Finding Mr. Right isn’t that easy
Obtaining franchise QBs has been a chore for recent expansion teams.
Deshaun Watson is special. He’s different, we’re told. After all, as a Clemson Tiger, he sucker-punched Alabama and walked off with a national championship, placing him in exclusive company, in rarefied air. Nonetheless, despite the magnitude of his accomplishments as a collegian, by virtue of the team he plays for and the position he plays, the historical record not favor Watson becoming a superstar NFL quarterback for the Texans. That’s just a fact, based on the facts. Quarterbacks — 17 in all — taken in the first round by NFL expansion franchises over the past half-century don’t just not go on to do great things. Instead, they usually fall flat.
And when they have succeeded, which is to say they led their teams to the Super Bowl, they have — save for one glaring exception, Carolina’s Cam Newton — done so with teams other than the ones who drafted them. Doug Williams, taken by Tampa Bay, won a ring with Washington. Trent Dilfer, also originally a Buccaneer, won a ring with Baltimore. Kerry Collins, the Panthers’ first draft pick, lost to Dilfer’s Ravens as a New York Giant.
And, among the 36 quarterbacks drafted in any of the first four rounds by the past six expansion teams, only three others have so much as presided over a single playoff victory. Russell Wilson is the conspicuous outlier, reaching two Super Bowls and winning one. With eight postseason wins, Seattle’s former third-round pick accounts for more than half the 14 victories posted by three dozen QBs playing for their original teams. The planets don’t exactly align nicely for Tom Savage, either. Just two fourth-rounders — one of them the Texans’ T. J. Yates, drafted in 2011 — have won postseason starts for the Seahawks, Buccaneers, Panthers, Jaguars, Browns and Texans combined, although Seneca Wallace did contribute in a pair of Seattle victories … as a wide receiver. But, as our financial planners are wont to remind us, past performance does not
guarantee future results. Hope springs eternal until it doesn’t. Therefore, Texans coach Bill O’Brien and his quarterback coach, Sean Ryan, have spent a disproportionate amount of their time thinking deeply about what they must do to break the mold. Much to many impatient Houston fans’ chagrin, they’ve concluded that means saving Watson for another day. You know, the baby-steps thing.
While Savage’s own body of game-day work couldn’t be more paper thin, he has had four training camps and three seasons immersed in O’Brien’s system. He profited from not being deemed a future “face of the franchise.” There was never a need to rush him. His week 1 start Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars at NRG Stadium will be only the third of his pro career.
If Savage isn’t prepared now, he likely never will be. O’Brien is risking little by throwing him out there first. If he swims, then the Texans have bought Watson muchneeded time. If he sinks … well, at least they tried to make the measured call in big-picture terms.
“I get all the arguments for playing (highly drafted quarterbacks) early,” said Dilfer, whom Tampa Bay drafted sixth overall in 1994, “but none of them trumps this: You also risk destroying them.”
‘Overwelming’ burden
Possible case in point? The Jaguar who will start opposite Savage, Blake Bortles, has followed an all-too-predictable pattern, leading up to his nearly losing his starting job this summer to the 10-year journeyman Chad Henne, the man Bortles was drafted — third overall in 2014 — to replace.
A product of the college spread offense that underprepares quarterbacks for the infinitely more nuanced chess game they’re required to play in the NFL, Bortles progressed at a reasonable pace for his first two seasons before taking a marked step backward in 2016. Offensive coordinator Greg Olson took the fall first for Bortles’ regression, then head coach Gus Bradley followed Olson out the door. Enter Doug Marrone with a new system, making Bortles’ head spin all over again. And, with 34 losses in 45 starts, he’s hardly the most confident guy around. It’s a vicious circle that drags down untested young quarterbacks and the cycle is difficult to break.
Henne had once before been asked to clean up the mess in Jacksonville left in Blaine Gabbert’s wake. The Jaguars selected Gabbert 10th overall in 2011 — J. J. Watt’s rookie year, too, so not that long ago — and received in return five wins in 27 starts from him before they cut their losses. At least Byron Leftwich, the seventh overall pick in 2003, took Jacksonville to a playoff game. David Garrard, a fourth round in 2002, is the only one of the seven quarterbacks drafted by the Jaguars to manage a postseason victory.
Dilfer, by the way, isn’t proof that patience early on pays off. One of four first-round picks
and eight QBs in all that Tampa Bay has invested in with similarly skimpy returns to date, he was only allowed to start two games as a rookie.
But, by the time he moved on Baltimore, he’d still presided over just one playoff run in six Buccaneers seasons. At least as a Raven, Dilfer showed himself to be a serviceable starter over the latter half of the 2000 season and, supported by one of the fiercest defenses in NFL history, he improbably wound up laying claim to the Lombardi Trophy.
He’ll readily tell you the current generation of young quarterbacks have it much tougher than he did.
“The biggest challenge these guys face is that the life of the quarterback is overwhelming today,” Dilfer said. “The attention, the scrutiny, the video evidence … I don’t care how good you are, somebody out there has evidence that you didn’t do something as well as they think you should have. There’s All-22 Film available and people are posting things on social media, and it’s impossible to avoid it. Whatever you do, it’s never good enough.”
Tougher on expansion teams
Expansion-franchise realities exacerbate the problem. Doug Williams arrived in Tampa when the Bucs were coming off 0-14 and 2-12 seasons, and he was asked to be the starter from the getgo. David Carr trotted out with the Texans for their inaugural game in 2002. Tim Couch took over in week 2 in Cleveland in 1999 and Kerry Collins in week 3 in Carolina in 1995.
Collins was the lucky one in this bunch. He profited from an expansion draft that blessed both the Panthers and the Jaguars with a mother lode of talent, a mistake the owners wouldn’t make again with the Browns and Texans.
Since returning in 1999, Cleveland has gone 0-for-4 with quarterbacks drafted in the first round and 0-for8 overall. Couch (22-37), Brady Quinn (3-9), Brandon Weeden (5-15) and Johnny Manziel (2-6) all crapped out for different reasons. Only Couch in his fourth season, 2002, got a whiff of the playoffs, leading the Browns to an 8-6 start before doing down with an injury. Kelly Holcomb then steered the team into the postseason and almost beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh, throwing for 429 yards and four touchdowns. Couch played only eight more games the following season before exiting Cleveland, he hten had numerous failed comeback bids before finally retiring.
Now, the Browns, who have lost 28 of 32 games over the past two seasons, have very little more to lose, are turning their offense over to DeShone Kizer, a secondround pick last spring. Like O’Brien with Watson, Hue Jackson wanted to hold off throwing Kizer to the wolves straight away. But Brock Osweiler, to no one’s surprise in Houston, declined to cooperate. After releasing Osweiler, Jackson handed the keys to Kizer.
“He has earned the right to play through his preparation,” Jackson said. “He has established a work ethic that I think has earned the respect of his teammates. I think it will (afford) him the ability to (run the) offense as we move forward, which hopefully will lead to success. It has been good to watch his development throughout the offseason. Obviously he is a young quarterback and he still has a lot to learn. He is going to learn a lot and gain a lot of experience, and the only way you get that is by playing. We are all excited about that.”
If, presumably, also scared to death. Consider Jackson’s previous observations about the perilous world of a young NFL quarterback: “These guys are operating in a world where so many things are working against them. It’s harder now than it has ever been because defensive players are better and defensive coordinators are smarter. That’s why it’s the toughest position in the world. It’s an all-consuming job, even for coaches.
“You have to know how to raise a guy, from his head all the way down to his feet, in a league that’s designed to bring him to his knees.”