Leonidas
05-01-2007, 08:16 AM
Something very interesting that Gil Brandt devised and has been tweaked by others. Brandt initially came up with the idea that a QB starting 40 or more college games is much more likely to be a successful NFL QB than those with less experience. David Lewin of FootballOutsiders.com took it a step further and said QBs with 35 or more starts who completed 57% or more of their passes were more likely to succeed. Granted, there are exceptions listed and no surefire way to predict this, but the probabilities would appear to way in Lewin's favor.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/sports/columnists/terry_pluto/17156243.htm
Former Cowboys player-personnel guru Gil Brandt came up with a statistic for judging quarterbacks, and he determined that first-rounders who have at least 40 collegiate starts tend to perform much better in the NFL than those who had less experience. Recent four-year, 40-start quarterbacks include Manning, Chad Pennington, Drew Brees, Carson Palmer and McNabb.
• Since 1997, seven quarterbacks who had fewer than 30 college starts were picked in the top 10: Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, Michael Vick, David Carr and Alex Smith -- according to an excellent article by David Lewin on FootballOutsiders.com.
• Yes, there are exceptions: Kyle Boller had 40 starts but flopped with the Baltimore Ravens. A tip-off should have been that he failed to complete 50 percent of his passes in several seasons. Tom Brady barely started for two years at Michigan, and he has won a few games with the New England Patriots. Cade McNown had more than 40 starts at UCLA and not much of a pro career. Ben Roethlisberger had 38 starts, and his experience showed when he had to start as a rookie for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• Lewin took the 40-start theory and added that the closer a quarterback is to completing 60 percent of his passes, the more likely he'll be successful -- assuming he had close to 40 starts. Lewin wrote: ``Here's a list of the QBs drafted in the first two rounds over the last 10 years with at least 35 starts and completing 57 percent of their passes: Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, Chad Pennington, Drew Brees, Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Jason Campbell, Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler... Are there any bad players on that list?''
• There are exceptions. Brady had 29 starts; Vince Young had 32 for Texas. Nonetheless, the theory seems to be right more often than wrong. For the record, top pick JaMarcus Russell had 29 starts and completed 62 percent of his passes.
• That brings us to Quinn, who started 46 games at Notre Dame, completing 58 percent of his passes. In the past two seasons, he was 62 percent with 64 touchdowns, with 14 interceptions. Given the major schedule he played and how he started for four years, Quinn should have a good chance to become a viable pro quarterback.
And for the record, here's how QBs in this year's draft compare. (note, the total number of starts may not be exact as that info was not always readily available, so I made my best WAG with the info I could find)
Oakland 1st round Jamarcus Russell 29 starts (assuming the column above is correct), 62% completion
Cleveland 1st Round Brady Quinn 46 career starts (if you assume the column above is correct) 58% completion
Detroit 2nd Round Drew Stanton 29 starts, 64.2% had a really down year his senior season (injured I presume) compared to a brilliant junior year (God the MSU webpage was a pain in the butt to find his total stats on as I had to access three different PDF files to put it all together because his individual bio didn’t have stats updated after his sophomore season)
Miami Second Round John Beck 43 games (not sure how many were starts, but it’s likely between 35-40 as he played 35 games as the starter in his last three seasons and had 8 games coming off the bench or sometimes starting as a freshman) 62.4% completion
Phillie 2nd Round Kevin Kolb 50 career starts (assuming he started all 14 games last year as he started every game his first three years, yes Houston had another ass painful page to deal with) 60% completion
Buffalo third round Trent Edwards 31 career starts out of 35 games, 56.3% although was over 60% his last two years
Dallas 4th round pick Isaiah Stanback 37 total games, I’m going to guess at most 20 were QB starts, 51.4% completion
Cinci 5th round Jeff Rowe 27 starts, 59.6% completion
Baltimore 5th round Troy Smith 27 career starts (31 games total as QB, 44 total as a player) 63.4% completion
Washington 6th round Jordan Palmer 46 total games, somewhere between 36 and 46 were starts, 60% completion
I’m not even going to bother looking up the guy from Coastal Carolina Minnesota drafted in the 7th
Russell, Stanton, Rowe and Smith all had great completion percentages but came up a bit short on overall experience, which struck me as odd as it seemed to me Smith and Stanton were there forever. I guess Smith lost a lot of starts with his competition to Zwick and his lost two starts for the suspension so he could have been much closer to 40. Edwards doesn’t meet the criteria anywhere. I suspect he is this year’s version of Kyle Boller, a guy who combined really well but didn’t have the numbers on the field to back up the talent. Quinn, Kolb, Beck, and Palmer hit all the criteria dead on, but other than Quinn against questionable competition. And why Dallas took Stanback is way the hell beyond me unless he is going to be a slash kind of guy.
If you take competition into consideration and go along with this theory, then Brady Quinn is your guy, I'd say followed next by Beck who I'd rate played better competition than Palmer and Kolb. Take your chances with Russell, Stanton, and Smith as they played well against tough competition but with fewer starts than the model allows. Personally I'd take either of them over Palmer or Kolb and would keep Beck in the mix.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/sports/columnists/terry_pluto/17156243.htm
Former Cowboys player-personnel guru Gil Brandt came up with a statistic for judging quarterbacks, and he determined that first-rounders who have at least 40 collegiate starts tend to perform much better in the NFL than those who had less experience. Recent four-year, 40-start quarterbacks include Manning, Chad Pennington, Drew Brees, Carson Palmer and McNabb.
• Since 1997, seven quarterbacks who had fewer than 30 college starts were picked in the top 10: Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, Michael Vick, David Carr and Alex Smith -- according to an excellent article by David Lewin on FootballOutsiders.com.
• Yes, there are exceptions: Kyle Boller had 40 starts but flopped with the Baltimore Ravens. A tip-off should have been that he failed to complete 50 percent of his passes in several seasons. Tom Brady barely started for two years at Michigan, and he has won a few games with the New England Patriots. Cade McNown had more than 40 starts at UCLA and not much of a pro career. Ben Roethlisberger had 38 starts, and his experience showed when he had to start as a rookie for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• Lewin took the 40-start theory and added that the closer a quarterback is to completing 60 percent of his passes, the more likely he'll be successful -- assuming he had close to 40 starts. Lewin wrote: ``Here's a list of the QBs drafted in the first two rounds over the last 10 years with at least 35 starts and completing 57 percent of their passes: Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, Chad Pennington, Drew Brees, Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Jason Campbell, Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler... Are there any bad players on that list?''
• There are exceptions. Brady had 29 starts; Vince Young had 32 for Texas. Nonetheless, the theory seems to be right more often than wrong. For the record, top pick JaMarcus Russell had 29 starts and completed 62 percent of his passes.
• That brings us to Quinn, who started 46 games at Notre Dame, completing 58 percent of his passes. In the past two seasons, he was 62 percent with 64 touchdowns, with 14 interceptions. Given the major schedule he played and how he started for four years, Quinn should have a good chance to become a viable pro quarterback.
And for the record, here's how QBs in this year's draft compare. (note, the total number of starts may not be exact as that info was not always readily available, so I made my best WAG with the info I could find)
Oakland 1st round Jamarcus Russell 29 starts (assuming the column above is correct), 62% completion
Cleveland 1st Round Brady Quinn 46 career starts (if you assume the column above is correct) 58% completion
Detroit 2nd Round Drew Stanton 29 starts, 64.2% had a really down year his senior season (injured I presume) compared to a brilliant junior year (God the MSU webpage was a pain in the butt to find his total stats on as I had to access three different PDF files to put it all together because his individual bio didn’t have stats updated after his sophomore season)
Miami Second Round John Beck 43 games (not sure how many were starts, but it’s likely between 35-40 as he played 35 games as the starter in his last three seasons and had 8 games coming off the bench or sometimes starting as a freshman) 62.4% completion
Phillie 2nd Round Kevin Kolb 50 career starts (assuming he started all 14 games last year as he started every game his first three years, yes Houston had another ass painful page to deal with) 60% completion
Buffalo third round Trent Edwards 31 career starts out of 35 games, 56.3% although was over 60% his last two years
Dallas 4th round pick Isaiah Stanback 37 total games, I’m going to guess at most 20 were QB starts, 51.4% completion
Cinci 5th round Jeff Rowe 27 starts, 59.6% completion
Baltimore 5th round Troy Smith 27 career starts (31 games total as QB, 44 total as a player) 63.4% completion
Washington 6th round Jordan Palmer 46 total games, somewhere between 36 and 46 were starts, 60% completion
I’m not even going to bother looking up the guy from Coastal Carolina Minnesota drafted in the 7th
Russell, Stanton, Rowe and Smith all had great completion percentages but came up a bit short on overall experience, which struck me as odd as it seemed to me Smith and Stanton were there forever. I guess Smith lost a lot of starts with his competition to Zwick and his lost two starts for the suspension so he could have been much closer to 40. Edwards doesn’t meet the criteria anywhere. I suspect he is this year’s version of Kyle Boller, a guy who combined really well but didn’t have the numbers on the field to back up the talent. Quinn, Kolb, Beck, and Palmer hit all the criteria dead on, but other than Quinn against questionable competition. And why Dallas took Stanback is way the hell beyond me unless he is going to be a slash kind of guy.
If you take competition into consideration and go along with this theory, then Brady Quinn is your guy, I'd say followed next by Beck who I'd rate played better competition than Palmer and Kolb. Take your chances with Russell, Stanton, and Smith as they played well against tough competition but with fewer starts than the model allows. Personally I'd take either of them over Palmer or Kolb and would keep Beck in the mix.