The Franchise QB fallacy
The franchise quarterback fallacy strikes me as perhaps the most puzzling piece of irrationality in professional sports. In the past 15 NFL drafts there have been 33 Quarterbacks taken in the first round of the draft. None have won a superbowl and only 3 have appeared in the Superbowl while representing the team that drafted them... Only 9 have ever made the Pro Bowl. It is clear to me that the classical teambuilding gameplan (Draft a blue chip passer early and build around him. Have him start for 12 years and win 2 or 3 Super Bowls on his way to Canton) is a very very long shot... The question is why are so many teams in Pro Football wedded to this method of doing things?
Building a team in this manner is analogous to making tech stock startups the backbone of your investment portfolio. Does it work occasionally? Sure. Is that proof of its soundness of an operating strategy? No. I can potentially make a lot of money playing roulette in vegas. That doesnt make playing roulette a rational investment strategy. Conventional wisdom says that you cant evaluate a draft until five years after it has occured. I think that this is an alluring but ultimately wrongheaded way to think about it. It invariably gives too much credit (and too much blame) to scouting departments and not enough to randomness. Decisions must be evaluated on the basis of the information that was available at the time. I think that scouting departments in Pro Football dramatically overestimate their own ability to predict future performance.
The truth is that the performance of college football players at the NFL level is HIGHLY unpredictable.. We should not be so quick to pronounce GMs and coaches Geniuses of goats on the basis of their drafting success.
Though I have not had the time to research it, what would interest me is how much correlation there is between how highly a player is drafted and the quality his pro performance...
(For example how much better on average are the stats for a high first round QB vs a low first round QB after say 3 or 4 seasons)
What I am certain of is that there is a MUCH higher correlation between the position in which a player is drafted and his salary (and hence how much salary cap space he consumes)
High first round draft picks are very coveted by the teams that hold them but are they as desirable as they seem? They are EXPENSIVE and unpredictable.. High first round Quarterback are ESPECIALLY expensive and unpredictable.
A high first round pick eats up a lot of salary cap space that can't be used to fortify other areas of the team. Teams that hold high first round picks do so because they are bad. Bad teams typically have multiple areas of weakness
Another issue with Quarterback picks is development time. Developing a Quarterback capable of giving his team a legitimate championship shot takes several seasons. (Abberations like Dan Marino and Ben Rothlisburger notwithstanding) In a previous era before free agency it took approximately 5 years to develop a league doormat into a championship contender. In the modern era the boom and bust cycle has speeded up and it can be done in 3.
Waiting for that QB to develop may have seemed a wise time investment in the past. Can it still be justified in view of the the faster development curve of teams in the modern era? Im not convinced. Draft Philosophy has possibly not changed enough to take this into account.
Finally teams win in the NFL by getting value for money. In a league where everyone spends the same the difference between winners and losers is how many guys outperform their contract. Do high round quarterbacks represent value for cap space?
They are paid salaries disproportionate to their contribution on the assumption that they can be developed into stars. In the unlikely event that they live up to expectations they will be entitled to new contracts just as they reach their prime. All of this costs a lot of cap space... Many of the teams that have contended in the free agent era have done so with quarterback who were underpaid. The very fact that they were underpaid is what allowed those teams to construct championship caliber rosters around them
APPENDIX
1st round Quarterbacks taken in the last 15 years
Alex Smith
Aaron Rodgers
Jason Campbell
Eli Manning
Phillip Rivers
Ben Roethlisburger
Carson Palmer
Byron Leftwich
Kyle Boller
Rex Grossman
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Patrick Ramsey
Michael Vick (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Drew Brees (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Chad Pennington
Tim Couch
Donovan Mcnabb (Superbowl Appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Akili Smith
Daunte Culpepper (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Cade McNown
Peyton Manning (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Ryan Leaf
Jim Druckenmiller
Steve McNair (Superbowl appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Kerry Collins .... (Superbowl but with a different team) (Pro Bowl appearance)
Heath Shuler
Trent Dilfer (Superbowl appearance but with a different team) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Drew Bledsoe (Superbowl appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Rick Mirer
Todd Marinovich
Jeff George
Andre Ware
Building a team in this manner is analogous to making tech stock startups the backbone of your investment portfolio. Does it work occasionally? Sure. Is that proof of its soundness of an operating strategy? No. I can potentially make a lot of money playing roulette in vegas. That doesnt make playing roulette a rational investment strategy. Conventional wisdom says that you cant evaluate a draft until five years after it has occured. I think that this is an alluring but ultimately wrongheaded way to think about it. It invariably gives too much credit (and too much blame) to scouting departments and not enough to randomness. Decisions must be evaluated on the basis of the information that was available at the time. I think that scouting departments in Pro Football dramatically overestimate their own ability to predict future performance.
The truth is that the performance of college football players at the NFL level is HIGHLY unpredictable.. We should not be so quick to pronounce GMs and coaches Geniuses of goats on the basis of their drafting success.
Though I have not had the time to research it, what would interest me is how much correlation there is between how highly a player is drafted and the quality his pro performance...
(For example how much better on average are the stats for a high first round QB vs a low first round QB after say 3 or 4 seasons)
What I am certain of is that there is a MUCH higher correlation between the position in which a player is drafted and his salary (and hence how much salary cap space he consumes)
High first round draft picks are very coveted by the teams that hold them but are they as desirable as they seem? They are EXPENSIVE and unpredictable.. High first round Quarterback are ESPECIALLY expensive and unpredictable.
A high first round pick eats up a lot of salary cap space that can't be used to fortify other areas of the team. Teams that hold high first round picks do so because they are bad. Bad teams typically have multiple areas of weakness
Another issue with Quarterback picks is development time. Developing a Quarterback capable of giving his team a legitimate championship shot takes several seasons. (Abberations like Dan Marino and Ben Rothlisburger notwithstanding) In a previous era before free agency it took approximately 5 years to develop a league doormat into a championship contender. In the modern era the boom and bust cycle has speeded up and it can be done in 3.
Waiting for that QB to develop may have seemed a wise time investment in the past. Can it still be justified in view of the the faster development curve of teams in the modern era? Im not convinced. Draft Philosophy has possibly not changed enough to take this into account.
Finally teams win in the NFL by getting value for money. In a league where everyone spends the same the difference between winners and losers is how many guys outperform their contract. Do high round quarterbacks represent value for cap space?
They are paid salaries disproportionate to their contribution on the assumption that they can be developed into stars. In the unlikely event that they live up to expectations they will be entitled to new contracts just as they reach their prime. All of this costs a lot of cap space... Many of the teams that have contended in the free agent era have done so with quarterback who were underpaid. The very fact that they were underpaid is what allowed those teams to construct championship caliber rosters around them
APPENDIX
1st round Quarterbacks taken in the last 15 years
Alex Smith
Aaron Rodgers
Jason Campbell
Eli Manning
Phillip Rivers
Ben Roethlisburger
Carson Palmer
Byron Leftwich
Kyle Boller
Rex Grossman
David Carr
Joey Harrington
Patrick Ramsey
Michael Vick (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Drew Brees (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Chad Pennington
Tim Couch
Donovan Mcnabb (Superbowl Appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Akili Smith
Daunte Culpepper (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Cade McNown
Peyton Manning (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Ryan Leaf
Jim Druckenmiller
Steve McNair (Superbowl appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Kerry Collins .... (Superbowl but with a different team) (Pro Bowl appearance)
Heath Shuler
Trent Dilfer (Superbowl appearance but with a different team) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Drew Bledsoe (Superbowl appearance) (Pro Bowl Appearance)
Rick Mirer
Todd Marinovich
Jeff George
Andre Ware
posted by thoughtfulape | 9:28 AM
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