Mark Clayton and Torrey Smith

[HoustonRaven]

Earlier you were saying it took a "high quality" QB to win. Now it's "very good." At no point did I say you had said "good" was enough. That's my claim. You don't need a great or "very good" QB to win. You do need a good one.

The parity part is relevant to the discussion. That's why the NFL is the way it is today even more than the rule changes to benefit the offense.

High quality = Very Good

So no, my position hasn't changed.

None of the SB QB's in the last ten years were just "good".

Maybe one day a QB that's only good will win the SB, but my theory is ten for ten.

[bacchys]

I agree with the first part almost totally, but the last part, I do not see where you are coming from. You still need to draft a QB and no single draft pick is worth your franchise QB. Even 2 1st round picks is a low price to pay for a potential franchise guy like the Jay Cutler deal. Qbs do not grow on trees, but they come into the draft every year and half the first rounders do not turn out to busts and they do not tend to reach free agency. Free agency is usually a QB wasteland of retreads, washed up and busted out 1st round picks. That us not usually where you are going to find a diamond in the rough like Drew Brees. You get the other side of that coin flip in the form of the Love Boat himself Daunte Cullpeper. It is always a gamble, but the risk reward ratio is much better in the draft, even before the rookie wage scale.

Brees and Fitzpatrick in Buffalo are both starting QB's who aren't on the team that drafted them. I haven't worked out the numbers, but it seems to me that more than half of QB's drafted in the first round don't work out for the team that drafted them. There are more Colt McCoys and Kyle Bollers, to my mind, then there are Flaccos.

You don't need a diamond in the rough. You need a good QB and a good coaching staff that knows how to set its players up for success.

[bacchys]

Eli Manning was certainly a better quarterback than Brady in those games when they played. Look at Eli's pass to Manningham.. That's probably a better throw than Brady's ever made in his career. Meanwhile, Brady had a wide open Wes Welker and threw it behind him.. Turning an easy catch for YAC into a very difficult catch for no YAC.

Eli had a higher quarterback rating in both of those superbowls. Even in 2007 when Brady was in possibly the most talented offense in NFL history.

Eli's pass to Manningham required a near-miracle catch by Manningham to result in a completion. It wasn't quite as miraculous as Tyree, but it also wasn't more catchable than the pass to Welker that Welker didn't catch. The actions of the receivers in those plays affected the rating of both QB's.

How exactly did Flacco cost "more" than a 1st rounder? The Ravens traded their 8th overall pick for the 26th pick, two thirds, and a fourth. Then they traded a third and a sixth for the 18th, and picked Flacco. So they gained a third and a fourth and lost a sixth. If anything, Flacco cost less than a first. Oh, and Jacksonville picked a DE with the 8th overall. Since that's a position other than quarterback, it's a sure thing right? Since apparently quarterback is the only position that's a gamble. Well Derrick Harvey has amounted to jackshit.

The Ravens traded up to 18 to draft Flacco (after trading down). That sent draft picks to Jacksonville. So drafting Flacco cost the Ravens the 18th pick plus the picks sent to JAX to acquire the 18th pick. That's why it cost more than just a first round pick. We also spent more than a first round pick on Boller, our other "franchise" QB.

QB's aren't the only gamble in the draft, obviously. They're just the biggest gamble, especially when drafted in the first round. That gamble is lessened somewhat by the rookie salary cap (no more Bradfords), but you're still going to flail around for years trying to make sure this player is the real deal. It's the one position in football where you can't use the other players in his unit to cover up his deficiencies- there aren't any other players in his unit on the field. You can't give him help like you can the rookie LT. You can't just use his speed to pull off defenders like you can with a rookie WR. You can't roll a safety over the top like you can a rookie DB. More than any other position on the field, the QB is on his own. At most, you can have him hand the ball off a lot a la Roethlisberger his first several years or Flacco and the Three Headed Monster, but then you're not really getting a "good QB" capable of helping the team win. You're just trying to bide time until he develops the experience necessary to take the next step and carry his weight.

This idea of trying to sign mediocre journeyman quarterbacks to give your team the best chance at winning superbowls is beyond ridiculous. It's easier to find a franchise quarterback than it is to assemble one of the best defenses in NFL history, which is what it takes to win a Super Bowl with a mediocre journeymen quarterback.

That wasn't what I said. I said the Ravens could have had the same success over the last five years having acquired a good, young QB who'd started out on another team over the last five years instead of drafting Flacco and hoping it worked out. They could have had more success, imo, had they done that instead of drafting Boller with the same goal in mind. It did work out with Flacco, and I'm glad it did. But it wasn't necessary to having success as a team. You don't need a great QB to win the SB. You need a great team.

[PurpleApocalypse37]

Eli's pass to Manningham required a near-miracle catch by Manningham to result in a completion. It wasn't quite as miraculous as Tyree, but it also wasn't more catchable than the pass to Welker that Welker didn't catch. The actions of the receivers in those plays affected the rating of both QB's.



The Ravens traded up to 18 to draft Flacco (after trading down). That sent draft picks to Jacksonville. So drafting Flacco cost the Ravens the 18th pick plus the picks sent to JAX to acquire the 18th pick. That's why it cost more than just a first round p
ick. We also spent more than a first round pick on Boller, our other "franchise" QB.

QB's aren't the only gamble in the draft, obviously. They're just the biggest gamble, especially when drafted in the first round. That gamble is lessened somewhat by the rookie salary cap (no more Bradfords), but you're still going to flail around for years trying to make sure this player is the real deal. It's the one position in football where you can't use the other players in his unit to cover up his deficiencies- there aren't any other players in his unit on the field. You can't give him help like you can the rookie LT. You can't just use his speed to pull off defenders like you can with a rookie WR. You can't roll a safety over the top like you can a rookie DB. More than any other position on the field, the QB is on his own. At most, you can have him hand the ball off a lot a la Roethlisberger his first several years or Flacco and the Three Headed Monster, but then you're not really getting a "good QB" capable of helping the team win. You're just trying to bide time until he develops the experience necessary to take the next step and carry his weight.



That wasn't what I said. I said the Ravens could have had the same success over the last five years having acquired a good, young QB who'd started out on another team over the last five years instead of drafting Flacco and hoping it worked out. They could have had more success, imo, had they done that instead of drafting Boller with the same goal in mind. It did work out with Flacco, and I'm glad it did. But it wasn't necessary to having success as a team. You don't need a great QB to win the SB. You need a great team.

JOE FLACCO had 11 TOUCHDOWNS and ZERO interceptions. He had a hall of fame playoffs. If Flacco had performed any worse than that, the Ravens don't win the Super Bowl. Flacco had probably the second greatest playoffs in NFL history. Your attempts to act like the Ravens just won the Super Bowl with a "good" quarterback has no basis in reality.

You seem to think that having a great team and great quarterback are mutually exclusive.

[bacchys]

JOE FLACCO had 11 TOUCHDOWNS and ZERO interceptions. He had a hall of fame playoffs. If Flacco had performed any worse than that, the Ravens don't win the Super Bowl. Flacco had probably the second greatest playoffs in NFL history. Your attempts to act like the Ravens just won the Super Bowl with a "good" quarterback has no basis in reality.

You seem to think that having a great team and great quarterback are mutually exclusive.

You have reading comprehension problems. At no point did I say the Ravens won the Super Bowl with just a "good" quarterback.

What I said was I initially disliked drafting Flacco in the first round, because drafting the wrong QB can set you back years. Any fan of this team ought to know that, as the Boller experiment didn't work out. You can get better value, imo, drafting other positions, especially when it takes more than just that single pick to get the QB you want.

It's worked out for the Ravens with Flacco. I'm as happy as most other Ravens fans about that, and I was happy about it even before this year. I've been a Flacco defender against his critics here and elsewhere, and I'm in the "pay the man" camp insofar as his contract negotiations are going. But that doesn't change my general position that a team is better off working to get the pieces to surround a good QB with than trying to draft the next Manning, Elway or Marino. There are more than 32 good QB's in the NFL for a good coaching staff that knows how to set their players up for success, especially in this age of parity.

[PurpleApocalypse37]

Let's look at quarterbacks who have won:

Joe
Eli
Aaron
Drew Brees
Ben
Eli
Peyton
Ben
Tom Brady
Tom Brady
Brad Johnson
Tom Brady
Trent
Kurt Warner
John
John
Brett Favre
Troy
Steve
Troy
Troy
Mark Rypien
Phil
Joe Montana
Joe Montana
Doug
Phil
Jim
Joe Montana
Jim
Joe Theismann
Joe Montana
Jim
Terry
Terry
Roger Staubach
Ken Stabler
Terry
Terry
Bob
Bob
Roger Staubach
JOHNNY UNITAS
Len
Joe (fuck you)
Bart Starr
Bart Starr

Quarterbacks with only first name listed were first rounders.

28 of the 47 Super Bowls have been won by first rounders.

But in the last 20 years? Only 7 superbowls have been won by non- first rounders.

Oh, and 11 of those were between Montana, Brady, Starr, and Staubach. So unless if you manage to snag one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time in the late, late rounds of the draft.. Chances are you're going to need to draft a quarterback in the first.

[bacchys]

No Super Bowls have ever been won by a QB. The closest any QB ever came to winning a SB was Elway in the '80s, and he was stomped in all three of them.

[Ravenous1]

When your fast is almost as important as how fast you actually are. Explosive speed that a player can turn on at any point or what many call the "afterburner" is difficult for DB's to recover from were as a guy with flatline speed like Clayton can be adjusted for by playing off etc....

[JAB1985]

Mark Clayton was one of my all time most hated first round picks.

I hated the fans build up on these boards (I remember fans calling him things like the YAC king) and I was very unhappy with the pick when we made it.

i wasnt a member of these boards at the time, but i thought Clayton was the safe pick. good routes, good hands, and he did get a good bit of YAC at Oklahoma. I dont think he was ever put into position to succeed here. If we didnt have Mason, he probably could have had similar production as he was a direct mold of the guy. In that draft I was interested in Matt Jones, so i cant really say anything. Former QB with that height and speed, and surprisingly decent hands but it just never came together for him, probably because of his off field hobbies.