April 20, 2016. One of the craziest days in league history. Carolina removes the franchise tag from Josh Norman, and Philadelphia swings a trade for the No. 2 pick of the draft. Who saw these developments coming?
I’m not sure what’s up with Norman, who’s one of the very best corners in the league. Maybe something is going on behind the scenes? Or maybe the Panthers just don’t think he’s worth the kind of money he’s asking for. That should become apparent within a few days. For now, it's baffling and shocking.
As for the Eagles, they appear to be insane. Earlier in the offseason, they signed Sam Bradford and Chase Daniel to quarterbacks worth $54 million for the next two and three years. Now they decide what they need to do is trade away a bunch of picks for another quarterback. Some of the craziest team management in league history.
We’ve now got two teams attempting that strategy. Both the Rams and Eagles have indicated they’re selecting quarterbacks. It will be Jared Goff (probably No. 1) and Carson Wentz, and those franchises better hope those guys turn out.
Neither has the slam-dunk look of a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck.
The hit rate on quarterbacks at the top of the draft, however, does seem to be a little higher now than 20 years ago. JaMarcus Russell (who looked great at LSU) was a massive miss in 2007. Since then, the worst quarterback choices have been Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford and Robert Griffin III, and there's at least been a little success there. RG3 had a big season, and Sanchez at least won some playoff games.
Grading these kind of things is always tough. There are guys like Jeff George and Kerry Collins, who didn’t have great careers but might have been a lot better with other franchises.
There have been 33 quarterbacks taken with top-5 picks in the last 30 years. In my eyes, we can wind back the clock, look at what the guys did and say 19 of them definitely deserved to be selected in the top 5. Call those guys successes. A couple of them took a while to get going – Testaverde, Alex Smith – but they can play and perhaps would have fared better if drafted by a different franchise originally.
I will call 11 of the guys misses. The two I feel the worst about are David Carr and Tim Couch. Both were selected by expansion franchises, and both perhaps would have had serviceable careers at other locations.
And there are three I’ll put in the “maybe” class. Griffin looks like he’ll wind up being a miss, but he was pretty great as a rookie, and just maybe Hue Jackson will turn him around. Collins wasn’t great but might more accurately be called a successful pick; he started NFC Championship games with two different franchises. Jeff George had a dynamite arm and had a few seasons with good numbers. When I originally posted this a couple of hours ago, I also had Sanchez and Bradford in the “maybe” class, but upon thinking about it more, those guys are pretty awful – I decided to be more decisively just call them misses (would never be picked in the top 5 in a do-over draft).
| QUARTERBACKS IN TOP 5 OVERALL | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Pk | Player | Do over? |
| 1986 | 3 | Jim Everett | Yes |
| 1987 | 1 | Vinny Testaverde | Yes |
| 1989 | 1 | Troy Aikman | Yes |
| 1990 | 1 | Jeff George | Maybe |
| 1993 | 1 | Drew Bledsoe | Yes |
| 1993 | 2 | • Rick Mirer | No |
| 1994 | 3 | • Heath Shuler | No |
| 1995 | 3 | Steve McNair | Yes |
| 1995 | 5 | Kerry Collins | Maybe |
| 1998 | 1 | Peyton Manning | Yes |
| 1998 | 2 | • Ryan Leaf | No |
| 1999 | 2 | Donovan McNabb | Yes |
| 1999 | 1 | • Tim Couch | No |
| 1999 | 3 | • Akili Smith | No |
| 2001 | 1 | Michael Vick | Yes |
| 2002 | 3 | • Joey Harrington | No |
| 2002 | 1 | • David Carr | No |
| 2003 | 1 | Carson Palmer | Yes |
| 2004 | 4 | Philip Rivers | Yes |
| 2004 | 1 | Eli Manning | Yes |
| 2005 | 1 | Alex Smith | Yes |
| 2006 | 3 | • Vince Young | No |
| 2007 | 1 | • JaMarcus Russell | No |
| 2008 | 3 | Matt Ryan | Yes |
| 2009 | 1 | Matthew Stafford | Yes |
| 2009 | 5 | • Mark Sanchez | No |
| 2010 | 1 | • Sam Bradford | No |
| 2011 | 1 | Cam Newton | Yes |
| 2012 | 1 | Andrew Luck | Yes |
| 2012 | 2 | Robert Griffin III | Maybe |
| 2014 | 3 | Blake Bortles | Yes |
| 2015 | 2 | Marcus Mariota | Yes |
| 2015 | 1 | Jameis Winston | Yes |
—Ian Allan