Oct
4
Robert L. Bacon and Football, from Paul Marino
October 4, 2009 |
Robert L. Bacon lives! As always. Look at how many respectable NFL teams have QBs who didn’t start much in college. Less chance for injury and longterm gains if you have the talent. Joe Flacco, Mark Sanchez, Eli Manning, et. al.
I could expand a little on it; this Sports Illustrated article from Peter King reflects on the subject better than I can. The form is moving.
“I count six passers 25 or younger — Ryan, Flacco, Sanchez, Stafford, Trent Edwards of Buffalo and Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers — as players with exceedingly bright futures. Ten years ago, the only sure thing under 25 was Peyton Manning … and the draft class of 1999 (Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown, Shaun King) was on track to be awful, even with McNabb and Culpepper in it.
I can think of a few reasons. Colleges are a better incubator for pro quarterbacks today, in part because they’re playing more pro-style spread schemes (and the NFL is copying some college spread stuff too); the NFL is using more shotgun snaps too, and that allows young passers to see the field more clearly on passing downs. There’s also been a lot of cross-pollination between college and pro football recently.”
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Not enough can be said about a top-notch scouting program…
You can get your fix of Bacon here. Bacon teaches so many more lessons than wagering, his is a philosophy of winning for life in all areas. Jeff
One needs to be careful with such anecdotal evidence. If you want to develop your thesis you need to go deeper than the three that you mentioned.
Mark Sanchez was developed at USC and he never started because he sat behind Heisman winners. Everyone knew he was a star but he was buried in the program and chose to stay rather than transfer. It is hard to characterize him as having a career as he has just begun.
Eli Manning was a star at Mississippi and he had a full career there. Everybody knew he was a star; they just waited for him to be drafted after his senior year.
Joe Flacco originally went to Pittsburgh, had limited play, and transferred to Delaware. He played two full years there after sitting out a year due to ineligibility.
Perhaps a different way of looking at this is there are 32 pro teams and each team needs two quarterbacks. When one gets hurt like Brady last year the team needs to scramble to find another. Thus it is very difficult to find quarterbacks with such a need. There just is not that much depth to choose from to find an elite quarterback. This may explain why Brett Favre has been in such high demand these last few years. One may equate this to professional baseball, as there are just not enough good pitchers to go around and therefore so many mediocre ones make it to the Show.
Mr King writes "Colleges are a better incubator for pro quarterbacks today because they're playing more pro=style spread schemes……" With all due respect to Mr. King I am not sure what he means by this. Here is my list of the top 10 quarterbacks in football and where they went to school. This is very subjective and of course will stir heated debate so here goes. Peyton Manning Tennessee Tom Brady Michigan Drew Brees Purdue Eli Manning Mississippi Brett Favre Southern Mississippi Jay Cutler Vanderbilt Tony Romo Eastern Illinois Philip Rivers North Carolina State Carson Palmer USC Ben Rothlisberger Miami Oh Honorable mention Donovan McNabb Syracuse Best quarterbacks of the last 20 years not already listed Joe Montana Notre Dame John Elway Stanford Dan Marino Pittsburg Steve Young Brigham Young Troy Aikman UCLA Jim Kelly Miami Kurt Warner Northern Iowa Phil Simms Morehead State Warren Moon Washington Vinnie Testaverde Miami Now feel free to build your list this happens to be mine. If you can make any sense out of it then all the better for you. If this supports Mr King's assertions so be it. For me it shows how one hour of research can be spent on a topic such as this. And I have no idea what I can do with it except that it was a lot of fun thinking back upon these legends of the game and future legends of the game.
Steve — Thanks for responding and keeping the thought alive. I am looking into this and will respond after some more research. My main gist is that more and more NFL teams are handing the QB reigns to youngsters much more than they used to. And that this is moving the form. I will update when I can but I appreciate your list! I always forget Phil Simms went to Morehead State. One of the most media underrated New York athletes of all time vs. championships and longevity. I am a Jet's fan! I wish the markets had the same diligence to their past that Elias does. They are a marvel of wisdom.