Im never convinced Theres a secret superstar QB who just didnt get their chance. Unless hes black and its before the last 10 years Or short and its before Russel Wilson.
If you can play you're gonna make the team's defense look like shit in practice. Coaches and teammates would demand that guy play. So Peyton manning gets drafted; Kurt Warner becomes a star when you're injured...a real QB will STILL succeed. That's why the 2001 Drew Bledsoe situation was fair; he got plenty opportunities at Buffalo and Dallas. He was just, okay. Brady was just okay at much less salary 2001-02-03. As you've proven
Did this comment mean to go further? It seems to cut off mid-sentence.
Either way, as for the overarching hypothesis, I agree, but only because of the way you've worded it. There are no secret SUPERSTARS who stay hidden away forever. You can bury talent, but you can't kill it, and when you've got that much talent, even if you have to wait until your 30s to start games like Trent Green did, nothing can keep you down. There is only one single exception that I can think of. It's Josh McCown, and I wrote a whole article about it. I won't expound further here.
However, players who are not superstars, merely starting level guys, top 32 QBs, who never get their real chance to go on the field? I believe that happens all the time. Jon Kitna was a top ten guy in 2003 for the Bengals, and had to sit for years because the Bengals did not expect that, and had drafted Carson Palmer first in the draft. He had to wait a long time for his contract to run out, before he finally went to Detroit, and was a top ten QB in the league again. The teams he was on were not great, but just look at 2008 (where Jon gets injured, and the team goes 0-16 without him) as evidence of how much of a carry job he was doing in Detroit.
That is only one example of a man who was clearly a starter, who didn't get to start, for non-performance reasons. There are countless others. Justin Fields this year is a modern example. The Chicago offence was clearly going to decline with Caleb instead of Justin, and they just pulled that trigger anyway, for non-performance reasons. In short, we agree that you cannot bench a superstar for non-performance reasons, but it's my belief that players who are merely starter level (even fringe top ten in some cases), like Jon Kitna, Justin Fields or Paul Justin, get benched for non-performance reasons all the time, whereas other players who are merely starter level like (from Paul's time) Kerry Collins, Jim Harbaugh, and Trent Dilfer get the big contracts. It's all about timing and circumstance when you fall short of the superstar level, even if you're really good.
Further expanding on this result, the 2001 Patriot situation is an interesting case, because I think both of us are using it as an example of our arguments. In my opinion, the Patriots stuck with the guy who was clearly the worse option in that 2001 season, and the one time all year they truly needed offence, they played Drew Bledsoe in the second half of the AFC Championship game. Things like that lead me to wonder why they didn't just play Drew Bledsoe as soon as he was ready to play. It's not performance related. I'll tell you that. It's all about the off the field stuff of being the new young guy who's somewhat exciting. The devil you don't know kind of thing.
Nevertheless, the decision to get rid of Drew Bledsoe is the reason the Patriots missed the playoffs the next year in 2002, because without a solid QB option, stuck with a significant hinderance in 2001-2003 Tom Brady, the team could not handle the downturn in roster quality that happened in that year. Drew is lucky he got another chance again so quickly. Not in terms of the quality of the player, but sometimes the circumstances just don't work. As I discussed before, a better QB than Drew (Jon Kitna) was not so lucky just a couple years later in a remarkably similar situation.
Look at somebody like Mason Rudolph right now. Are you going to look at his football reference page over the last two years (369 plays, 60% of a season's worth, enough that he would've fallen off long ago if he were a total fraud) and tell me he's not a top 32 QB in the NFL right now? I think he's in the top 15 personally. Maybe even better than that, but what do you think the odds are on him being a day one starter next year? If this were entirely performance related, his odds would be 100%. Since it's not, we're just left here to pray that a deserving player gets his deserved opportunity, just like Sam Darnold last year. Still waiting on Jake Browning by the way.
You see what I'm getting at here. Anybody who believes the NFL is starting the best 32 QBs week one next year is delusional in my opinion. We agree that we can rest assured that the top six or so will be there, but the seventh best QB in the NFL last year (on my list) was Sam Darnold, and there was no guarantee that he was going to start week one last year, despite his breakout being entirely predictable, so much so that I predicted it two full years before it happened in one of the first articles ever published on this publication. The Vikings looked to be trying really hard to mess that one up, for non-performance reasons, and got bailed out by a JJ McCarthy injury.
So yes, if you're a top six QB in the NFL (even one like Trent Green or Tony Romo, who had to wait a while), you will get your chance eventually, but if you're any worse than that, there are no guarantees. No matter how good you are, because actual performance on the field often takes a backseat to the option who's going to get the fans most excited, and who's going to be the best bullet shield to save everyone's job.
How excited would Raiders' fans be if they see an announcement that they've just signed Mason Rudolph to a contract? Likely not very excited, despite him being the best on-field option available, assuming Sam Darnold is above their pay grade. The same goes for every one of the other 31 teams. When you're not a very good bullet sponge, there just aren't many opportunities for you out there as a QB, even if you're a top 15 guy in the league, albeit in a somewhat small (but not prohibitively small) sample, which Mason Rudolph has been over the last two years, and Paul Justin was in 1996-1997.
I was living in Europe at time of WLAF/NFL Europe and saw a lot of it.
I thought Paul Justin was the second best QB I ever saw in that league. The QB I thought best was not Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Jon Kitna, Brad Johnson or even Scott Mitchell.
It was Dameyune Craig.
Probably this just shows my overwhelming weakness in assessing QBs. Or maybe there's an idea for another article, Robbie :)
Im never convinced Theres a secret superstar QB who just didnt get their chance. Unless hes black and its before the last 10 years Or short and its before Russel Wilson.
If you can play you're gonna make the team's defense look like shit in practice. Coaches and teammates would demand that guy play. So Peyton manning gets drafted; Kurt Warner becomes a star when you're injured...a real QB will STILL succeed. That's why the 2001 Drew Bledsoe situation was fair; he got plenty opportunities at Buffalo and Dallas. He was just, okay. Brady was just okay at much less salary 2001-02-03. As you've proven
Did this comment mean to go further? It seems to cut off mid-sentence.
Either way, as for the overarching hypothesis, I agree, but only because of the way you've worded it. There are no secret SUPERSTARS who stay hidden away forever. You can bury talent, but you can't kill it, and when you've got that much talent, even if you have to wait until your 30s to start games like Trent Green did, nothing can keep you down. There is only one single exception that I can think of. It's Josh McCown, and I wrote a whole article about it. I won't expound further here.
However, players who are not superstars, merely starting level guys, top 32 QBs, who never get their real chance to go on the field? I believe that happens all the time. Jon Kitna was a top ten guy in 2003 for the Bengals, and had to sit for years because the Bengals did not expect that, and had drafted Carson Palmer first in the draft. He had to wait a long time for his contract to run out, before he finally went to Detroit, and was a top ten QB in the league again. The teams he was on were not great, but just look at 2008 (where Jon gets injured, and the team goes 0-16 without him) as evidence of how much of a carry job he was doing in Detroit.
That is only one example of a man who was clearly a starter, who didn't get to start, for non-performance reasons. There are countless others. Justin Fields this year is a modern example. The Chicago offence was clearly going to decline with Caleb instead of Justin, and they just pulled that trigger anyway, for non-performance reasons. In short, we agree that you cannot bench a superstar for non-performance reasons, but it's my belief that players who are merely starter level (even fringe top ten in some cases), like Jon Kitna, Justin Fields or Paul Justin, get benched for non-performance reasons all the time, whereas other players who are merely starter level like (from Paul's time) Kerry Collins, Jim Harbaugh, and Trent Dilfer get the big contracts. It's all about timing and circumstance when you fall short of the superstar level, even if you're really good.
Further expanding on this result, the 2001 Patriot situation is an interesting case, because I think both of us are using it as an example of our arguments. In my opinion, the Patriots stuck with the guy who was clearly the worse option in that 2001 season, and the one time all year they truly needed offence, they played Drew Bledsoe in the second half of the AFC Championship game. Things like that lead me to wonder why they didn't just play Drew Bledsoe as soon as he was ready to play. It's not performance related. I'll tell you that. It's all about the off the field stuff of being the new young guy who's somewhat exciting. The devil you don't know kind of thing.
Nevertheless, the decision to get rid of Drew Bledsoe is the reason the Patriots missed the playoffs the next year in 2002, because without a solid QB option, stuck with a significant hinderance in 2001-2003 Tom Brady, the team could not handle the downturn in roster quality that happened in that year. Drew is lucky he got another chance again so quickly. Not in terms of the quality of the player, but sometimes the circumstances just don't work. As I discussed before, a better QB than Drew (Jon Kitna) was not so lucky just a couple years later in a remarkably similar situation.
Look at somebody like Mason Rudolph right now. Are you going to look at his football reference page over the last two years (369 plays, 60% of a season's worth, enough that he would've fallen off long ago if he were a total fraud) and tell me he's not a top 32 QB in the NFL right now? I think he's in the top 15 personally. Maybe even better than that, but what do you think the odds are on him being a day one starter next year? If this were entirely performance related, his odds would be 100%. Since it's not, we're just left here to pray that a deserving player gets his deserved opportunity, just like Sam Darnold last year. Still waiting on Jake Browning by the way.
You see what I'm getting at here. Anybody who believes the NFL is starting the best 32 QBs week one next year is delusional in my opinion. We agree that we can rest assured that the top six or so will be there, but the seventh best QB in the NFL last year (on my list) was Sam Darnold, and there was no guarantee that he was going to start week one last year, despite his breakout being entirely predictable, so much so that I predicted it two full years before it happened in one of the first articles ever published on this publication. The Vikings looked to be trying really hard to mess that one up, for non-performance reasons, and got bailed out by a JJ McCarthy injury.
So yes, if you're a top six QB in the NFL (even one like Trent Green or Tony Romo, who had to wait a while), you will get your chance eventually, but if you're any worse than that, there are no guarantees. No matter how good you are, because actual performance on the field often takes a backseat to the option who's going to get the fans most excited, and who's going to be the best bullet shield to save everyone's job.
How excited would Raiders' fans be if they see an announcement that they've just signed Mason Rudolph to a contract? Likely not very excited, despite him being the best on-field option available, assuming Sam Darnold is above their pay grade. The same goes for every one of the other 31 teams. When you're not a very good bullet sponge, there just aren't many opportunities for you out there as a QB, even if you're a top 15 guy in the league, albeit in a somewhat small (but not prohibitively small) sample, which Mason Rudolph has been over the last two years, and Paul Justin was in 1996-1997.
I was living in Europe at time of WLAF/NFL Europe and saw a lot of it.
I thought Paul Justin was the second best QB I ever saw in that league. The QB I thought best was not Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Jon Kitna, Brad Johnson or even Scott Mitchell.
It was Dameyune Craig.
Probably this just shows my overwhelming weakness in assessing QBs. Or maybe there's an idea for another article, Robbie :)