What an
incredibly inane statement. For the last two years WE HAVE BEEN DEVELOPING CAMPBELL. In case you forgot, we drafted him in 2005. Although I haven't looked back, I'm betting you were one who blasted the pick b/c it meant that Gibbs was gonna let your boy Patrick go.
As for drafting developmental QB's - since 2000 we have drafted the following QB's:
2000 - Todd Husak (6th Round)
2001 - Sage Rosenfels (4th Round)
2002 - Patrick Ramsey (1st Round)
2003 - Gibram Hamdan (7th Round)
2005 - Jason Campbell (1st Round)
2007 - Jordan Palmer (6th Round)
The Skins consistently pick up young QB's in hopes one will develop. Throw in Casey Bramlett and that's a lot of young developmental QB's. The fact that they did not pan is not entirely Gibbs fault. The QB position is almost impossible to hit on. Take a look at this:
NFL Draft History: Full Draft - by Position
In the year 2000, six QB's were chosen before Tom Brady including such notables as Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman and Tee Martin.
Take a look at the classes of:
2001 (Michael Vick's year) - 11 QB's chosen, one current starter (two including Vick - who would be a starter but for, well you know...)
2002 (Ramsey, Harrington, Carr): 15 QB's chosen - one starter (David Garrard).
2003: (Carson Palmer): 13 QB's chosen - two starters (R. Grossman) and some second tier guys (Leftwich, Boller, Simms)
2004 (Manning, Rivers, Rothlesberger): 17 QB's chosen, 4 starters (M. Schaub - starting for a team that DIDNT DRAFT HIM).
Of the 56 QB's choosen between 2001-2004, how many of the non-starters are even in the NFL? My rough estimate based on name recognition is about 10 with most of those from the more recent drafts. How many of the non-starters are actually back-ups for the teams that originally drafted them?? The only ones that I saw were Feeley and Chris Simms. There may be a couple more.
From 2002 to present we have had six developmental QB's (including Bramlett and Hamdan). Of which one is the current starter - which looks to me to be pretty much in line with the NFL ratio.
To say that we "should have addressed it in the draft a long time ago" ignores reality and is simply wrong.
BTW: Here are Beathard's QB's (78-89) with the Skins -
1981 - Tom Flick, 4th Round
1982 - Bob Holly, 11th Round
1983 - Babe Laufenberg, 6th Round
1984 - Jay Schroeder, 3rd Round
1986 - Mark Rypien, 4th Round
1988 - Stan Humphries, 6th round
Three starters, a career backup and two no-names. Pretty good odds and clearly way above the norm.
Did you watch the last half of the 4th preseason game?? Did you need to see more? He had a friggin month to prepare, it was his big chance and he f'ing stunk up the joint. AND it was pretty clear that his perfomance wasn't out of character for him - show me one report !ONE REPORT! that indicated he was solid practice squad material based on his training camp perfomance. EVERYTHING I read seemed to indicate that his performance in the preseason game was pretty much on par with his play in practice. What? we should take time/reps from QB's who may actually be required to play for us so that the guy who hasn't done anything to show differently can confirm his scrubbiness??
You only need to smell sh** to know what it is. You don't need to touch it and taste it too. I guess I'll go with the coach who won three superbowls with three different QB's when it comes to the analysis of an individual QB's potential.