Is Russell really better than Quinn?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Personally I wouldn't take Russell or Quinn number one. You can get productive QB's in rounds 3-6. Especially if I were Oak, Det or Clev. Clev already has two young guys in D. Anderson and C. Frye. Although I think Frye isn't really that good. But Anderson can really play. So can John Kitna. Oak should make a trade, or get him if he is cut for D. Culpepper and bring in a solid vet to back him up if he's not ready. Or stick with Walter. All I know was Walter was a STUD in college. Now, I'm not sure if he sucks, or he has no help. All of these teams need some O-linemen in the worst way.

Here is an interesting thing I heard on NFL Network. It was said at the combine that Chris Leak threw the best ball out of all the QB's. Plus he started all 4 years at Fla. Now if Chris Leak were 6'3 or 6'4 instead of 5'11 or 6'0 would he go in the 1st round? What about Troy Smith? Has everyone just all of a sudden gave up on this kid? Wasn't he one of the best qb's in the country, if not the best? What about Kevin Kolb out of Houston? He started all 4 years too. My point is some of these later round guys can really play if they are ever given the chance that Russell and Quinn are going to get. If you judge what they did on the field you could argue that they are just as good as Russelll and Quinn. Some didn't throw the ball as much as say Quinn did, but if they were given that same chance I would argue that they would have put up similar passing numbers that Quinn did.

IMO, taking QBs in round 3-6 is a bad strategy because its a total crapshoot. The guy you get probably isn't good and knowing this, theres never really a good time to give a guy significant playing time.

One of the trickiest things about the QB projection system is that it starts to lose its accuracy beyond round 2. So while guys like Leak have numbers that look a lot like Quinn's, they still don't project very well historically due solely to their draft status. In this case, the best explaination is the scouts generally do a pretty good job at seeing which guys can't play. I mean the Brady's of the world seem to slip through the cracks, but generally a 6th round projected guy probably can't play at the NFL level.

Most guys (at QB) can't play. That should be the assumption, as opposed to the other way around. There will probably be a 6th round gem, but I'm not sure theres a good predictive system right now.

If Leak was a 6' 4" guy, would he have a 1st round projection? I don't know. If he was 6' 4" would he be a lot more likely to succeed? I mean, a lot of the stuff I believe says I should answer no to this question, but maybe height does correlate to NFL success given other conditions. Has there been a successful passer under 6 feet at the NFL level? No. Is it impossible to have success and be short? I don't see why it would be.

I don't have all the answers, nor do I claim to. I know a very select few things when it comes to the NFL (like Quinn>Russell with 95% accuracy). Maybe lack of height correlates to NFL failure. But then again, short guys don't often get drafted high, so I fear this could be a weak study.

It's certainly a question worth asking though.