The last two years have been an anomaly - and let's be honest, we can't say with 100% confidence that these drafted players are going to be stars. None these guys have played a full healthy two seasons yet. And injury does count as busting.
An anomaly or the new norm? Like I wrote, I see the draft as a dynamic thing that constantly change and evolve through the years, and because of that the approach, requirements and demands change as well.
If, for example, former Panthers offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski hadn’t brought the zone read to the NFL from the college ranks as part of an effort to make their rookie, Cam Newton, succeed right away, then Newton – and others - probably wouldn’t have been that good so early in their career.
Marcus Mariota became a rookie sensation with the Titans in parts because their former offensive coordinator (and, by the way, reported new Cardinals tight end coach), Jason Michael, scaled back their pro style-offense and incorporated a lot of pre-determined packaged plays, quick routes from his wide receivers and simple reads – basically much of the stuff Mariota did as a spread offense-quarterback at Oregon. That was almost unthinkable with old school-coaches not that long ago.
In 2006 less than 20% of all plays were with the quarterback in a shotgun position. In 2011 that number was 40% of all plays, and in 2017 it had risen to 60%. The reason being that most quarterbacks primarily plays in a shotgun formation in college, so while it is important that they down the road learn more traditional methods like mastering a complex playbook, read the entire field and call lengthy plays in a huddle, that is not the most likely way to make them successful in the NFL as rookies.
The list goes on and on. Last year a major key to the relative success of Jared Goff was how the Rams lined up very quickly on offense so that head coach Sean McVay could get to read how the defense lined up. He would then call plays, formations and expected blitzes into Goff before the communication turned off with 15 seconds remaining of the play clock. That allowed Goff to give the information to his teammates, even though he probably didn’t completely understand what he told them. I am almost certain we will see more of that kind of coaching in the future, until there comes some sort of counter answer from the defense.
You are obviously right that we can’t tell if rookies or young quarterbacks will become successes throughout their career. We can, however, tell that coaches are adapting their coaching philosophies in order to ease in rookie quarterbacks to fit the systems.
Another point I want to make is how I am a firm believe that the situation matter. I don’t believe you can simply assume that a quarterback would be equally good with another team. An example could be how a lot of people are saying that the Browns should have drafted Carson Wentz or Deshaun Watson. Since I believe it matters how a quarterback relates with his teammates and his coaches, how good a quarterback’s personal live is and all of that stuff, I think it is way to easy to make the assumption that the two of them would definitely be as good in Cleveland or any other place. The same goes for any other quarterback, and thus maybe the outcome had been different and better if some other teams had traded up to draft some of the quarterbacks you are referring too. No one knows, and no one will ever find out, but it is certainly possible.
Flacco is really the only example, and do you really want Flacco?
That depends. Are we talking about the Joe Flacco who led his team to the playoffs five times, including two divisional round games, two AFC championship games and one Super Bowl triumph, in his first six seasons, or the struggling quarterback we have witnessed for the past two and a half seasons, ten years after being drafted? I understand that he has probably never been a great quarterback according to the eyeball test, but I can assure you that I would take him over Kevin Kolb, Ryan Lindley, Max Hall and whoever the Cardinals screwed up with for several years.
