NFL Combine: The most important position is hardest to evaluate
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions already have their franchise quarterback in Matthew Stafford, but finding one is no easy task as history tells us.
As the Detroit Lions or any other team in the NFL will tell you, it’s the most important position on the field and the toughest to play. Perhaps the toughest position in all of sports.
So it should stand to reason that it is also the toughest to evaluate.
While the Lions feel comfortable that they have their franchise quarterback in place, this is one franchise that is a key example for how difficult it is to find that elite passer that every team craves.
Just think about the history of Lions quarterbacks that were expected to become Detroit’s saviors and lead the Lions to the promised land of the Super Bowl. It’s a virtual who’s who of players that simply were not able to lift this franchise to new heights.
All three of those players especially, were early first round picks that were expected to carry the Lions to greatness. Yet like so many others, none of them panned out. However, while almost every other team has had more luck than the Lions over the past 50 years, it isn’t an exact science for them either.
The quarterback position is scrutinized in every way possible. Height, weight, arm strength, success on the collegiate level and psychological testing. Yet even after all that it’s still a crap-shoot.
Since the NFL/AFL merger in 1970, the first overall pick in the draft has been used on a quarterback 22 times. Only five of those picks led the team that selected them to the Super Bowl and two others led another team to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile Peyton Manning has the distinction of leading two teams (the Colts and Broncos) to the Super Bowl.
The rest were mostly serviceable signal-callers that were unable to get the job done, while three were considered outright busts. Then once you go beyond first overall picks the success rate of finding a quality quarterback drops considerably.
In the 2000 draft there were six quarterbacks drafted before the New England Patriots used a late sixth round pick on Tom Brady. Of all the quarterbacks selected ahead of Brady, only Chad Pennington and Marc Bulger were able to put together notable NFL careers.
As we all know Tom Brady is possibly the greatest quarterback in NFL history, yet when he came out of Michigan he was the kid with an average arm and average athleticism at best. Someone the scouts believed might be able to learn to be a serviceable career back-up quarterback.
Boy where they wrong.
There are many factors that play into a quarterbacks success in the NFL, like being on a good enough team to actually make a run at the Super Bowl and not having their confidence shattered early due to poor play around them. But there is one other ingredient every great quarterback needs and no one can truly measure; heart.
Despite some quarterbacks having loads of talent, they didn’t have heart. They didn’t have that burning desire inside themselves to be great no matter what.
JaMarcus Russell of the Oakland Raiders and Tim Couch of the Cleveland Browns didn’t have it, but Tom Brady has it in spades.
Next month there will be a handful of teams that will be clamoring for one of the top rated quarterbacks in this years draft with the hopes that whoever they are able to select will be ‘the man’. The chosen one who lifts the whole franchise to championship levels.
USC’s Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen of UCLA, Baker Mayfield from Oklahoma and Josh Allen of Wyoming are the headliners while Lamar Jackson of Louisville and Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph are right behind them.
Of those six talented young men, the odds are that only two or three of them will pan-out. The odds decrease even more that any of them will lead their team to the Super Bowl.
Yet if our NFL history has taught us anything, it’s that if you don’t have a franchise quarterback, you’re not going anywhere.
Next: What flavor of running back do the Lions prefer?
Anywhere from four to all six of those quarterbacks are expected to go in the first round. They will all enter different circumstances and have different obstacles to overcome to prove they were worth the selection. Yet in the end, no knows for sure how they will pan-out.
Because the most important position on the field is always the hardest to evaluate.