5-at-10: Monster mailbag with NFL draft quarterback decisions, Draft’s attraction, Unfairly questioning Jalen Hurts’ loyalty, Rushmore of high 5s and more

From Todd M.

Here’s an idea for a story – how many No. 1 overall quarterbacks won a Super Bowl other than Peyton and Eli?

Todd M. –

Love this thought, in two directions.

We’ll start with the straight answer. There have been six quarterbacks to be picked No.1 overall and win a Super Bowl, and technically those six quarterbacks won 15 total Super Bowls and 12 Super Bowls for the teams that picked them. (Bradshaw won four for the Steelers, Aikman won three for the Cowboys, Elway won two with Denver, Eli won two with New York and Peyton won one with the Colts; Peyton won one with the Broncos and Plunkett was picked by the Patriots and won two with the Raiders.)

To be fair, the rallying and rebuild job for almost every team with the No. 1 overall pick is staggering.

And while Terry Bradshaw and Jim Plunkett would be on this list, we’re not counting him because the Steelers were in the pre-cap, pre-free-agency era. And they drafted like poet ninjas.

You could make the same statement for Troy Aikman and Dallas, too. But that works more into the modern era, so we’ll count that. (We’ll list at least two future Hall of Famers in those respective drafts in parenthesis)

Here are the quarterbacks taken No. 1 overall since Aikman in 1989, and he won three Super Bowls:

1987 – Tampa Bay takes Vinny Testaverde 1; zero Super Bowl trips, two Pro Bowls in 21 years; (Rod Woodson No. 10; Cris Carter round four of the supplemental draft)

1989 – Dallas takes Aikman 1; three Super Bowl wins, six Pro Bowls in 12 years (Aikman, followed by Barry Sanders at 3, Derrick Thomas at 4 and Deion Sanders at 5 in what may have been the best top five of all time)

1990 – Indy takes Jeff George 1; zero Super Bowl appearances, zero Pro Bowls in 13 years (Cortez Kennedy at 3; Junior Seau at 5; Emmitt Smith at 17)

1993 – New England takes Drew Bledsoe 1; zero Super Bowl wins, four Pro Bowls in 14 years (Willie Roaf went 8, Jerome Bettis went 10, Michael Strahan went 40, Will Shields went 74 and John Lynch went 82)

1998 – Indy takes Peyton Manning 1; two Super Bowl wins, 11 Pro Bowls in 16 years (Randy Moss went 21, but Manning will be a no-doubter when he is eligible)

1999 – Cleveland takes Tim Couch 1; zero Super Bowl trips, zero Pro Bowls in six years (none – best players Torry Holt at 6 and Champ Bailey at 7; best quarterback – Donovan McNabb)

2001 – Atlanta takes Mike Vick 1; zero Super Bowl trips, four Pro Bowls in 11 years (LaDainian Tomlinson at is in the Hall, amazingly in the pick the Falcons traded up; best quarterback Drew Brees, who the Chargers took with pick 32)

2002 – Houston takes David Carr 1; zero Super Bowl trips, zero Pro Bowls in 11 years (none – but Julius Peppers went 2 and he will be; Dwight Freeney went 11, Ed Reed went 24 and James Harrison was undrafted and each will get strong HoF consideration; as for best quarterback, well, it was likely Josh McCown who went 81)

2003 – Cincinnati takes Carson Palmer 1; zero Super Bowl wins, three Pro Bowls in 15 years (none – but Andre Johnson at 3, Terrell Suggs at 10 and Troy Polamalu at 16 likely will get there; best quarterback, well, Palmer is pretty underrated, but the best quarterback in this draft class went undrafted and his name is Tony Romo)

2004 – San Diego takes Eli Manning 1 and deal him to New York; two Super Bowl wins, four Pro Bowls in 14 years (none – but Eli and Larry Fitzgerald at 3, Philip Rivers at 4 and Big Ben at 11 are all contenders; as for best quarterback, well, all three of those guys are likely headed to Canton so you choose)

2005 – San Francisco takes Alex Smith 1; zero Super Bowl trips, three Pro Bowls in 13 years (none – but a couple of dudes picked later in round one – DeMarcus Ware and Aaron Rodgers are likely headed there)

2007 – Oakland takes JaMarcus Russell 1; zero Super Bowl trips, zero Pro Bowls in three years (Too many future Hall of Famers to count: Joe Thomas, Calvin Johnson, Darrelle Revis, Adrian Peterson, Patrick Willis, et al. Best quarterback: None. Period.)

2009 – Detroit takes Matt Stafford 1; zero Super Bowl trips, one Pro Bowl in nine years (None but Alex Mack and Shady McCoy could be contenders; Stafford is the best QB in the draft, but, well more on him in a moment)

2010 – St. Louis takes Sam Bradford 1; zero Super Bowl trips, zero Pro Bowls in eight years (none – but the next four picks of Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, Trent Williams and Eric Berry have all be among the best players at their position and some dude named Antonio Brown went 195; best quarterback is likely Bradford)

2011 – Carolina takes Cam Newton 1; zero Super Bowl wins, three Pro Bowls in seven years (Best draft in the modern era with Von Miller, A.J., Green, Julio Jones, Tyron Smith and J.J. Watt joining Newton in the top 11; best quarterback is Newton)

2012 – Indy takes Andrew Luck 1; zero Super Bowl trips, three Pro Bowls in six years (Luke Kuechly went 9 overall; Luck is the best QB)

2015 – Tampa Bay takes James Winston 1; zero Super Bowl trips, one Pro Bowl in three years (jury still out)

2016 – Los Angeles takes Jared Goff 1; zero Super Bowl trips, one Pro Bowl in two years (jury still out)

As we approach a draft in which a quarterback almost assuredly will go No. 1 overall, looking at the last 30 drafts, the numbers tell us a few things:

One, in more than half those drafts – 18 – a QB went No. 1 overall.

Two, the bust quotient is quite high in terms of taking the best player in the draft. Look above, the only for sure best overall player in the draft who went 1 as a quarterback in the last 30 years is Peyton Manning.

Three, the mediocre quotient is also apparent. Take Matt Stafford, who has been a fine quarterback but a fine quarterback making $30 million a year gives the Lions a fighting chance in most games and zero chance to ever win anything meaningful.

All of these football gurus who have their jobs on the line and the stake of their franchises hanging in the balance and spend millions in scouting and interviews and all the intel, and the simple numbers prove out that they are flipping a coin.

If you re-draft those 18 drafts, maybe a third of them – Aikman, Peyton Manning, Luck for sure and most likely Cam and Stafford and maybe Bledsoe – would the team that took QB No. 1 stick with that pick in a re-do.

From Larry

Is there a particular reason that you love the draft so much?

Thanks and I enjoy your work.

Larry –

Great question sir.

And while we have loved the draft for a while – our actual love affair with the draft in general started with the NBA draft back in the 1980s – the phenomenon that is the draft is intriguing to us.

First there is the Madden players who have filled a generation of football fans that are now comfortable with the inner workings of franchises (at least in the video game realm) and enjoyed that as much if not more than the actual game-playing of Madden franchise modes.

Then there are all the fantasy football players out there, and everyone who has ever played fantasy football knows the funnest day of the season is draft day.

Plus, this is the perfect intersection of all football fans, be them football fanatics (guys who go to a local game on Friday nights, and spend the next two days glued to the set), college fans, NFL fans or casual fans. Everyone has a connection.

Then there is the simple emotion. Offseason news has become embraced as much if not more than in-season results because offseason moves are open to interpretation and fans can try to fin hope with this pick or that trade. When the games start, the harsh reality of winning and losing is impossible to rationalize or marginalize. In some ways that’s one of the ways college football recruiting has taken off.

You can believe the best for months on a good recruiting class. A 1-3 September, though, ends all doubt and excitement.

As for the actual draft itself, the unpredictability and the domino-effect that shapes the entire process makes it really intriguing to us.

Not sure where we got to love the draft – and we do; you know this – but is it really our place to question the all-powerful emotion that is love?

That’s it, everyone give someone a hug. (Not at work, though, because I don’t want the HR folks at TVA and BlueCross calling over here.)

From Scott

Jay, I love the 5-at-10 and read revery day.

I think you missed a great Rushmore. Did you see that Thursday was National High 5 day? If you had a Rushmore of best and worst high 5s could you give us those please?

Thanks.

Scott –

Thanks for playing along, and you are correct, we missed Thursday as a great Rushmore chance as National High 5 day.

The best, we have to start with the Redskins in the 1980s. The Fun Bunch had a collective high 5 after a TD. Then there is the high 5 that Bender gives a stoned Brian Johnson (hey it’s 4/20 after all) in Breakfast Club. Tango and Cash turned the high 5 into a subplot of their 1980s action film. Then we will finish with the Jim and Pam cross The Office air 5.

As for the worst, well, the awkward hug/botched high 5 in the beach scene in Rocky III between Rocky and Apollo is awful. Then there’s Tiger and Stevie Williams after The Chip at the Masters back in 2005. There’s this politician who won an election and tried to high 5 the lady next to him and went palm to nipple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4EmIMgHXi0 And any and all high 5s in Top Gun.

This week’s Rushmores:

Rushmore of surprising NFL busts (and to be clear, injury-riddled players are not busts in this view): Keith McCants, David Carr, Trent Richardson and Charles Rogers

Rushmore of all-time U.S. sporting venues in pro sports: Non-team sports: Augusta National, Churchill Downs, Indianapolis Motorspeedway, Pebble Beach; Team sports: Boston Garden, Lambeau Field, Yankee Stadium, and Wrigley Field.

Rushmore of most influential Americans who were not president: Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong

Rushmore of first-name athletes in college and pro sports: Kareem, Kobe, LeBron and Wilt; Bo, Herschel, Peyton and Cam.

From Dave C.

There were several athletes in the Time Magazine Influential 100. Curious what you thought of the list?

Dave C. –

We did see the list and we understand a lot of the Olympic-year stuff. That mades sense.

But Roger Federer on the cover was a little curious, but OK.

LeBron not being on the list, but Kevin Durant being on it was puzzling.

Loved the addition of JJ Watt, and his fund-raising efforts.

But was a little shocked that no soccer one-name dude was listed.



From BamaBacker

Jay, I know you went to that Barn College but what do you make of the Jalen Hurts thing at Alabama?

Where is the loyalty among today’s athletes?

BB –

Yes, I did attend that Barn College. Heck, I wish I had studied one of those Barn degrees and been like a vet or a TVA fisheries dude.

That said, we are who are and we do what we do right?

And one of the things we all do is look at everything through our own personal prism.

And the prism of almost every college football fan has some interesting and skewed perspectives. They are understandable mind you because they come from places of passion and fandom.

But they are still skewed. And this happens at every school and its fans, but since you asked about Jalen Hurts, let’s use Alabama examples that you will be familiar with.

You ask where is the loyalty of today’s athletes? OK, did you ask the same question when Reuben Foster or Rahsaan Evans flipped long-standing pledges to Auburn at the 11th hour and became stars at Alabama? That’s far from loyal, no? You probably said those guys woke up and made the right decision in the end. Here’s also betting that when an Alabama commitment flips you complain about loyalty even wonder what his new school paid them to get him to change his mind.

What about the players who have been processed – both in the recruiting process and after getting to their school and not meeting expectation – did you question the coaches’ or the program’s loyalty to those kids?

Today’s power programs are trying to recruit a player’s replacement from the moment the National Letter of Intent is faxed in. That’s true in T-town, K-ville, Athens and over there in Barn Land.

But when these kids are staring at the rest of their career being a practice player and wondering if they are ever going to take a meaningful snap again, I have no problem with that.

It makes me think of the line from North Dallas Forty, when every time the franchise needs to make a tough decision, it’s because it’s a business. But when a player is put into similar situation, fans and coaches want to question their love of the game, team, etc.

That duality is unfair at best and more often than not completely hypocritical. And Alabama is far from the only one doing it.

Here’s more from TFP SEC ace David Paschall with a couple of quotes from Nick Saban’s news conference.

Like this one: “We all want the same thing for all of the players who compete on our team, regardless of the position. There is going to be a significant effort for a lot of folks to make this a very public thing, but it’s going to be handled in a very private manner. Jalen has done a great job, and he’s made a significant amount of improvement, but at the end of the day, everybody has career decisions they’ll have to make.”

The Bleacher Report story from Matt Hays that got this going after Jalen’s dad sounded off about his future – a quote that certainly does not offer anything no one following this situation has not already thought or believed. In fact, Coach Hurts’ quote that is stealing all the headlines came after a pretty insightful comment that should let everyone know that this is a business decision about playing time.

Said Coach Hurts: “Coach Saban’s job is to do what’s best for his team. I have no problem with that. My job is to do what’s best for Jalen – and make no mistake, Jalen is a quarterback, and he wants to play quarterback. He loves Alabama, loves Coach Saban and loves everything about that place, but he wants to play, and he will play.”
When asked if Jalen did not get the starting job, Mr. Hurts then offered the headline-stealing “Well, he would be the biggest free agent in college football history.”

BamaBacker, this is not about loyalty, because that’s a two-way street. (And as long as scholarships are not a universal four-year deal, well, that loyalty is always going to be questioned.)

This is about making the best decision possible.

For Alabama, the goal beyond that decision is to win as many games as possible and starting Tua Tagovailoa may be the best decision to reach that goal.

For the Hurts family, the goal beyond that decision is to be in the best possible position to make the NFL, and transferring so he can play and be seen may be the best way to reach that goal.

Thanks, and enjoy the week gang.