After putting together the Daily Bruin Mock Draft last week and observing how the actual draft played out, I’ve been itching to talk about what I saw. Above all the anomalies that occurred, one trend in NFL teams’ rosters seems to be playing out before our eyes.
It’s harder and harder to be a quarterback in this league and NCAA quarterbacks’ chances of making it in the NFL are diminishing rapidly.
As a quarterback you are the leader and face of a team. You not only carry the responsibilities of distributing the ball to your players on the field, but you are the general who almost single-handedly shoulders the weight of every offensive call made on the field, whether it was your fault or not.
This position seems to attract the youth of America; it seems that almost everybody wants to play quarterback.
But because of that, so many good quarterbacks have risen from the college ranks that we now have a surplus. A majority of NFL teams have good quarterbacks. In fact, it could be argued that only one team last season had a huge quarterback problem ““ the Oakland Raiders. Take the next three teams with worse records and even their quarterbacks were at least mediocre ““ Jon Kitna (Detroit), Charlie Frye (Cleveland) and Chris Simms (Tampa Bay, but now replaced by Jeff Garcia).
Other than that, almost every single pro team has a franchise quarterback with no need for another one.
JaMarcus Russell was an obvious first pick, but after that Brady Quinn dropped all the way down to 22nd. And Brady Quinn is a good quarterback no matter what people say; it’s just that no one needed him. Sure, more quarterbacks were picked up in the second round, but these names were meant to be backup QBs: John Beck, Kevin Kolb, Drew Stanton and Trent Edwards. These guys will need to improve dramatically if they want to be franchise quarterbacks in the future. They’ll need a bit of luck too.
Quarterbacks are still very important, but a team only needs one. And if that QB is good, he’ll last a while. So we see teams reaching for defensive backs, defensive linemen and offensive linemen. Seventeen defensive players went in the first round. Four offensive lineman were drafted then too. And if the wide receiving corps coming out of the NCAA wasn’t as good as it was, even more defense would have gone.
As even further evidence, look at the quarterbacks who were not drafted at all last weekend:
Jared Zabransky, the Boise State quarterback who led his team to a victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl last season. Maybe he was missing a few of the fundamentals, but when we talk about quarterbacks who performed in clutch situations, he nears the top of the list. Zabransky is also on the cover of “NCAA Football 08,” the popular video game that has taken away several months of my life. He might be the only video game cover athlete to go undrafted.
Chris Leak, the Florida quarterback who led the Gators to a national championship, went from being one of the most popular high school recruits in the nation to not even going in one of the seven rounds of the NFL Draft.
Matt Moore, the famous UCLA transfer to Oregon State, was not picked up. He’s not on the same level as Leak and Zabransky, but he’s a decent quarterback nonetheless.
All these QBs were eventually picked up through free agency, but the damage was done. They weren’t wanted in the actual draft.
The point is, you can be a good quarterback and it won’t matter; you have to be a great quarterback. Unless you’re a JaMarcus Russell or a Brady Quinn, then you can’t plan on a concrete future because, simply put, there may not be a place for you.
It’s time for you mediocre quarterbacks out there to look toward another position or, even better, get that degree your mother always wanted you to get. Your dreams might be too unrealistic.
Sorry.
E-mail Wenzel at awenzel@media.ucla.edu if you actually are a JaMarcus Russell.