Well, now you are changing the premise of your initial point. You wrote that Flacco was an example of a quarterback it was worth trading up for, but now you write that he wasn’t really worth it after all. Personally, I would still go with Flacco over the nine different starting quarterbacks the Cardinals have fielded in the same time span. However, your argument does prove my point that the situation matter.
I could be wrong, but I think we might disagree because we are talking about two different things, Solar.
I am not anointing the mentioned quarterbacks either successes or failures. I am saying that they have played well early in their career, partly because their coaches have been willing to adapt their systems and playcalling to fit the quarterback’s strength. What you mention with Goff, and how I wrote that he was good though he didn’t really understand the nuances of playing quarterback is a great example, I think. I am claiming that at least some of his success this past season was because he was being managed by Sean McVay. That is the essence of my point. Quarterbacks are better early on because coaches are finding new ways to unfold what the players do well, and that potentially, or even likely, increase in their chances of success makes it in my opinion worth it to draft them high, even if it means trading up to get them.
You are of course correct in the stats that you bring up regarding the quarterbacks, but I think it might be easier to simply ask if you believe Bears-fans right now would prefer to have Mitch Trubisky as their quarterback or if they would rather still go with Matt Barkley or Brian Hoyer. Or if Texans-fans are still excited about their future even with everything they know about Deshaun Watson and his knee, or if they would prefer to go back to the times not long ago where Tom Savage, T. J. Yates and Brock Osweiler led their team. Mahomes is kind of an unknown, but the Chiefs were non the less willing to give up the quarterback who led them to the playoff four out of five seasons in order to give the reins to Mahomes. Would you rather have the current situation of the Cardinals or Trubisky, Watson or Mahomes on the roster? Those fanbases have hope for the future because of a young quarterback leading their team. That’s really all I am asking for, at least in the first place.
Also, the quarterbacks you mention are just some examples I thought together would make for a big enough sample size. You could also mention Colin Kaepernick – who, by the way, the Niners traded up to select - and how the Niners’ former head coach, Jim Harbaugh, tailored his offensive systems to utilize Kaepernick’s strengths of playing the read-option from a pistol formation. In his first full season as a starter, Kaepernick took the Niners to the Super Bowl, and the year after he led them to the NFC championship game. You could look at the example of how the former offensive coordinator of the Seahawks, Darrell Bevell, scaled back his offense to ease in Russell Wilson to the NFL, and how Bevell installed a lot of zone read-option concepts to his systems to optimize what Wilson did best. In two of his first three seasons as a starting quarterback he led the Seahawks to the Super Bowl and won one of them. You could take the example of how Mike McCoy made his Broncos-offense into a ground-based spread option-offense to suit Tim Tebow’s playing style – a coaching job that resulted in a divisional round playoff game. You could look at how the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator, Scott Linehan, adjusted his offense to run the clear majority of passing plays out of spread or empty formations which Dak Prescott was very familiar with having run it at Mississippi State for years. You could even use it as an example how the Colts’ offensive coordinator, Rob Chudzinski, adjusted his offense to make second-year quarterback Jacoby Brissett look at least serviceable this past season. Those teams might have had great defenses, dominant special teams or fantastic skill players on offense, but even if that has been the case I still think it goes without saying that their quarterbacks have not been irrelevant.
My goal isn’t to convince you or anyone else that one player or another have been a success, and I am well aware that there have been several failures as well in the same period that I am highlighting. My goal is to tell and show you and others that coaching adjustments to make a young quarterback play well can be done, and that the many examples sort of amplifies the justification of using a rather high draft selection on a quarterback. Yes, I would say that potentially is a new norm, and thus a new tendency in drafting. Mike McCoy even repeatedly said in his introductory press conference that he would fit his offense to whoever would be playing quarterback.
Now, after reading this post you could argue that I have made the case that you don’t have to be highly aggressive in pursuing a quarterback since it has been proven that it is possible to get good production out of him anyway. I would counter that argument by saying that in my first post in this discussion I also wrote how I feel that the Cardinals for years have been way too passive in trying to get a quarterback for the future, and later I wrote how I believe that the situation matter. Because of those two things, as well as what else I have written in this post, I don’t think there is any question that it does matter which quarterback you choose. For those reasons, I believe Mr. Bidwill, Steve Keim and Steve Wilks should seriously consider providing themselves with the best chance to make the best choice, and that would either require spending a lot of money to secure a veteran quarterback or spending a lot of draft capital to move up in the first round and thus increase their options.
(He won't take a pay cut)
