You got Lane Johnson haha. DJ Fluker also went 11 that year if this is a top 15 thing.

Wait, what?

The top five all seem to be "working out" to various degrees. I'll grant that there have been some inconsistencies in performance in all of them, but you're looking at two Pro Bowlers, an MVP candidate, a guy who lit up the league before his injury, and a guy who was elite in 2016 before injuries and a backwards coaching staff stifled his success. Mahomes has barely played and Trubisky had to play too soon and was stuck with another backwards coaching staff.

Your phrasing is all wrong. "No QB drafted in the top 15 in the last decade has won a Super Bowl" is different than "no Super Bowl has been won in the last decade with a top-15 pick at QB." Indeed, three of the last seven Super Bowls were won by teams with a QB who was picked in the top two (although Wentz didn't actually play in the Super Bowl, he was an MVP candidate all year).

But let's look at this by your standards. Here's the list of offensive linemen picked in the top half of the first round (seems less arbitrary than top-15) in the last decade.

How many of them have won Super Bowls? How many of them have won Super Bowls with the teams that drafted them? As far as I can tell, the entire list is Russell Okung and Lane Johnson. And Johnson played for a team that also used the #2 overall pick on a QB. That's 2/30 and one doesn't really count because they also had a high pick at QB.

The fact is that QB is by far the most valuable position in the NFL, one that can immediately alter the fortunes of a franchise. Teams will continue taking them high in the draft for that reason. Better to ask yourself, how many teams have won Super Bowls in the last decade without a QB playing at a high level? The league missing on Russell Wilson for being too short and Tom Brady for whatever reason doesn't make QB unimportant to a championship.

13 draft also had two guards in the top 10, both mega busts, as nye pointed out, the OL rate in the last decade ish at the top of the draft has basically the same bust rate as QB's.

Lewan > Matthews. Matthews/Fisher are both disappointments but I guess we can't put either in the bust category. I had matthews first overall b/c I tried something new that just didn't work out, all I had to do was put donald first on the board b/c I liked him the most and ignore the rest.

I had Matthews > Lewan but not by a whole lot IIRC, mostly I am pleased I had them both decently ahead of Robinson (might have had Zack Martin ahead too but not sure)

Note to scouts, being large and running fast in a straight line is not important if you don't have lateral agility and can't pass block

It's also a silly data point given how many mannings won a super bowl over that time and were #1 overall picks outside of that point and how many of those bad picks still at least made conference title games. Luck/Sanchez/Bortles all did with their teams, Griffin made the playoffs and could've made a run in them if he wasn't hurt then. Bradford was instrumental for both Vikings/Eagles this year for different reasons. Newton/Ryan went to the super bowl. Stafford got the Lions into the playoffs. The Lions.

Joe Thomas never made the playoffs. Browns avg 4.4 wins a year when he was there.

Sure if you guaranteed me Joe Thomas over the risk of a QB perhaps, but the biggest OT prospect of all time busted, the closest thing to a safe pick in the draft was what calvin johnson in the last decade? Even tho there is no such thing as a safe pick in the draft.

It was a random hypothetical thinking how valuable people thought a HoF OT was that I guess i blew completely out of proportion and the discussion wasn't even close to the level that I had hoped. I apologize for the derail and will leave the thread.

Luck was basically a sure thing, no?

Highest rated prospect of all over last decade iirc? Didn’t he get a 99 rating?

I don't really care about picks after #10. Once you get past the top 10 the talented QB's are gone for the most part, we are talking about the #2 pick, not pick #14.

You still have to go QB in the top 5 over an offensive lineman, even if the QB totally flops. If it's a really weak QB class then not picking a percieved average QB is OK though. If you go for a QB and he flops, he will still give you the same amount of wins as a HoF offensive lineman.

If I know I am getting Joe Thomas and I know I'm getting Blake Bortles, I chose Joe Thomas, but with everything being an unknown you have to go QB.

lol you don't have to leave the thread. The whole point of the thread is to discuss this stuff.

Obviously if you know you're getting Joe Thomas that's one thing, but that's pretty rare. And even say a Matthew Stafford type has probably provided more wins / points over replacement to his team than Thomas. The 15th-best QB in the league is still more valuable than the best LT. That's just how it goes.

Rank the following HoF OT careers:

Jonathan Ogden
Orlando Pace
Joe Thomas

My complete casualfan take is Ogden's first just for sortbyProBowls and longevity, but I know that voter inertia matters most on the O-linemen

I don’t think position salary levels are a totally true guide to how teams view positional value because a) too QBs are still probably paid less than their proportional value and b) I think it takes a while for the market to catch up but.....

It seems to me that in the past decade LT has dropped from being the ‘2nd most valuable position’ behind QB to the 4th or 5th.

Top DEs, WRs and DTs are now getting more than the very top LTs, no?

It’s possible this is also because our LT hierarchy has either been older veterans like JT, Peters and Whitworth and then there hasn’t been a top class LT getting paid who is in the 5th to 7th season ish who may have reset the market

Thoughts?

qb market is nuts in free agency
giants need to pay beckham
ergo you take a qb on a rookie deal while beckham is getting paid big money
hopefully the qb is good enough to exercise the 5th year option at which point there would be a decision to be made on beckham

having a legit ass qb on the rookie deal is the most valuable asset a team can have

QBs are definitely underpaid but the second highest position group is still generally pass rusher, then you get CBs, WRs, then LTs, from what I can tell with a quick look at spotrac.

Especially with the rise of more interior pass rushers and teams trying to find potent edge rushing from both sides of the line, it seems more important to build a strong and cohesive line in general than to have a great left tackle specifically (although of course that's a good start).

Yeah forgot CBs

QB are definitely still too low. The top end HOF QBs haven't been doing their jobs at holding their teams balls to the fire.

The hierarchy + teams adapting more quick passing maybe? I think pass protection would get paid more than pass rush if the talent level was perfectly equal. Huge freak athletes seem to end up playing more DL than OL tho.

Browns taking 2 QBs in the same year wouldn't be unprecedented.

Dallas took Troy Aikman #1 overall, and then spent what would have wound up being #1 overall the following year on Steve Walsh in the supplemental draft.

The crazy old days:

JIMMY makes Belichick look like Gettleman

which is what everyone forgets when they dismiss his draft chart. That's HIS chart, it's not his fault everyone else doesn't get the value he did.

I wouldn't be angry if they went with Darnold or Mayfield if they thought they were better. I still think Lamar Jackson is legit too.

not 100% relevant given he went back to Stanford for his senior year but...in doing research for another convo I'm in, I noticed that Bryce Love remains the world age group record holder for 400m for 11, 12 and 13 yo and for 200m for 11yo. He also ran 10.7 as a 13 yo. Must have been fun for those JV defenders!

any idea why he returned to school? seems crazy for an RB to play their senior season

I'm on board the Lamar Jackson to the Patriots hype train.

Lamar needs a team that will utilize his strengths and not care about his long term health.

Pats are the perfect team to maximize his talent and minimize his career length.

Chargers behind Rivers. Saints behind Brees. Steelers behind Big Ben. Pats behind Brady. Any of those teams that can give him 1+ redshirt years would be good for him. Worst case for him would be start day 1 and have to risk 4-5 years of injury before getting paid on his 2nd contract. IDK why you'd say he'd want to go to a team that doesn't care about his longterm health. If he burns out before his 2nd contract he'll make the same busting as he would having short term success.

I think pretty much any 1st round QB should want to sit and develop in today's game. RG3 really, really ****ed up rushing himself back, for what?

I'm guessing he means "Running QBs" don't have much career longevity

Never mind that Steve Young made the Pro Bowl at 37, Randall Cunningham was an All-Pro at 35, Michael Vick was in the league until he was 35, Steve McNair led a 13-3 team at 33, Fran Tarkenton started 16 games and led the league in passing yards at 38