{"id":9810,"date":"2020-03-23T00:03:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T00:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/?p=9810"},"modified":"2020-03-25T02:41:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T02:41:28","slug":"no-one-knows-anything-about-quarterbacks-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/nfl\/no-one-knows-anything-about-quarterbacks-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"No One Knows Anything About Quarterbacks Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY ADAM GREENE<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s\na rough way to start our draft coverage, but there it is. No one, not\na single soul on Earth, knows anything about quarterbacks. We all\nhave our ideas on what makes a good quarterback when we see it, but\nultimately I\u2019m convinced of one thing; You can\u2019t make a QB. You\ncan only find one. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\ndoesn\u2019t mean a guy can\u2019t improve as a player. Obviously, that can\nhappen. But I don\u2019t think anyone, anywhere can mold pure talent\ninto an NFL quarterback. I believe those guys are just born. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntruth is, it\u2019s a crapshoot at that position. Draft analysts,\ngeneral managers and head coaches get it wrong all the time. Mel\nKiper thought JaMarcus Russell would\nbe the next John Elway<\/a>. Mike Mayock, who now runs the\nOakland Raiders as their GM, thought that both Blaine\nGabbert and Jake Locker<\/a> were better pro QB prospects\nthan Cam Newton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfact is, there are scores of Youtube videos dedicated to showing all\nthe times Kiper has whiffed on a prediction, even famously saying he\nwould quit NFL draft analysis if then Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy\nClausen (his top-ranked QB in 2010 draft) didn\u2019t turn\ninto a successful NFL QB in eight years<\/a>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\ndeadline was hit in 2018. Exactly three seasons after Clausen\u2019s\ncareer as a back up came to an end. Kiper, as far as I can tell,\nwill be helping along with ESPN\u2019s draft coverage in April, even if\nhe has to wear a hazmat suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nhow do I do in this whole picking the best QB thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly\nbetter than my competition, but not perfect by a long shot. I did my\nfirst draft evaluation in 2014 and picked, without question, Teddy\nBridgewater, out of Clemson, as my top quarterback that season. It\nseemed to me that one had to go out of their way to NOT pick\nBridgewater, using every single made-up metric they could come up\nwith other than actual talent and performance on the field. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nanalysts had either Blake Bortles or Johnny Manziel as their top QB\nprospect. I didn\u2019t like either of them. Now, six years later,\nBortles is barley hanging on in the league as a back up. Manziel is\nhawking insurance and trying to talk Vince McMahon into adding him to\nthe XFL (if it still exists next season. And, you know, there\u2019s a\n\u201cnext season\u201d of anything).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bridgewater,\nof course, was the best of the group out the gate, nearly tore his\nleg off in a practice accident, then came back to still be the best\nof all of them by a wide margin. And that includes second round pick\nDerek Carr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nof today, 2015 isn\u2019t going to look good on anybody picking\nquarterbacks, but for the record, I liked Marcus Mariota better than\nJameis Winston, whatever that means now. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nit was the 2016 draft where I dunked on everyone with a Vince Carter\nstare-down. While all of NFL punditry and general managerial staffs\ndebated between Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, I was the lone voice in\nthe wilderness. Who did I like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dak\nPrescott. And it wasn\u2019t close. In fact, in my final rankings I had\nPrescott No. 1, Wentz No. 2 and didn\u2019t have Goff in my Top Five.\nWas I right? About Prescott, yes. About Goff, no. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nDak is the perfect symbol of how my QB ranking system works. It\u2019s\nwhy I picked Deshaun Watson as my top quarterback in 2017 (and\ncompletely missed Patrick Mahomes). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nit\u2019s why in 2018, when everyone was talking about Sam Darnold, I\nsaid Baker Mayfield was the guy. But I did bring something up when\ntalking about it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\nsee, a lot of your draft analysts want to talk about a guy\u2019s\n\u201cceiling.\u201d Meaning, they\u2019re projecting, with their\nimaginations, how good this guy will be in his career. Where I come\nfrom, we call that \u201cplaying pretend\u201d and the perfect example was\nfrom that very 2018 NFL draft. I though Mayfield was the best\nquarterback prospect based on my criteria and, at the same time,\nshowed how everyone else\u2019s criteria was just so much crap. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\nif you wanted to talk about a \u201cceiling,\u201d no quarterback in that\ndraft had a higher ceiling than Lamar Jackson. But no one, AND I MEAN\nNO ONE, had Jackson as their top-ranked QB. Most didn\u2019t even have\nhim as a first round pick (I did. I had the Cincinnati Bengals taking\nhim). In fact, there was a real argument (that still pisses Jackson\noff) that he should change positions and be a wide receiver. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nlike I said, I hit more than I miss. What I miss out on is a guy like\nMahomes that can transcend the film. Make freakish plays. Do things\nin an NFL offence he never did in college. Michael Jordan on the\nfootball field kind of stuff. Because I\u2019m not basing my analysis on\nmy gut or my imagination or what I hope will happen. I base it on\nwhat I actually see. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndon\u2019t rank a guy No. 1 that could turn into something in three\nyears. I rank a guy at the top of the list that could win in the NFL\nif called on today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what am I looking for? We\u2019ll get to how it all works in Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BetOnline.ag on Instagram<\/a>–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ADAM GREENE That\u2019s a rough way to start our draft coverage, but there it is. No one, not a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9816,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9810\/revisions\/9816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}