to take Mitch
Drobiskie eight spots ahead of another m v P. Patrick Mahomes.
We're just gonna move on from now. John Let's tricked

(15:14):
him all that year. I remember saying, dude, you gave
up what to go up one spot? Bro? He would
have been there just chill. But Blake Bortles, Johnny Football,
Johnny Manzel one over guys like Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo.
That's when the pro days started to become a little
bit more theatrical. Remember he had the music, he had

(15:35):
the Army fatigue stuff. He about to show the pads on.
That's when he started to say, you know what, I'm
gonna create this environment to get myself to me. That's
when that stuff started happening. Blaine Gabbett, Jake Locker, when
ahead of Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, and Tyrod Taylor. I
gotta tell you, Locker wasn't like, I'm not gonna hate

(15:55):
on that. No, I can't hate on that, right, I can't.
I mean Dalton's longevity and what he's been able to do.
I'm like, okay, cool, like that. Fine, he can be
in that mix, but Locker or I won't hate on
that one. The point is, like we really could go
through and by the way, that's just the last couple
of years. We can keep going further back and talk
about guys and the misses. But there's certain different traits

(16:17):
that you can throw out there, right, accuracy, speed, physically
talented in terms of the throws that they can make.
Insert any sort of draft is m You know my
favorite one is when they talk about guys having twitch's
out there? Is it? Why is it for some accuracy
versus arm strength? That's in favor of one dude, But

(16:37):
when you flip it, it might not be it like
works against the guy, Like why do you like the
consistency at which you evaluate guys? Like it could be
two quarterbacks one's really accurately, other's got a big arm.
One gm really likes the accurate guy, but then the
next year he is like, no, you know what, actually
the guy with the strong arm, he's the guy that
I want to go like. It feels like sometimes the

(17:00):
value traits change from person to person, year to year.
To your point, I think you're you're right about that,
the value trades do change. I think individual teams situations,
uh determine. You know, you know how you want and
who you want to draft at that position. I mean,
you think some teams believe in just building a dominant

(17:21):
roster around the quarterback position, making sure that you know,
like my Seahawks did, making sure that quarterbacks on that
rookie deal so that from a business standpoint, the business
of the football, you can pay those guys around him.
So that roster is dominant. So when the quarterback's ability
and his experience does meet all that preparation in the
roster building, you have a championship team. Do you have

(17:42):
other general managers who come across that guy. You get
a Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes in the draft, and
it's just like, you know what, these guys have so
much ability that they can literally be the cologne of
the deodare from for any bad decision that I make
being a general manager, and so you give them all
the money they want, and you say, you know what
will win because we have one of those guys. There's

(18:04):
not a lot of people that can walk around and
do that, and a lot of general managers get it wrong.
I mean, and I know this may not be the
favorite opinion amongst some of our fans, but I think
there's no cardinals are in that situation. I think they
mismanaged Colin Murray. I think they've given that kid a
little bit too much power in that organization. And now
they've paid him invalidated his work ethic and all of
the bad behavior and all of those things, and they

(18:27):
they paid him invalidated him being the leader of that team.
So yeah, I think it just depends on the individual
team situations and the individual general managers situations. By the way,
because we were talking a little bit about the amount
of starts that guys have, getting back to Trabinsky and Mahomes,
Patrick Mahomes thirty two college starts. Drabinsky had one year
of starts, so even a little bit more experience, which

(18:49):
makes it you're probably a little more salty about it.
And I'm a little bit more salty about it. You
know what quarterbacks are making? Are you kidding me? And
that goes to me. I think that also muddies the
evaluation of my homes. Making half a billy. Billy would
have be y'all, hear us, be Lee. I'm talking about
a player, not an owner player making half a billy.

(19:10):
And again, like that's why I think it's so hard
to evaluate these guys, because when you're picking a franchise guy,
you know, man, I'm taking twenty five to thirty percent
of my salary cap and I'm dumping it on this guy.
This is his now only got this amount to build
my team around, and so the future of your organization
and everything is critical to pick in that position. I mean,
just think about jersey sales. I mean sometimes I think

(19:33):
teams pick guys just because you know, Johnny Winzel, he's
a you know, a guy that's gonna sell jerseys. That's
a great business decision. By picking him in the first
round may not equate to wins. Okay, so you're talking
about business decisions, I'm gonna circle back here and talk
about playing decisions that organizations need to make. I think
There's another thing that applies not just the quarterbacks, but

(19:53):
every single player that has the dreams, the hopes and
streams are playing in the NFL. And that's fit where
you go making a difference. How much is that a
factor in a quarterback excess, because I think even you
brought up to a before, I don't. And this is
not a knock on coach Flora's I mean, look how
hard those dudes played for him. That's all old another

(20:15):
situation there. But Mike McDaniel comes in, this offense is rolling,
and is it a coach? Is it Tyreek in that offense?
Is it ra most like there? This team looks different,
The situation looks better for twa. I'd make the same
case for every quarterback that's coming out, like I want
those dudes, yeah, man. And that's one of those tricky
issues when you're a top quarterback coming in from college.

(20:39):
The the I don't say bad, but the teams that
aren't so good pick first, and so again, it really
depends on your situation. And I remember seeing Lamar Jackson
and go to the pick thirty two and looks like
he's upset, And I remember Prime up there interviewing him
and you can see, you know that Lamar was a
little ticked off. It's like, man, I'm been winning the
Super Bowl, but I'm sitting there thinking, Bro, you got

(21:01):
drafted to a great situation. I mean, you look at
the Baltimore Ravens. They have one of the most steady
front offices and their player friendly. They understand the business
of it and they understand paying their players. You should
be happy you got drafted there. Again, some guys don't
look at it that way. Some guys look at their
position and where they got drafted as respect or disrespect.
That was the exact thing that Sean Lynch said about

(21:24):
drafting Trey Lance. He said, we're picking third overall, and
typically it's teams that don't have rosters that look like
our and that roster is clearly thriving right now and
it's got the potential to get to a Super Bowl.
But Jimmy g at the helm current crop of quarterbacks
in the NFL. Check this out. Twenty one A thirty
two current starters in the NFL selected in round number one.

(21:46):
None were undrafted free agents, which I thought was interesting.
Lowest pick. You know, man, it's still to go. It's
Tom Brady six round pick. Let's be honest. They got
lucky and circumstances forced that to happen, and we wouldn't
be talking about Brady and bless and when he got hurt,
I was I was flipping through. I don't even know
what play form it was on, but there's like a

(22:07):
doc on Brady and you know, like I'm only watching
the trailer. It's like two minutes and he's talking about
a moment super Bowl. You guys made the best decision
ever drafted me, you know, the whole thing, and you know,
looking back, like if there's different type of swag for
that dude, it's a different type of swag. But I'm
gonna be be honest and I'm gonna take anything from
Tom Brady. All guys who didn't get drafted in the

(22:27):
first round who think they should have got drafted higher
think that way. He's just not a lot of them
are able to stick around long enough to prove people wrong.
Is it justin Jefferson who knows every wide receiver taking
before him? He should? He should? Does that sound right
to you? That sound that I think that is the truth.
He shouldn't know everybody, Oh, it's I'm ross St. Brown.
That's what it was. By the way, you guys are
in the soundproof like behind a glass, so like when

(22:49):
you guys just yelling at me, I can't actually hear
what you're saying. But you're right. It was from hard knocks.
That's how I remember. I'm gonna ros St Brown. I
don't he rattles off every wide receiver taking in front
of him, freaking awesome by but he should. He should
know that, and he's a really good receiver. By the way,
thanks for the assist, guys, I appreciate that. Um alright.

(23:09):
So beyond Tom Brady, six current starters taking number one overall,
but their success kind of mediocre. They've compiled an overall
record of to nineteen two, forty eight losses and four ties,
so it's a forty six percent win percentage. No, I
didn't do the mass. Someone did a form teams who
have drafted the most first round quarterbacks since nineteen sixty seven,

(23:30):
which is the beginning of the common draft era. How
about this the Bengals, the Bears, the Browns, the Colts,
the Jets, and the Titans, all of whom have taken
six and in the case of the Bears and the Browns. Man,
I don't even need to tell your fan base. You
know where I'm going with this. It has not been
pretty all right. So all of those teams, m Rob
and I'm talking about the Bengals, Bears, Browns, Cults, Jets,
and Titans put together a combined winning percentage of forty

(23:54):
seven percent. And it's only the Cults boasting a record
over five hundred during that spam. And that's basically for
two reasons. Really, it's Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. Well, yeah,
and there's a generational talents. I mean, Hill paid Manning
pretty much invented a style of offense that still being
ran the day. I mean, you just can't. And I

(24:15):
think the Bengals, I think they're done looking for their quarterbacks. Well,
I think they're good, but uh, the Jets, they could
probably still be looking. I'm not so sure about Zack Wilson.
All Right, So I just gave you some of the numbers.
First round, guys, that doesn't equal success, are we? I
say we like I actually have the gig our teams
spending too much draft capital to go and get what

(24:38):
they think is a franchise quarterback and round number one.
I believe so, because again you gotta understand who I am.
I'm a firm believer in building the roster. The quarterback
is a football player, He's one of the guys just
like everybody else, and you build the roster around him,
which can almost guarantee the success of that position, and
then you don't necessarily always have to pay that guy
thirty five of your salary cap. But yes, I do

(25:02):
think it's a little bit of paralysis about analysis. I
do think that we overthink it. I do think that
they give up too much draft capital sometimes. But at
the end of the day, when you look at the
teams who have one of those guys walking around, I mean,
they're the ultimate the old Evan. They cover up for
for bad decisions or bad front office decisions, they cover
up for injuries that happened during the season, and general

(25:25):
managers again, they cover up from bad decisions from a
scouting department. Well and and even speaking of some of
this capital, sometimes it does work out right. I mean
the Rams is an example of that. I mean, they
don't have draft picks like god, I mean we're kind
of joking. I think they had one picking this last draft.
So again. You you sacrifice your future just to get

(25:45):
this one super Bowl last year. Now you're last in
the division, your thirties in our power rankings. Did you
just all want to do it all for one year?
Or do you want to build something that's gonna be
around and build a legacy that's gonna be around for
a long time. I don't know. To me. You build
a team for the long haul and successful just happened.
You don't build it for one year. It's been a
long haul the like two or three years. Let's be

(26:08):
fair here, right, Like Aaron Donald bang up, Stafford banged
up this year, Cooper Cup banged up this year, Allen
Robinson banged up this year. Like no one saw this coming.
Like if they didn't get back to a super Bowl,
be like all right, cool, Like I get it, that happens,
Like well done, you got the you got the chip
last year. But to see it unfold like this, like
they were supposed to have at least some legs here,

(26:28):
they were supposed to three year run some legs. But
at the end of the day, most Super Bowl teams,
you're lucky because the health fell in your favorite no doubt,
you know what I mean? If you're gonna if you're
a guessing man, which a lot of these different managers are,
you kind of gotta be when you're guessing your future, right,
you gotta anticipate injuries happening. You gotta anticipate you're gonna

(26:49):
need some of those draft picks. All right, So we're
talking about draft cafall here. Just to put a bow
on this conversation, as you would imagine, quarterback selected number
one overall more than twice as any other position, the
second most drafted spot. This shouldn't be too much of
a surprise considering what we've told John some of our
previous shows. But defensive ban so since nineteen sixty seven

(27:10):
quarterbacks number one overall, thirteen d n s, seven running backs,
four offensive tackles, two wide receivers to defensive tackles and
two linebackers, have thought it would be bit more tackles
being first overall again. And I understand everything is about
the quarterbacks. So the quarterback, then the guy rushed in.
The quarterback makes a lot of money, so you know
you want to you want that guy, But the guy
protecting the quarterback means a lot as well. And just

(27:33):
because we spent some time talking about twenty eight team.
Check this out, a little bit of a microcosmhouse Selecting
the wrong quarterback can set a franchise back Baker Mayfield
number one to the Browns, Donald number two to the Jets.
Arizona took Josh Rosen. Rosen doesn't make it into year
two as a start in their combined records of the
Jets and the Browns in the three years subsequent years

(27:53):
thirty seven and fifty eight and one. That's terrible. That hurts, Yes,
it does in a big way. All right, So a
little bit more on this quarterback draft strategy here when
we come back here on the NFL explained, we're gonna
see if it's easier or harder to evaluate quarterbacks in
this era. Like think about this man, Like all the
data that is available to everyone in the front office,

(28:16):
all the film, every angle. I mean, hell, you can
spin around. We do this on NFL network all time,
like cameras that spin around on the whole thing, and
we might work out just a little bit um. An
interesting conclusion to from an economist or two economists who
tried to quantify how difficult it is to draft a
quarterback and their findings are really significant. We'll tell you

(28:39):
what those are coming up next on the NFL Explained Pod.
All right, welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcast. If
you have a question, it's like our normal p s A.
Do you just DM me. I promise we will get
to as many questions by the end of the season
as we can. If you did send one, I look,

(29:00):
I hit everyone back and you guys know this. So
if you got a question, if we haven't gotten to it,
trust me, we will. But we're talking about quarterbacks here
and the draft. Uh, the difficulty of finding the quarterback
that can lead your franchise. Is it easier now and
rob or harder to evaluate guys that play this position
compared to I don't know, years ago. I think it's

(29:22):
harder even with all of the information that we have. Yeah,
I think sometimes there's too much informations, you know. Sometimes,
you know, I hear a lot of people in our business,
you know, evaluate quarterbacks and things like that, and I
don't even hear them talk about just does this guy win?
Does wins follow this person? I mean, to me, that's

(29:43):
one of the most overlooked genes, just the win gene.
You look at some of these guys. And yes, they
can throw the ball through a brick wall, they can
throw the ball a hundred yards, but every level they've
been on, they've lost. And to me, that says something
about just you know who the guy is, the pr
of the guy right within the team? Can he operate
with every group of the team. To me, that goes
a long way, and it shows whether or not the

(30:04):
team is gonna fight for a guy. Right Like when
we talked about the Jets a little bit earlier. You
look at the Jets and Mike White versus Zack Wilson.
You look at when Zach Wilson has success in the
team's reaction and look at Mike White's when he has
success in the team reaction. It tells you all you
need to know about the leadership of those two guys.
I just think sometimes when we're evaluating quarterbacks, we look

(30:25):
at all of this hard dat. Oh he did for
this many yards, he had this many starts, Uh, he
want this, this and the third? Did he win games?
First and foremost? Did he win in high school? College? All?
If he wanted all those levels? You know what, it's
a pretty good chance wherever this kid goes he's gonna
win in the National Football League as well. I'm always
amazed by talent evaluators because here's what I'll say. I

(30:45):
almost think it's easier on the NFL side to evaluate
for the draft than it is to be on the
college side. And hear me out here. Years I spent
my career covering college athletics and we would do like
the signing day shows they throw off the film and
be like a four star dude or a five star guy,
and it's a guy that's like crushing the dude size,

(31:06):
and I'm thinking to myself, like, yeah, that guy is
gonna look good on tape. Like look at the competition,
Like the level is just different, whereas if you get
to and this is why the Trey Lance thing right,
like FCS versus FBS, Power five, the whole thing. Like
that's why that was fascinating to me, because the level
of competition is just different. And clearly you don't need
to be in a Power five school to thrive in
the NFL. There's so many examples of that. But I

(31:30):
almost feel like with with everything that's out there, when
you the competition is more steady, I don't know if
that makes sense. It does make sense. I would agree
with you that the competition is a little bit more steady.
And what makes things difficult to evaluate on the college
side of things is a lot of these college evaluators
they just don't have the time to see all of
the different athletes out here, so they go to these

(31:50):
sites and rely on their rankings to see how to
look at any of You end up finding out those
rankings are a lot of times pay for and so
that's to me, that's what makes it difficult from Italian standpoint,
in college or the guy's signs with the team and
he goes from a two star to be four five
start just based off of the university to Alabama and yeah, no,

(32:11):
there's no question. What about like schematically right, like Jalen
Hurts trail Aance comes to mind, We'll throw Lamar's name
into the mix. The college game has looked different at
times in the NFL game, where now the NFL game
is almost catching up to the other levels. How do
you think that affects that evaluation? Well, first of all, um,
you know one thousand percent spot on with that. The

(32:33):
National Football League is now just starting to catch up
with college. Uh. To me, all the innovation, all the
great plays and great play calls happened in college first.
Then the National Football League coach just look at it
and they say, oh, we can you know, we should
be doing that. I think the spread offense, the read option,
our peoples, all of those things, they aren't foreign concepts

(32:54):
to the National Football League, but it was legitimized in
when the Philadelphia Eagles, with the way that they did
their offense. It legitimized it because that style won a
Super And so to me, now a lot of teams
are looking for these dynamic types of quarterbacks, and to me,
is malpractice for you to put a guy like Lamar
Jackson or Jalen Hurts to put him in a system

(33:17):
where he's throwing the ball fifty times a game. To me,
that's stupid. I mean, it really is like like a
fifty yard explosive play. It doesn't matter without ran fifty
yards through the ball five yards, you ran forty five,
or throw the ball fifty yards, it's still a fifty
yard explosive play. And I think that's what now offenses
in the National Football League are starting to kind of understand,

(33:38):
like man, like the guy who touches the ball every
single play. Probably should be my most dynamic player. Uh
So you can see the athletic ability, you can see
what these guys have in terms of arm talent. Sometimes
you don't know what's in between the ears the giants.
I love this story. They used to give two hundred
page psychological exams to different players. One of those guys

(34:01):
was Dion Sanders, who actually walked away in your experience.
How should do some of those intangibles? Like, how do
you how do you figure out like the mental makeup
of a guy that's gonna be the face of your franchise. Well, again,
you kind of gotta look at him on every level.
Does wins follow him? Does you know, good energy follow

(34:21):
him or that's negative energy? Does bad situations follow the kid? Um?
When when I look at some of the intangibles, when
I'm looking at quarterbacks, first and foremost, the ability for
that kid to communicate right, And I think that's why
going to pro days are so critical for some talent evaluators.
I want to see a kid in his environment. I
want to see him comfortable. I want to see him

(34:43):
around his guys. He's been throwing two for two, three
or four or five years or whatever the case may be.
And I just want to see him let it go
and let it. I want to see him light up
a room. Uh. People talked about Baker Mayfield having that
ability that whenever room he walked into when he was,
you know, going through the draft process, that the other
quarterbacks would kind of shrink and his personality would show up,

(35:04):
and it gave him a egg up. It gave him
an advantage. And to me, that is a very important
intangible that you gotta have. I had a young I
had a football coach, and I was eight years nine
years old. Yeah, maybe in ten years old, nine years old.
I think, tell me, like, dude, like your ability to
communicate it is crazy. You gotta watch what you watch
on TV, the music you're listening to, the books you read.

(35:25):
Because your gift is when you speak, people listen. So
you gotta be responsible about what you let in your hands.
So I knew. I knew that earlier on in my life.
Another intangible, it's work ethic. Does this person like a
Tom Brady have the ability to be a force multiplier?
Can this guy, just by his presence and his work
ethic elevate everybody else around him? And then finally, for me,

(35:48):
I think it's the most important authentic leadership leading in
your way they see, leadership isn't a book that you
read and say, you know what, that's what I gotta
do to be a leader. I'm gonna go do that tomorrow.
And I've been around guys like that where the leadership
and the things that they say you like, man, you're
not real. You know, you speak into the team, but

(36:10):
you're really not real. Good quarterback and a great quality
of a quarterback is having that genuine authentic leadership. I know,
for me, I was a guy that when I played quarterback,
I love to respond to adversity. So I would create
our seven on sevens so that it was nothing but
a roast session. Really. I mean we would throw the
football or whatever, but I was cracking on the linebackers

(36:31):
and defensive backs. They were throwing jokes at me, and
it turned into this thing. Everybody loved to come to
seven on seven, even the defensive lineman because it turned
into a great road session while all that adversity and
going back at each other and all of those things
brought the team together. That was my version of authentic leadership.
My way keep you a quiet leader. Yeah you can.
I mean you can, but again, if your ability to

(36:54):
in human situations communicate with a person. I'm not saying
you gotta be the guy to speak to the entire team,
but if if a guy runs a wrong route, you
have to be able to go over there and tell them,
and he has to be able to respect to a
pare and to me, that comes with Again, authentic leadership
doesn't necessarily have to beat aloud as, but authentic definitely.
All right, So, speaking of some of these intangibles, got

(37:16):
a couple of economists, David Berry and Rob Simmons. They
try to figure out how you could nail down the
process of selecting a quarterback in the NFL draft. Two
thousand nine, they published a paper went over decades of
data drafted NFL quarterbacks. Here's what the conclusion was. On
a per play basis, quarterbacks chosen with picks eleven through fifty,

(37:38):
as well as picks fifty one through nine outperform quarterbacks
chosen in the top ten or comparing two quarterbacks with
the same NFL experience, the players selected early in the
draft is not predicted to have significantly different NFL performance
levels than a player pick later in the draft. They did, however,

(37:59):
find that the top picks are given more time to succeed.
I go back to Zack Wilson here. I brought up
what Mike Gara Folo was telling. Mean, hey, draft positioning matters,
second overall pick. What do you make of what the
economists came up with. It's some interesting information. I got
a lot of thoughts on that. I mean, you know,
a lot of football players dreams are to be drafted

(38:21):
top ten like a draft. Like you're an eight year
old little boy. You fall asleep and you dream of
hearing your name called and you're the first pick of
the draft. And so I think sometimes when you're a
top ten pick, it's almost like, these guys take a breath.
I achieved it, you know what I'm saying, As opposed

(38:42):
to some of the other picks, whether it's later on
in the first round or later on in the draft
or whatever, there's a natural chip on your shoulder to
kind of response because you didn't all of a sudden
meet the goal. And I think there's a subconscious something
there with that fact that when when you're looking at
the way, you know the numbers that the economists got

(39:03):
I do think it's something there, But I do think
general managers are scared to put a plug on some
of their draft picks because if you do it, it's
indicative that you messed up on you, flection on you,
and oftentimes with with the Eagle and some of these
general managers, they don't want to admit that they messed
up and had a bad pick. That's why I got

(39:23):
so much respect for people like Bill Belichick, the Bill
polian Is from back in the day with the Colts
and guys like that, the Ozzy Newsom's. You know, they're
not afraid to say, you know what, I thought this
dude was good, but I was wrong, and now I'm
gonna let this guy go and see if he can
find employment somewhere. Is they're just not afraid to admit
that they messed up. To me, that acknowledgement, that humbleness

(39:45):
that they come from makes them great. Well, one thing
that everyone focuses in on you don't even have to
be a quarterback. You just gotta be a professional athlete.
You know where I'm going with this, right, It's like,
did he used to say man or maybe he was
puffy at the time, all about the Benjamin all about
the money. Yeah, he's probably at that point, all right.
So in the in the previous collective bargain agreement, top
ricky quarterbacks, you guys got, I was like Matt Ryan,

(40:06):
Matt Stafford, Sam Bradford, they're making seventy plus million on
their first contract. Remember Bradford, that happening to him. Lord,
he might have been even the last guy to take advantage.
But most rookies right now are making considerably loud and
a little insight on that. I don't mean interrupted, but
inside on that. When I first got in the league,
Geane Upshaw, who he was our leader of the union
at the time, he said, guys, we want these first

(40:28):
round quarterbacks to get this money like this. We wanted
to be big, and as veterans they're like why. And
his whole thing was a guaranteed longevity of the player.
If the player wasn't paying out, he would have to
renegotiate towards the back end of his deal because the
team wasn't gonna pay him that money, and so it
added years to his career. But the way it is now,

(40:48):
you see teams just cut the guy he could possibly
be out the league. Well, That's where I was going
with it, Like I almost isn't that kind of like
not to sound like Darwin, but like, isn't that kind
of a good thing? Like, Yo, you can play, you
could still be out there, you could it is man
and and again that's why he wanted it structured that
way and again every but I like, oh, guarantee you
why they make us so much money all of those things.

(41:09):
There was a little bit of a backstory behind that
and why they wanted those rookie contracts front loaded that way. Okay,
So I like where you're going with that. How about this,
because we've spent a lot of time having you take
me through the evaluation process, things that you really value.
Twenty twenty three draft I would go to because I
already know who's gonna be the first overall pick. But

(41:30):
is there a quarterback that you think should be deserving
of being the first off the board? Uh? Yeah, who's
the the Ohuse State kid. You know, I'm a pin Stater.
It pains me to say this, but that kid, I've
seen a big jump from last year to this year.
He's willing his team to wins. He can run, he

(41:50):
can protect the footbably can make every throw on the
football field. To me, that's my number one quarterback. Okay,
so I said, I'll tell you this. I don't know
if I've seen a I don't want to say more
talented because that's not fair, but a better pro prospect
at the quarterbacks the Caleb blames oh Man and he's
not even knowledgeable yet. I know, yeah, Bro, I could

(42:16):
make a case for him when it has been this year. Yeah,
I think that's going to happen. Always appreciate you guys
checking us out, and I know I always throw this
out there. He got a question, don't know who to ask.
It's me and m Rob. Shoot me a d M.
We'll make it into a podcast. But why is it
so hard to draft the right quarterback? Hopefully we gave
you those answers. Always appreciate you guys listening to the

(42:36):
NFL explain pot