Beware quick-fix lure of drafting that hot QB
Draft produces just as many busts as it does a Marino and Roethlisberger.
Dave George: Dolphins shouldn’t back away, but a lot of firstrounders keep coming up short.
So it’s goodbye to Damien Williams and hello to running back Frank Gore, whose annual rushing totals would have been enough to lead the Miami Dolphins in 10 of his 13 NFL seasons. It’s all very interesting, this busy offseason marketplace, but nothing gets the blood pumping like the notion Adam Gase might draft a quarterback in the first round, either at No. 11 overall or a higher spot the Dolphins could reach via trade.
Drafting a quarterback in the first round always seems like fun. Doesn’t often bring the desired results, but it’s fun.
Fold it all in there with the general contagion of NFL draft frenzy. You know the drill.
Thirty-one teams fail to win the Super Bowl each season and each of those 31 teams, by an
acclamation vote of fans, are determined to be woefully underserved at most every position. This momentum for change, combined with the NFL’s own genius for promotion, produces a threeday celebration of college football talent acquisition so large and loud and ludicrous it makes the Republican and Democratic national conventions look like county fairs in comparison.
Next month’s draft, for instance, will get far more than the expected wall-to-wall coverage from ESPN and the NFL Network. On the first two days, April 26-27, the Fox network will be simulcasting the same stuff, and April 28, a Saturday, the closing act of rounds 4-7 will continue to get major network coverage on ABC.
For those who want to be there in person when the commissioner calls the names, the league devised a free ticket lottery to assign space for 60,000 spectators inside the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium. More than 215,000 people registered nationwide for a chance at that.
They’ll come to see where the guards and the nose tackles and the linebackers all land, of course, but the real buzz is for the first-round quarterbacks, those strongarmed men who supposedly were born to win a Super Bowl but increasingly fall short. For every Ben Roethlisberger, who went 11th overall to Pittsburgh in the 2004 draft, there are a fistful of flops.
The Cleveland Browns, for instance, drafted two quarterbacks in the space of three years not too long ago, but the team finished 0-16 last season and Brandon Weeden and Johnny Manziel are out of the league.
The 2013 draft was considered a poor one for quarterbacks, but the Buffalo Bills were so desperate for leadership they reached to use a firstrounder on EJ Manuel. He’s barely hanging on to a job now, re-signing with the Raiders on Thursday as one of three potential backups to Derek Carr.
Jameis Winston went No. 1 overall in the 2015 draft to Tampa Bay, and the Buccaneers are still trying to reach the postseason.
Altogether, three of the past five Super Bowls have been won by a sixthrounder (Tom Brady) and a third-rounder (Russell Wilson). And then there’s Carson Wentz, the first-round pick from 2015 who really had the Philadelphia Eagles on a roll last season but had to step aside because of injury. The eventual Super Bowl start went to former third-rounder Nick Foles, and the Super Bowl MVP award, too.
Does any of this mean the Dolphins should back away from the idea of drafting a quarterback first in next month’s draft, be it Baker Mayfield or anyone else? No, but there is a warning here against banking on the quick fix this vital position too often promises. Don Shula never did. Bob Griese already was with the Dolphins when Shula came to Miami in 1970. Consequently, Dan Marino was the first and only quarterback taken in the opening round by the NFL’s all-time winningest coach, and that didn’t happen until his 14th Dolphins draft.
What’s more, Shula waited to see what would come to him at the bottom of the 1983 draft, which is still considered the best ever for quarterbacks. Since Miami had been in the Super Bowl the previous January and sat at No. 27 in the draft order, it would have taken some dealing to get exactly who he wanted as a backup or a replacement for David Woodley. Shula liked his team, which was based on defense and a tough running game, and so he stayed put and watched while five quarterbacks came off the board, and while the Bengals and the Raiders took a couple of centers immediately ahead of Marino.
Maybe that’s just oldschool thinking. Maybe there’s too much luck in any of these quarterback gambles to detect any reliable pattern.
All that’s certain is
Ryan Tannehill is a firstround quarterback. And what about Mayfield or Josh Allen or any other quarterback who might be available to the Dolphins at No. 11?
No one in that bunch is a sure thing to get the Dolphins going in 2018, and no one there will have a chance unless
Gase builds a much better team around them.
Come to think of it, the Dolphins already had a No. 11 overall pick playing quarterback for them last season. His name is Jay Cutler.