Bradford/Clausen now split among Mock Drafts

[GTripp0012]

I'm higher on Clausen than Todd McShay is, certainly I feel he's a first-round type at least, and I'd rank him above Sam Bradford in a generic rankings list of the draft prospects, but (and I'll probably repeat this no less than fifteen times between now and draft day) my most generous projections for him see him as a Campbell clone.

If he can't get the ball out any better than Campbell, he doesn't complete any more of his passes than Campbell, and his YPA is ultimately just as dependent on his teammates as Campbell's is, it simply wouldn't be a significant upgrade.

Sam Bradford is a different breed of quarterback, something we haven't tried already. But the fact that I have Clausen ranked behind our incumbent (based on total career peak value), but ahead of Bradford suggests that Bradford would also be tough to justify at No. 4.

With that said, it's not hard to see Sam Bradford as wildly successful in the NFL. It's just really hard to see him (or Clausen) as a savior. I just don't think Peyton Manning or Philip Rivers is walking through that door anytime soon.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Sam Bradford is a different breed of quarterback, something we haven't tried already. But the fact that I have Clausen ranked behind our incumbent (based on total career peak value), but ahead of Bradford suggests that Bradford would also be tough to justify at No. 4.

Where can you find these numbers? I thought KC Joyner from ESPN did something like that. If I remember right it was a combination of career starts and completion percentage that served as the best indicators of success in the NFL.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

Where can you find these numbers? I thought KC Joyner from ESPN did something like that. If I remember right it was a combination of career starts and completion percentage that served as the best indicators of success in the NFL.

My projections are different from Joyner's and slightly deviant from the Lewin Career Forecast (see link), but this article is a nice one about the 2008 draft, with the FO peak projection value system, including the neccessary tepidations about Matt Ryan that I shared at the time.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

My projections are different from Joyner's and slightly deviant from the Lewin Career Forecast (see link), but this article is a nice one about the 2008 draft, with the FO peak projection value system, including the neccessary tepidations about Matt Ryan that I shared at the time.

Thanks. Though this part kind of ticked me off:

"If Flacco is as good as scouts believe he is, why didn't Wannstedt see that he was better than Palko? Wannstedt may not be the best coach in college football, but it is hard to believe he was that wrong."

This empty circular logic is being used by journalist way to much. It assumes that a guy like Dave Wannstedt couldn't possibly make a mistake. All we seem to hear these days is "for a reason" "happened for a reason" especially when journalist become desperate for a scoop. We don't even look at possibilities like politics or human error. This isn't an exact science. Mistakes happen.

Nevertheless good article, shady journalism.

Originally Posted by Buster

Rick Mirer.

Lol, I think Bradford is capable of throwing to both sides of the field. I forget though, which one was Mirer's good side?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

Thanks. Though this part kind of ticked me off.

"If Flacco is as good as scouts believe he is, why didn't Wannstedt see that he was better than Palko? Wannstedt may not be the best coach in college football, but it is hard to believe he was that wrong."

This empty circular logic is being used by journalist way to much. It assumes that a guy like Dave Wannstedt couldn't possibly make a mistake. All we seem to hear these days is "for a reason" "happened for a reason" especially when journalist become desperate for a scoop. We don't even look at possibilities like politics or human error. This isn't an exact science. Mistakes happen.

Nevertheless good article, shady journalism.

Yeah, it's not good logic. Wannedstedt in particular has never been a great judge of talent.

Still, it's hard even in hindsight to view the Ravens choice of Flacco as either a positive or a negative. In honesty, he seems like the perfect idea of what a team should expect when they take a quarterback in the bottom half of the first round. Without delving into the loaded term "franchise quarterback", Flacco is a very sound prospect who can distribute the ball to a bunch of different receivers, but has to do a lot of improving to ever be a valuable quarterback at the next level.

I've always wondered what the logic is with taking guys like Flacco/Campbell/Freeman/Ramsey is at the back end of round one. If you don't "have" a quarterback, these guys are all really good quarterbacks to have on your team. They're all average to above average players (or in Ramsey's case, potential, pending patience), and all would be very good if they had the same tools that a guy like Aaron Rodgers has around him. But a lot of these teams never planned on putting the tools to succeed around them. It simply wasn't part of the team building plan.

To me, if you're not going to bother building around a quarterback, it's not hard to find general competency at the position for the run first offense. It's in fact, quite easy and cheap to find a competent quarterback. There's two or three free agents every year...in fact, every two or three years a future hall of famer (like Warner or Favre) will hit the open market.

The Lions are clearly making every attempt to build around Stafford. The Jets had a pretty good situation to begin with and decided Braylon Edwards might be able to help them with Sanchez. The Bengals built quickly around Palmer after drafting him, although they've now become far less reliant on the quarterback these days. The Texans certainly tried to put an offense around Carr at the expense of the defense, although, ultimately, there wasn't enough there to work with. Even the Raiders have built hard around JaMarcus Russell, though they tend to suck at it it.

There's something about teams that take quarterbacks later on in the first round (Browns, Bucs, Redskins, Ravens) where they treat the position on a year to year basis that just makes you wonder what they were thinking when they made the draft choice. And consequently, I think players drafted in that 12-14 pick span are collectively underachieving their draft projections, in part because teams are acting oddly post-draft pick.

[Son Of Man]

Two words...........Colt McCoy (2nd Round).