I am a horrible, rotten excuse for a Redskins fan.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

Yes but if that 4% chance of failing comes with a prolonged detriment factor it hurts exponentially more. Case in point, Oakland is just now recovering from Jamarcus Russell (see R. Leaf, A. Smith, etc). Had Russell been say a late first round draft pick with a 50% risk factor such as a campbell or ramsey, while the chance of failure is higher the brunt of such failure moving forward is significantly less of an impediment in recovering from said risk failure.

Therefore, I always go with value based decisions.

Albeit such risk factor analysis of award v. detriment for top 10 draft picks has been hedged with the new but yet to be applied slotting system.

50% is for 1st round QBs. 4% is for QBs taken afterwards. These are estimates.
Russell is one of those 50% who fail. 4% failures are guys like Painter, Hoyer, John Beck.

Russell hurt them for three years, but his poor play is part of the reason why Darren McFadden and Rolondo McClain are on that team, both critical components on their respective side of the ball. For the GM making the pick, the only thing that might dissuade them from gambling like that on a QB is job security.