There have hardly been any players from recent drafts picked although there are some really talented players from the last couple of drafts imo.

Yea I think there are a bunch of young pro bowlers who will be picked soon and be great value.

You can't really argue with most of the older guys picked though, since a lot of them are HOF players.

gotta say i really enjoyed nath's writeup

With all due respect, I disagree with your rankings. Your 2nd tier minus Elway is on my 1st tier. I feel Warner is more valuable than both Moon and Aikman. Undrafted is somewhere between Moon and Aikman. I also think McNabb is better than Aikman. fwiw.

i think you're onto something here =)

Earlier on I posted this:


And imo thats the problem. With a guy like Dan Marino or Tom Brady, you're 100% guaranteed to be getting a stud in our league. With Aikman, I really have no clue(and I think anyone who claims they do is either lying or decieving themselves).

You raise the issue of Aikman being a #1 overall pick and having good measurables, but do you really want to go there? Do you need for me to list all of the QBs who were drafted early, had good measureables, and were complete busts? Who is to say that if Aikman went to a horrible team(and yes I know they were 1-15 his first year, but I mean a team that stays horrible) that he wouldn't have flopped.

Aikman always had much better talent on his team than on the opposing defense. How would he have done if it wasn't like that? I dunno, and in this league hes probably not going to have better talent on his offense than on the defense hes facing(obviously you could pick all offensive players with your first 10 picks though). Basically I think that uncertainty is what causes him to drop in my book. Warner too. I'd much rather take a guy who maybe you can't argue is in the top tier but who we know for sure can succeed without a great supporting cast.

I really wish we could run multiple trials of the history of football because I'm convinced that some great players would look average if they were put into other circumstances and some total busts would actually look decent if they had great casts.

Note that I am NOT talking about Aikman specifically here; I'm just thinking about how awesome it would be to find out how good people really were.

I'm not sure who your undrafted guy is, but higher YPA would greatly make me favor him over Aikman since Aikman can't use the excuse of "well we just didn't need to throw it a lot" there since its a per attempt stat. And fewer INTs would even weigh me more in that direction.


That said, I have several QBs(including many of the last few taken) who I think are all in the same tier and I see no need to take one anytime soon.

I'll go further into your post when the Giants game is over, but the main thing I get out of it is the points you are bringing up are the reason why I think he is underrated.

All the negatives I'm hearing about him are about his talent around him and the fact that he didn't put up gawdy numbers. But no one is pointing out anything that he was bad at on the football field. What throws can't he make? Was he not tough? Did he make too many mistakes? What couldn't Aikman do besides scramble?

McNabb is being underrated by most here imo. I've said for a long time that we have a tendency to overrate QBs with good WRs and underrate QBs with bad ones. Look at how McNabb did the one year he had a legit WR to throw to:

3875 yards
31 TDs
8 INTs
8.2 YPA
104.7 QB Rating


Thats pretty damn sick.

franchise, the thing to me is aikman is just like smith in that he was reliably good. but never great. does this make sense? i guess with 10 QBs taken above him this is great, but IMO there ARE some guys that were better than reliably good; guys that were GREAT.

aikman has good intangibles (the leadership you mentioned), was a "winner" (if that matters? maybe slight plus), and you're right in that there wasn't anything he couldn't do. (except scramble, and that's hardly a requirement to being a successful qb) but... is there anything he did really well? he wasnt renowned for his arm strength, he wasnt big on changing plays at the LOS, he didn't have an ultra fast release, etc. I suppose his greatest ability is precision? maybe his accuracy was great? meh.

But Ryan Leaf and Kyle Boller can "make all the throws" too. QB, probably more than any position in all of sports, is the one position that you can't simply go by measurables.

Tom Brady fell to the 7th round because his measurables weren't that good.


So yes I agree with you that Aikman has good measurables. I still have no clue how he'd do without great talent around him. I mean, you have to realize how much easier it is to pass when your o-line gives you a great pocket and when the other team must put 8 in the box to stop the run, no?

The most damning thing about Aikman to me is his TD/INT ratio. If hes as good as you say then why'd he isn't this ratio better(and you can't use the fact that they were a running team here because that should help cut down on INTs).

edited to add a few years from Aikman's prime:

TD/INT

1991: 11/10
1994: 13/12
1996: 12/13

His accuracy was all time great good.

I'm really puzzled that you guys keep picking OL. In a format where we have to look at the teams to determine who is better, do you really think people are going to give you an added boost because of your RG? I mean, I follow the NFL. I know who Faneca is. But I can barely rate him ahead of 100 other random lineman who made a couple of pro bowl/all pro appearances, even if it he just a little better.

I understand the Ogden, Allen, Munoz picks. But I think you all are reaching now. IMO obv.

lol here we go again.

Didn't the Cowboys have a really good goal line back or something?

Great teams are won in the trenches on both sides of the ball. The difference between LT1 and LT25 are huge in this. Maybe it isn't ultra apparent but there are huge differences.

By point about his measurables is that he wasn't just some avg talent player thrown into a good situation. He was a consensus #1 pick. Obviously that doesn't mean he will be good in the pros, but he was good. he was a HOF'r. He was as big a part of their success as the other big name players on that team.

Bringing up Boller and Leaf is pointless, if you think Aikman would have been a bum on another team thats fine, but you have zero evidence that would be the case.

Elway had a bad TD/INT ratio as well, and he threw for mid 50% his entire career.

And is Aikman not going to have great talent around him in this draft? So a guy who did well with little talent is more of an advantage in this draft? Where QB's will be surrounded by talent?

I just don't get how "he played on a great team, who knows if he'd be good on a horrible team?" is a legit knock on the guy when when he can make all the throws, was a great player, had all the tools, etc.

TD/Int is meaningless unless you're drafting for fantasy football or something(Ints are somewhere from 3 to 4.5x as important as TDs). From 91-99, Aikman had a low Interception rate and even 3.0% for his career is solid.

Agreed. The difference between LT5 and LT25 aren't as big though. Especially when none of us REALLY have any dependable way of measuring lineman other than word of mouth.

QB is by far the easiest position to get into the HOF. Aikman is at best the 6th best QB from his era is that true for any other position? If Bradshaw didn't play for the Steelers and won 4 SBs he wouldn't be in the HOF either, his stats in comparison to other great QBs is a joke. Same thing goes for Namath. It's not as bad with Aikman, but there is a parallel.

I know who you are all talking about. I have decided to take a QB with my next pick. And it is not him. You will all hate this pick and call it a reach. I don't care.

There is no really great way to measure any player in this draft without realizing that system, coaching, even the players on the other side of the ball have a huge impact on the success on a player, i.e. QBs need o-line, WRs, RBs and probally a good D to be truly elite. Why a good D b/c a good D will put you in good field position. This is why the NFL draft is a lot more complex than the NBA draft to me. It's really hard to truly judge true talent away from a system and a team. It's easier when a player moves between teams with different systems but that isn't the case with a lot of players who are HOF level, they tend to stay in 1 place in the NFL until there peak is over.

Meh, I see your point, but I think you're kind of underestimating the crowd here. If we were drafting for a bunch of random football fans it'd make sense, but most of the people in this draft seem to realize the importance of o-line. Plus at least I've done enough research on the different positions to learn a lot more about the game and realize which players are possibly better.

Also, I'm pretty sure I know who the unpicked QB is and am also surprised he's not gone. I have reasons for not picking him that might be kind of stupid, but I'll elaborate more when he goes off the board.

That's my entire point though. If we actually have some kind of "playoff" or something to see who has the best team, these high OL picks are mostly useless. Nobody can really defend them. If I said to you right now my team is better because I have Hutchinson and you have Faneca, do you have any ammunition what so ever? Not really.

But if I have two skill position players, I can talk about all kinds of stats to try and prove that my team is better. Plus, the name is going to pop off the page much more when you're making the competition. If you have a stud WR and RB, people are going to talk about how hard to stop that combo is. If you have a stud WR and a stud RG. People aren't going to talk about the holes your RG might open up, especially if you don't go high with your Center and Tackle picks too.

It depends. I have about 3 qb's about even. If it's someone else... obv reach.