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https://theringer.com/2017-nfl-draft-new-rules-quarterbacks-trades-information-50fbbedfe6
Kevin Clark
Staff Writer, The Ringer
Apr 25
The New Rules of the NFL Draft
Schematic shifts at the college level, a new rookie salary scale, and the rising importance of the quarterback have altered football’s talent-assessment landscape. Here are the five guiding principles teams need to know in order to compete.
No event in football has changed in recent years as much as the NFL draft, with widespread schematic shifts at the college level, a cap on rookie salaries, and an increasingly quarterback-centric mentality altering how teams assess talent. Now, nearly every facet of the draft is dictated by a set of new rules. These five will have the biggest impact on how teams approach the 2017 draft.
1. Overdrafting a Quarterback Is Encouraged
It’s not news that NFL teams can get desperate for quarterbacks — EJ Manuel and Blaine Gabbert were once drafted in the first round, after all. But that desperation is consistently manifesting earlier now. For more than two decades, drafting a quarterback in rounds 2 through 4 was rare and often fruitless (unless that QB was Drew Brees, technically a second-round pick as the 32nd selection in the final NFL draft featuring just 31 teams). In the past five drafts, teams have selected 23 quarterbacks between the start of the second round and the end of the fourth round, the most in a five-year span at any point in the past 25 years. In 2000, zero quarterbacks were taken in the second or fourth rounds, and just two were taken in the third; meanwhile, Tom Brady was one of five quarterbacks selected in the sixth round that year, with three more passers going in the seventh round. Quarterbacks don’t last that long anymore.
For much of the 21st century, mid-round quarterbacks were a disaster zone, with notable second-round picks including Kellen Clemens, Jimmy Clausen, Chad Henne, and Pat White (!). It was more than a decade before the second round produced a decent starter. In 2012, RotoWorld’s Evan Silva wrote about the phenomenon of the awful second-rounder, and since then, the yield for players picked in rounds 2–4 has improved considerably: Third-rounder Russell Wilson, fourth-rounder Kirk Cousins, and second-rounder Andy Dalton have developed into quality quarterbacks. Mike Glennon, a third-round pick, somehow wound up being the best passer in the 2013 draft. Derek Carr went from second-round pick to MVP candidate. Jimmy Garoppolo, also a second-round pick, is so highly regarded that on a near-daily basis the media has to report that the Patriots aren’t trading him. And of course Dak Prescott, a fourth-round pick, played like an MVP candidate last season.
NFL teams have noticed that uptick in mid-round value, and last year, six quarterbacks were drafted from the start of the second round until the end of the fourth, tied for the most in 15 years.
There are a few forces at work here. The first is that the quarterback is more important than ever, with passing yardage up 18 percent league-wide in 2016 compared to a decade earlier. And as salaries for quarterbacks skyrocket — 12 of the top 15 cap hits in the league in 2017 will be for quarterbacks — the idea of landing a cheap QB who can contribute is so enticing that teams are taking their chances earlier and earlier. “Developmental” quarterbacks have always been desirable targets, but now they’re going sooner, which is a smart hedge for teams: These mid-round passers go high enough to ensure that teams get their man, but low enough to protect the GM from getting fired if the player busts.
The second is that today’s mid-round quarterbacks are plain better than their predecessors. Quarterbacks are throwing more than ever at the college, high school, and youth levels due to the prevalence of the spread offense, increasing their meaningful throwing experience.
Even with more throws on tape, teams still struggle with their evaluation, because these days, almost every draft-eligible quarterback comes from a system featuring at least some spread principles. NFL draft analyst Mike Mayock said last week in a conference call with reporters that all spread quarterbacks, like Prescott, get knocked and lumped into one group by teams as passers who’ve oftentimes never taken a snap from under center; don’t have to set the offensive line protection; and throw to receivers running simpler routes than those featured in previous college offenses. Because some spread quarterbacks at the college level have no responsibility for or control of the offense before the snap, Mayock thinks that finding players who did, in fact, have the ability to command an offense is “the most important scouting point right now.” Until teams refine the evaluation process, though, the ones that don’t want to risk a first-round pick on these boom-or-bust spread quarterbacks are instead selecting them in the later rounds, where the stakes are lower. In many cases, those players are booming.
What it means: We won’t have to wait long for the second batch of quarterbacks to go this year. Maybe a decade ago, lesser QB prospects like Pitt’s Nathan Peterman, Miami’s Brad Kaaya, and Cal’s Davis Webb would have had to wait until perhaps the fifth round to hear their names called. Webb, ranked by CBS as the fifth-best quarterback in the draft, is considered the 78th-best overall prospect in the class. Kaaya is 120th on that list. Both quarterbacks will move up two or three rounds compared to where they would have gone a decade ago because of this effect. Here’s guessing Webb is a second-round pick, with Kaaya potentially sneaking in there as well — this is a league where Christian Hackenberg went in the second round last season. Peterman will likely go around the third. Hell, even Tennessee’s Josh Dobbs, viewed by CBS as the 195th-ranked prospect and a fifth- or sixth-rounder, will likely go two rounds earlier than he would have in the prior draft era. For many teams, a promising, cheap quarterback is too good to pass up.
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They forgot #6
You MUST trade with Bill Belichick.
Kevin Clark
Staff Writer, The Ringer
Apr 25
The New Rules of the NFL Draft
Schematic shifts at the college level, a new rookie salary scale, and the rising importance of the quarterback have altered football’s talent-assessment landscape. Here are the five guiding principles teams need to know in order to compete.
No event in football has changed in recent years as much as the NFL draft, with widespread schematic shifts at the college level, a cap on rookie salaries, and an increasingly quarterback-centric mentality altering how teams assess talent. Now, nearly every facet of the draft is dictated by a set of new rules. These five will have the biggest impact on how teams approach the 2017 draft.
1. Overdrafting a Quarterback Is Encouraged
It’s not news that NFL teams can get desperate for quarterbacks — EJ Manuel and Blaine Gabbert were once drafted in the first round, after all. But that desperation is consistently manifesting earlier now. For more than two decades, drafting a quarterback in rounds 2 through 4 was rare and often fruitless (unless that QB was Drew Brees, technically a second-round pick as the 32nd selection in the final NFL draft featuring just 31 teams). In the past five drafts, teams have selected 23 quarterbacks between the start of the second round and the end of the fourth round, the most in a five-year span at any point in the past 25 years. In 2000, zero quarterbacks were taken in the second or fourth rounds, and just two were taken in the third; meanwhile, Tom Brady was one of five quarterbacks selected in the sixth round that year, with three more passers going in the seventh round. Quarterbacks don’t last that long anymore.
For much of the 21st century, mid-round quarterbacks were a disaster zone, with notable second-round picks including Kellen Clemens, Jimmy Clausen, Chad Henne, and Pat White (!). It was more than a decade before the second round produced a decent starter. In 2012, RotoWorld’s Evan Silva wrote about the phenomenon of the awful second-rounder, and since then, the yield for players picked in rounds 2–4 has improved considerably: Third-rounder Russell Wilson, fourth-rounder Kirk Cousins, and second-rounder Andy Dalton have developed into quality quarterbacks. Mike Glennon, a third-round pick, somehow wound up being the best passer in the 2013 draft. Derek Carr went from second-round pick to MVP candidate. Jimmy Garoppolo, also a second-round pick, is so highly regarded that on a near-daily basis the media has to report that the Patriots aren’t trading him. And of course Dak Prescott, a fourth-round pick, played like an MVP candidate last season.
NFL teams have noticed that uptick in mid-round value, and last year, six quarterbacks were drafted from the start of the second round until the end of the fourth, tied for the most in 15 years.
There are a few forces at work here. The first is that the quarterback is more important than ever, with passing yardage up 18 percent league-wide in 2016 compared to a decade earlier. And as salaries for quarterbacks skyrocket — 12 of the top 15 cap hits in the league in 2017 will be for quarterbacks — the idea of landing a cheap QB who can contribute is so enticing that teams are taking their chances earlier and earlier. “Developmental” quarterbacks have always been desirable targets, but now they’re going sooner, which is a smart hedge for teams: These mid-round passers go high enough to ensure that teams get their man, but low enough to protect the GM from getting fired if the player busts.
The second is that today’s mid-round quarterbacks are plain better than their predecessors. Quarterbacks are throwing more than ever at the college, high school, and youth levels due to the prevalence of the spread offense, increasing their meaningful throwing experience.
Even with more throws on tape, teams still struggle with their evaluation, because these days, almost every draft-eligible quarterback comes from a system featuring at least some spread principles. NFL draft analyst Mike Mayock said last week in a conference call with reporters that all spread quarterbacks, like Prescott, get knocked and lumped into one group by teams as passers who’ve oftentimes never taken a snap from under center; don’t have to set the offensive line protection; and throw to receivers running simpler routes than those featured in previous college offenses. Because some spread quarterbacks at the college level have no responsibility for or control of the offense before the snap, Mayock thinks that finding players who did, in fact, have the ability to command an offense is “the most important scouting point right now.” Until teams refine the evaluation process, though, the ones that don’t want to risk a first-round pick on these boom-or-bust spread quarterbacks are instead selecting them in the later rounds, where the stakes are lower. In many cases, those players are booming.
What it means: We won’t have to wait long for the second batch of quarterbacks to go this year. Maybe a decade ago, lesser QB prospects like Pitt’s Nathan Peterman, Miami’s Brad Kaaya, and Cal’s Davis Webb would have had to wait until perhaps the fifth round to hear their names called. Webb, ranked by CBS as the fifth-best quarterback in the draft, is considered the 78th-best overall prospect in the class. Kaaya is 120th on that list. Both quarterbacks will move up two or three rounds compared to where they would have gone a decade ago because of this effect. Here’s guessing Webb is a second-round pick, with Kaaya potentially sneaking in there as well — this is a league where Christian Hackenberg went in the second round last season. Peterman will likely go around the third. Hell, even Tennessee’s Josh Dobbs, viewed by CBS as the 195th-ranked prospect and a fifth- or sixth-rounder, will likely go two rounds earlier than he would have in the prior draft era. For many teams, a promising, cheap quarterback is too good to pass up.
----
They forgot #6
You MUST trade with Bill Belichick.
