First-round NFL draft picks are kind of like reverse lottery tickets. Because players have to stay in school so long, there’s a ton of scouting to draw from, and mistakes based on faulty projections are unacceptable. You’re not crossing your fingers, hoping your guy works out—you’re counting on him to. And if he doesn’t, you’re going to notice it on the bottom line, a.k.a. your team’s win-loss record.
That is, that’s how it works except when drafting a quarterback. You need him to work out in the same way described above, but the chances of him actually doing so are far lower. In short, it’s a massive crapshoot, and best of luck with it.
But here’s the thing: It’s the most important position in sports. You need a good QB or your team’s not going anywhere. Oh yeah, and it’s incredibly rare that a true game-changer gets traded in his prime, so you’re probably going to have to get one, that’s right, through the draft.
So the problem for NFL teams that need a QB—say, the Houston Texans, Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings—becomes how to make it less of a crapshoot. Johnny Manziel, Blake Bortles and Teddy Bridgewater are slated as first rounders on many mock drafts (and Derek Carr is making a late push), but any of 10 QBs from FBS schools could be selected in the first three rounds. Teams choosing between them will rely on the physical measurables, the fundamentals and intangibles, but there are also the stats, which—as in every other sport—are advancing.
In 2011 ESPN created QBR, a rating system that puts added weight on clutch play and win-probability added by each throw to provide a better overall picture of a quarterback’s total value to his team. It was rolled out as an NFL tool, but they’ve gone back and run the numbers for college QBs at FBS schools to the 2004 season as well, and 48 of those quarterbacks have been taken in the first three rounds of the NFL draft.
We compiled the figures for all 48 guys to see how well the stat worked as a predictor of NFL performance. Here are the top 48 ranked by QBR (adjusted for strength of opposition) from their last year in school:
The five highest numbers belong to five current NFL starters: Russell Wilson, Sam Bradford, Cam Newton, Colin Kaepernick and Alex Smith. So far so good, right? Despite the presence of Bradford, who’s been limited by injuries since joining the league and hasn’t lived up to billing, it seems like we can see a direct correlation between college QBR and NFL success. The seventh and ninth guys on the list are Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, so we’re still cooking with gas.
After that, however, it gets tricky. The sixth and eighth guys are Vince Young—who, to be fair, was a pro bowler on a plucky Titans team early in his career—and John Beck—who just signed with the B.C. Lions.
After Griffin you’ve got Mark Sanchez, Jason Campbell, Brandon Weeden and JaMarcus Russell, four guys who won’t be starting for anyone this year unless the World League of American Football makes a comeback. So the top half of the list includes a handful of guys who didn’t pan out.
There are some outliers at the bottom of the chart, too. Jay Cutler and Matt Ryan sit way down the list despite the fact that they have three Pro Bowls and one rookie of the year award between them. Aaron Rodgers, one of the most successful QBs in recent league history with one NFL MVP, one Super Bowl MVP and three Pro Bowl appearances to his name, sits right around the middle of the pack.
Taken as a whole, however, the bulk of the starters near the top of the list are potential Pro Bowlers and award winners. The ones at the bottom are stop-gaps and legacy starts—not there by merit, but by front-office stubbornness or dearth of talent on the depth chart. In other words, if you run the numbers and see your potential pick’s name at the bottom of the list… run.
So how does this year’s crop of QBs fit in? Here are the numbers for all 10 (again, ranked by adjusted QBR):
Of the big three, Manziel is head and shoulders above his two main competitors. Bortles, meanwhile, ranks seventh just among the 10 guys on the list. But that’s not such a bad thing in itself. Historically speaking, this is a pretty good class by QBR (and the list doesn’t even include Jimmy Garopollo, who could go as high as the second round but doesn’t have a QBR rating because he played at Eastern Illinois, a non-FBS school). No one has a rating as high as Russell Wilson, but eight of them had a better number than Aaron Rodgers.
Of the next tier, Carr looks fantastic by pass estimated points added (his 100.1 figure is the third highest among the QBs looked at) and total estimated points added (113, which is the highest), but his adjusted QBR figure gives no respect to his level of competition at Fresno State.
Mettenberger, at best a second-round pick, meanwhile, could prove a steal and back up ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski’s claim that he’s the second best quarterback in the draft (behind Bortles).
At the bottom end, Savage and Thomas would be bucking a trend if they turned into anything but guys filling jerseys as the team waits for its next next-big-thing at QB. Buyers beware.