How good will JaMarcus Russell be at the Pro Level?

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Which brings the original question back into focus: What is the significance of College playing experience?

Now seeing that a QB will enter the NFL on a very similar career path to the way he leaves it (barring of course a career ending injury), doesn't this change the value of NCAA QB experience? It now appears that starting more games would ALWAYS be beneficial to the QB. That would mean that leaving school early, while potentially a smart business decision, would ALWAYS hurt the quality of a guy's career.

Is this even plausible? Let's go to the numbers:

For first round QB's (of the last 10 years) only, it seems like we could--in fact--predict their successes at the next level based ONLY on the number of games they started in college. So if the scouts unianimously like a guy (because hes a first rounder), and he has a lot of college experience, recent history shows that this guy is a virtual lock for success. (This is really good news for J. Campbell, although there were exceptions--with very awful college stats).

Chad Pennington: 51 starts
Philip Rivers: 51 starts
Peyton Manning: 45 starts
Carson Palmer: 45 starts
Jay Cutler: 45 starts
Donovan McNabb: 45 starts
Daunte Culpepper: 44 starts
Matt Leinart: 39 starts
Jason Campbell: 39 starts
Drew Brees: 37 starts (he was the first pick in the 2nd round)
Eli Manning: 37 starts

Look at that company. More importantly, compare that company to guys who didn't start a lot of games in college.

Patrick Ramsey: 32 starts
Rex Grossman: 31 starts
Joey Harrington: 28 starts
JP Losman: 27 starts
David Carr: 26 starts
Tim Couch: 25 starts
Ryan Leaf: 24 starts
Aaron Rodgers: 22 starts
Alex Smith: 22 starts
Michael Vick: 19 starts
Akili Smith: 19 starts

So where does Russell fit in? Over his career at LSU, JaMarcus Russell started 29 games. Not only that, but his career 62% completion is not really any better than another SEC QB who left school early (and started 2 more games). I'm talking about the incomprable Rex Grossman.

For sake of comparision, Brady Quinn started 46 games at Notre Dame and ranks up there with McNabb and Palmer with his college stats.

This study argues that with another year of experience, JaMarcus Russell would be a great NFL QB prospect. But by coming out a year early, history as least suggests the guy will have a rather mediocre NFL career.

Originally Posted by jsarno

Those are VERY interesting stats. Good job digging that up. I am a stat head and that makes me scratch my head.
I have always felt that Quinn would make a better qb than Russell, but I thought Russell would be a good QB...maybe I am incorrect.