Nine of the 12 playoff quarterbacks were No. 1 draft choices or, in the case of Green Bay’s Brett Favre, cost a No. 1 draft choice to obtain.
Six of them–the Jets’ Chad Pennington, the Browns’ Tim Couch, the Titans’ Steve McNair, the Colts’ Peyton Manning, the Eagles’ Donovan McNabb and the Falcons’ Michael Vick–were No. 1 draft choices of their original teams.
The Steelers’ Tommy Maddox and the Giants’ Kerry Collins were No. 1 picks by other teams and kicked around before being signed as free agents by their current teams. The Raiders’ Rich Gannon, the Bucs’ Brad Johnson and the 49ers’ Jeff Garcia also were free agents. Gannon and Johnson both started in Minnesota, which makes you wonder whether the Bears shouldn’t look into current Vikings backup Todd Bouman.
More Top Picks Best White Noise Machines For Sleep
Gannon was a fourth-round pick of the New England Patriots, who immediately traded him to Minnesota after Gannon refused to play any position except quarterback. Johnson was a ninth-rounder in Minnesota, the equivalent of a free agent in today’s seven-round draft. Garcia was never drafted and is a refugee from the Canadian Football League.
There are several lessons to be gleaned here.
First, the best quarterbacks usually are No. 1 draft choices. While that might seem obvious, it is popular to romanticize the feel-good stories of recent Super Bowl winners Tom Brady of New England, a sixth-rounder, and Kurt Warner of St. Louis, a free agent, and conclude that quarterbacks come from anywhere.
They can, but usually they don’t. Scouts spend their lives finding prospects, not missing them. If a quarterback is a first-round pick, there usually is a good reason. If a quarterback is a third-round pick, there also usually is a good reason, Joe Montana notwithstanding.
If the Bears think they can find a Super Bowl quarterback in the second round, they are wishing more than thinking, unless Favre has a little brother somewhere playing incognito. The experience of the San Diego Chargers and second-rounder Drew Brees is the latest example. The Chargers traded the rights to Vick because they thought–still think–they can get by with Brees. They finished 8-8, with the jury still out.
Trading a No. 1 pick for a quarterback is unnecessary. Again, Favre was an exception, but his deal happened the year before the free-agency-salary cap system arrived. In today’s NFL, he might have cost the Packers little or nothing because the Falcons eventually would have lost him as a free agent.
It makes the Bears’ trade of their No. 1 pick in 1997 for Rick Mirer look more stupid than ever. It underscores how ill-equipped the Bears were to deal with the details of free agency.
Besides Favre, only two other NFL quarterbacks starting this season arrived in trades for No. 1 draft choices–Buffalo’s Drew Bledsoe and Kansas City’s Trent Green. Both were more proven commodities than Mirer, more proven than anyone likely to be in this off-season market, yet both the Bills and Chiefs finished 8-8.
The clamor over why the Bears didn’t go after Bledsoe is faint.
Developing the quarterback is the No. 1 lesson. It is interesting to note that one coach, Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden, was instrumental in grooming two free-agent castoffs–Gannon and Johnson. Gruden learned his trade under quarterback guru Mike Holmgren from the Bill Walsh school, where head coaches Steve Mariucci of the 49ers, Mike Sherman of the Packers, Andy Reid of the Eagles and offensive coordinator Paul Hackett of the Jets also learned and taught Garcia, Favre, McNabb and Pennington.
There is more than coincidence at work here.
Of the 12 playoff teams, five are coached by former defensive coaches–the Jets’ Herman Edwards, the Steelers’ Bill Cowher, the Browns’ Butch Davis, the Titans’ Jeff Fisher and the Colts’ Tony Dungy. All five have offensive coordinators plus quarterbacks coaches. The Jets have no one with the title of quarterbacks coach, but two offensive “assistants,” Jimmy Raye and Mike Henning, are former quarterbacks.
Of the seven playoff teams coached by offensive specialists, the only ones without quarterbacks coaches are the Raiders and Packers, where veterans Gannon and Favre have become virtual coaches themselves. Both have benefited from coaching over the years.
The Giants’ Sean Payton serves as both offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach the way the Bears use John Shoop. But Giants head coach Jim Fassel is a former quarterback and offensive coordinator himself who took over the play-calling from Payton at midseason. Fassel also was a college teammate of Holmgren’s at Southern Cal.
Of the seven playoff teams coached by offensive specialists, only Dan Reeves of the Falcons has no connection to the Walsh-Holmgren tree.