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Originally Posted by Paintrain
Not to be contrary simply to be contrary, but.. The logic of 'he just thought highly enough of him' argument doesn't make sense in the NFL today.. If you are confident that the QB you have is your QB of the present and near future, why give up 3 picks to draft another one? With the cap and roster limits (which were not a consideration the first time around) you don't go and strengthen a position where you already have your guy.
The Chargers correleation was if they were convinced that Brees was the guy (like if Gibbs were convinced that Ramsey was the guy) they wouldn't have drafted Rivers (and the Redskins wouldn't have drafted Campbell). Yes their record was great last year, but now they have a large amount of their cap allocated to one position. I'm sure they are happy with their record but if they knew the light would come on for Brees they would have gone another direction with that pick rather than essentially waste it. Rivers barely played last year and will likely barely play this year so they have a player they are paying #5 overall QB money to who is stuck behind a 28 yr old Pro Bowler.. If the light comes on for Ramsey, they have spent 3 picks on a player who won't see the field until mid next season at the earliest. The bad thing about the pick is it only works out if Ramsey falters. You can't cut/trade a 27 yr old performing QB for a rookie just because you drafted his replacement.
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On the Chargers, theirs was a very unique situation because they held the #1 overall pick. True, at that point Brees hadn't shown that he was ready to be considered the franchise QB, and hence the Chargers considered a QB with their first overall pick. They didn't have much faith in Brees, which is exactly why they were ready to hand Eli Manning a first overall pick's contract. That of course didn't work out because Eli didn't want to be a Charger, but if the Chargers had their druthers, Manning would be in San Diego, and the Chargers would have laid down a huge signing bonus.
We all love to point to the draft picks that Gibbs gave up to get Campbell, but we all seem to forget that since Campbell was taken late in the first round, he'll be making chump change. When Ramsey was taken with pick 32, that netted him a contract of less than $1.2 million per year. Figure some inflation on Campbell, and we're talking less than $2 million a year on our salary cap for the next 5 years or so. So yes, Gibbs gave up a lot in the way of draft picks, but I still say the investment was much less than what the Chargers wanted to invest in Manning, or what they ended up investing in Rivers for that matter.
The Chargers situation is much different from ours. We gave up a shot at some players next year by trading the 1st and 4th round picks, which is a lot, that's for sure. But it's not as big a deal as the Chargers' situation. They have two QBs who are going to be making a ton of money. Once we get Brunell off the books, we're going to have two who aren't making much at all. (Unless Ramsey explodes, he'll get a modest contract two years from now or he'll leave). That leaves us with more cap room for other things, which helps us deal with the loss of the draft picks.
I don't think you can point to the drafting of a 2nd QB and automatically say it is a misallocation of resources unless you consider the finances. When the salary is that low, there is no pressure to bring Campbell along that quickly. You can let Ramsey keep his starting job and let Campbell learn, because your QBs aren't monopolizing your cap space.