#1 Overall Picks usually work out

[The Gipper]

Here is a part of a Yahoo article about the fate of those QBs who have been picked #1 overall since 1970...and some evaluations thereof:

For all the bloviating about the inaccurate nature of the NFL drafts, No. 1 overall picks at quarterback during the Super Bowl era almost always become solid players:

1970: Terry Bradshaw, Hall of Fame
1971: Jim Plunkett, two-time Super Bowl champ
1975: Steve Bartkowski, two-time Pro Bowler
1983: John Elway, Hall of Fame
1987: Vinny Testaverde, two-time Pro Bowler
1989: Troy Aikman, Hall of Fame
1990: Jeff George, bust
1993: Drew Bledsoe, four-time Pro Bowler
1998: Peyton Manning, future Hall of Fame
1999: Tim Couch, struggled with expansion team
2001: Mike Vick, four-time Pro Bowler
2002: David Carr, struggled with expansion team
2003: Carson Palmer, three-time Pro Bowler
2004: Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl champ
2005: Alex Smith, three-time Pro Bowler
2007: JaMarcus Russell, bust
2009: Matthew Stafford, one Pro Bowl
2010: Sam Bradford, bust
2011: Cam Newton, three-time Pro Bowler
2012: Andrew Luck, three-time Pro Bowler
2015: Jameis Winston, one Pro Bowl
2016: Jared Goff, one Pro Bowl

That’s a good list. Of the 22 quarterbacks taken No. 1 in the Super Bowl era, 16 made at least one Pro Bowl. Plunkett didn’t, but he helped the Raiders win two titles. Two of the bad picks were thrown to the wolves on expansion teams, so they should get a pass. That leaves Bradford (who has an injury excuse, and has had some good moments), George and Russell. And George ended up with 27,602 yards and 154 touchdowns (spoiler alert: I have nothing positive to say about Russell). If Mayfield ends up like all the other sorry Browns quarterbacks, it will be an upset. When you pay up for a quarterback, it usually works out to some extent.

Notes on this:  

A. I agree completely on Couch and Carr. With other situations they may have turned out very well.  

B. There may actually be some time for Bradford to come around. Doubtful...but possible

C. Winston, despite making one Pro Bowl, is headed down a rocky path.

D. Note:  I have italicized those who have started at least 1 Super Bowl

[The Gipper]

More from that article....mostly about the offensive upgrades the Browns have made:

If Mayfield is The Guy in Cleveland – finally – what the Browns have put together elsewhere looks pretty good.

The defense wasn’t that bad last season. The offense was bad, drowning in a barrage of turnovers from quarterback DeShone Kizer, who never improved as the year went on. But the Browns will have eight new offensive starters from the beginning of last season. Only the three interior line spots are the same. Tackle Joe Thomas retired, but the other seven changes should be considered upgrades. Eventually, when teams spend a ton of money on free agents and keep picking high in the draft, it should all come together. Ask the Jacksonville Jaguars.

There are questions if Hue Jackson is the right coach. He won a power struggle with fired general manager Sashi Brown, but he did a putrid job last season. The Browns weren’t good last season, but they weren’t 0-16 bad either. Jackson needs to quickly prove the Browns aren’t wasting another season with him screwing up some intriguing talent.

All those talented young players – Myles Garrett, Jamie Collins, Jarvis Landry, Kevin Zeitler, David Njoku, Jabrill Peppers, Emmanuel Ogbah, Josh Gordon, Carlos Hyde, Nick Chubb, No. 4 overall pick Denzel Ward (seriously, the Browns have collected some difference makers) – probably won’t matter if Mayfield doesn’t pan out to some extent. Jackson insists Tyrod Taylor is the starter indefinitely this season, and it’s understandable that a coach on a 17-game losing streak hopes a veteran can win a game before the rookie takes his lumps. But the moment the Browns used the first pick on Mayfield, it became his team. Unless Taylor pulls a Case Keenum and has a great year with a better cast (that’s really strange to say in relation to Cleveland), the Browns will have to answer a lot of questions about why Mayfield can’t win the job.

The Browns have to step out of the quicksand at some point, at the quarterback position and as a franchise. Jackson’s record as Browns coach is 1-31, but it goes deeper than that. Since an overtime win at the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 11, 2015, they have lost 41 of 43 games. Everyone is supposed to be able to turn things around quickly in the NFL. The Browns are the only team that can’t do it.

Mayfield says he’s the catalyst for a long-awaited turnaround. Cleveland prays he’s right.

[The Gipper]

From the same article.....the biggest problem that this team faces this year?  According to this:  the competency of the HC:

It’s Hue Jackson. I was all for hiring him, and keeping him around after his 1-15 first season with a stripped-down roster. But time and time again last season, it looked like Jackson was in over his head. A debacle at the end of the first half against the Detroit Lions last season summed up how bad the Browns have been coached. Cleveland had 15 seconds left at Detroit’s 2-yard line, ran a quarterback sneak (really, that happened) and ran out of time before the end of the half. It was an amazing sequence of incompetence, even for the Browns. Jackson has had two years, and there’s not one positive thing to say. DeShone Kizer was mismanaged and never progressed last season (Kizer was traded to the Green Bay Packers, and he had to feel like he was given a life raft). When you look at the similarly talent-poor 2017 rosters of the New York Jets and Browns, and realize that Todd Bowles lifted a shaky Jets team to five wins while Jackson couldn’t manage one, you should have serious questions about Jackson. He has not done a passable job. Maybe giving up total offensive control to new coordinator Todd Haley will help. However, it’s surprising he survived for a third season....

According to Pythagorean expectation, which uses points scored and allowed to figure what record a team should have had, and Football Outsiders’ expected wins, the Browns had a profile of a 3.3-win team. They won zero. No other team in the NFL was more than three wins off either Pythagorean expectation or FO’s expected wins. Not to keep harping on Hue Jackson, but the Browns should not have gone 0-16.

 

[Tacosman]

the difference is most of those guys were clear cut #1s and had been for awhile.....mayfield wasnt, and wouldnt have gone #1 from most teams.  In fact many had him as he 4th best qb in 

the class.

[Canton Mike]

2 hours ago, Tacosman said:

the difference is most of those guys were clear cut #1s and had been for awhile.....mayfield wasnt, and wouldnt have gone #1 from most teams.  In fact many had him as he 4th best qb in 

the class.

Please back up your "facts" by telling us WHICH teams had Baker rated 4th best in this class & also state your SOURCE(s) of these purported "facts".. I'm very curious as I seemed to have MISSED these "facts", although I'm calling BULLCRAP considering you as the poster.

Mike

[Flugel]

2 hours ago, Tacosman said:

the difference is most of those guys were clear cut #1s and had been for awhile.....mayfield wasnt, and wouldnt have gone #1 from most teams.  In fact many had him as he 4th best qb in 

the class.

I gotta wipe my asss can I borrow your Yellow Terrible Towel?

[Dutch Oven]

This is the first season of a new regime.

Any negative talk will be dealt with swiftly by the majority of Browns Town. 

If the Browns win 3-5 games this upcoming season, no one will say a peep to someone like Tacosman. Then, the gloves are off. 

I've seen this movie once or 12 times before. 😉

[mjp28]

There should be a high success rate from any top pick list at any position in football just from the "gene pool" of the athletes, you're picking from the top branches of the talent available. 

That list however ignores other first round big busts like #2 Leaf behind #1 Peyton  (almost the other way around), Brady Quinn, and others.

Oh some pretty high up like: Honorable Mention:  Joey Harrington, Oregon (No. 3 overall, 2002); Akili Smith, Oregon (No. 3 overall, 1999); Mark Sanchez, USC (No. 5 overall, 2009)

Then there's  (no particular order) Leinart, Gabbert, Weeden, Loseman, Ramsey......oh TIM TEBOW, all first round.

.......oh edit add, just because a player makes a few pro bowls doesn't necessarily make them successful, some may be on a good team, a few decent years or just fill in players when a quarterback drops out.

[Flugel]

17 minutes ago, mjp28 said:

There should be a high success rate from any top pick list at any position in football just from the "gene pool" of the athletes, you're picking from the top branches of the talent available. 

That list however ignores other first round big busts like #2 Leaf behind #1 Peyton  (almost the other way around), Brady Quinn, and others.

Oh some pretty high up like: Honorable Mention:  Joey Harrington, Oregon (No. 3 overall, 2002); Akili Smith, Oregon (No. 3 overall, 1999); Mark Sanchez, USC (No. 5 overall, 2009)

Then there's  (no particular order) Leinart, Gabbert, Weeden, Loseman, Ramsey......oh TIM TEBOW, all first round.

.......oh edit add, just because a player makes a few pro bowls doesn't necessarily make them successful, some may be on a good team, a few decent years or just fill in players when a quarterback drops out.

Well said!  Another thing the list reminds me of is all QBs emerge at different rates while all settings are not created equally. Once upon a time Qbs like Steve Young, Vinny Testaverde and Doug Williams couldn't survive the situation in Tampa prior to taking their next NFL franchises to playoffs and even Superbowl Championships.   Vinny QBed us to 11-5 and our last playoff win in 1994 before taking Parcells' Jets to an AFC Championship Game in Denver.  Both Williams and Young won Superbowl Championships with some of the best Superbowl passing performances of all time.  Hindsight 20/20 reminds us that all those former Tampa QBs ever really needed was a chance to win.   Along that line, this feels like the first year in a very long time that our FO is giving whoever we put at QB a decent chance to win.

And how many QBs in this era are going to get excused as long as Terry Bradshaw needed to be as depicted by the stats below?  He actually got benched for Joe Gilliam in 73 and 74.  The only thing scarier than that in the 70s was the Exorcist or the dismount of the little kid on the yellow raft in the movie Jaws.  Meanwhile Jim Plunkett had equally crappy completion percentages and TD:INT ratios during his first 5 NFL seasons in NE.  Plunkett's Superbowls didn't happen until the 80s.  On the opposite extreme in another era, Sam Bradford was a Rookie of the Year and performed well whenever the poor guy was healthy.  Gip's list actually labelled Bradford as a bust.  IMO, talent was never his problem - it was the inability to stay healthy.

YEAR	GAMES	ATT	COMP	PCT	YARDS	AVG	TD	INT
1970	13	218	83	38.1	1,410	6.5	6	24
1971	14	373	203	54.4	2,259	6.1	13	22
1972	14	308	147	47.7	1,887	6.1	12	12
1973	10	180	89	49.4	1,183	6.6	10	15
1974	8	148	67	45.3	785	5.3	7	8

[Flugel]

12 hours ago, Dutch Oven said:

This is the first season of a new regime.

Any negative talk will be dealt with swiftly by the majority of Browns Town. 

If the Browns win 3-5 games this upcoming season, no one will say a peep to someone like Tacosman. Then, the gloves are off. 

I've seen this movie once or 12 times before. 😉

You might have seen it 12 times on different message boards.  On this message board, we're gonna give him shittt either way so get your popcorn ready...  We had a guy just like Taco back in 2007 assuring us Joe Thomas was going to be the worst draft pick in franchise history at #3 overall. Then we went 10-6 while he joined a bunch of ostriches burying their heads in the sand all season. Never showed his face once all season.  Right Ghoolie? 

I'm sure every bus stop in the country full of 6 and 7 year old kids has a Taco-In-Training chomping at the bits to inform his peers there is no such thing as Santa Claus. And can you just imagine the reward behind telling loyal fans of a team coming off 1-15 for an 0-16 record that he accurately predicted another year without a Santa Claus in Cleveland?   That's gotta be as challenging as a weather man sporting the gonads to predict the sun will shine in Florida this summer summer.  It's got quit the day job written all over it.

[Dutch Oven]

2 hours ago, Flugel said:

You might have seen it 12 times on different message boards.  On this message board, we're gonna give him shittt either way so get your popcorn ready...  We had a guy just like Taco back in 2007 assuring us Joe Thomas was going to be the worst draft pick in franchise history at #3 overall. Then we went 10-6 while he joined a bunch of ostriches burying their heads in the sand all season. Never showed his face once all season.  Right Ghoolie? 

I'm sure every bus stop in the country full of 6 and 7 year old kids has a Taco-In-Training chomping at the bits to inform his peers there is no such thing as Santa Claus. And can you just imagine the reward behind telling loyal fans of a team coming off 1-15 for an 0-16 record that he accurately predicted another year without a Santa Claus in Cleveland?   That's gotta be as challenging as a weather man sporting the gonads to predict the sun will shine in Florida this summer summer.  It's got quit the day job written all over it.

On any other message board Ghoolie would have been banned years ago, sorry if I don't quite buy what you are selling Flugs… 

Some people didn't want anything to do with Mayfield, and their opinion isn't going to change just because the Browns drafted him. I didn't want him, but he's ours now, so I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping he turns out to be a great QB - I don't have to like him personally. (And I don't, just like I can't stand Trevor Bauer, but I hope he keeps pitching great for the Tribe.)

[Flugel]

3 hours ago, Dutch Oven said:

On any other message board Ghoolie would have been banned years ago, sorry if I don't quite buy what you are selling Flugs… 

Some people didn't want anything to do with Mayfield, and their opinion isn't going to change just because the Browns drafted him. I didn't want him, but he's ours now, so I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping he turns out to be a great QB - I don't have to like him personally. (And I don't, just like I can't stand Trevor Bauer, but I hope he keeps pitching great for the Tribe.)

Again, you're not on any other message board. You upgraded!  No church mice here for the Ghoolies or Tacos of the board.  We're going to continue to give them shitt when they deserve it.  That's not a sale - it's a history lesson. 

I'm just going to clarify my stance on Taco and it isn't just on Mayfield at all or we wouldn't be having this discussion.  I guess we should start with the QBs though. If you read any/all of my pre-draft posts on the QBs - I posted this felt like a year there wasn't any clear cut #1 guy (where all the top prospects had at least 1 concern) so I never felt the need to corner myself to just 1.  In fact, you and others encouraged me to give Rosen a chance. Consequently I did some more research and ended up with 3 QBs I would have been happy about us drafting while Mayfield bounced back and forth from my 1A to 1B with Darnold.   Rosen moved all the way up to my 1C; so I never had a compelling axe to grind about any QB unless we would have decided to risk a #1 overall on Josh Allen.

While I hear what you are saying about Mayfield, some teams didn't want anything to do with Rosen either or he wouldn't have been drafted all the way down at #10 right?  At #2, the Giants preferred Barkley to Darnold and Rosen and they still drafted a QB they are very happy about later. At #3, the Jets preferred Darnold (and it sounded like Mayfield as well if he would have been there) to Rosen. Meanwhile, Buffalo preferred Josh Allen to Rosen.  If we add the Browns - that's 4 different FOs that didn't feel comfortable putting their careers on the line for Rosen. Peter Schrager even made it a point to say on the morning show he learned NFL teams were rating Mayfield higher than Darnold on their boards in comparison with all of the mock drafts done by the media and on their channel for whatever that's worth today.  I think Elway's actions this off season should also remind us he didn't feel Rosen was special enough to consider in Denver's draft slot either.  My question here is what does Taco know that all these experienced FOs are completely incapable of understanding?  

Do you remember how the Barkley threads annoyed you to no end?  Some of us felt the same way about Taco repeatedly trying to sell us Jarvis Landry way too average to get excited about for the money we gave him.  I might have even been okay with it somewhat if it stayed in 1 thread; but it's still going on.  Then I see Zombo and others sharing their game faces about the off season moves they're excited about - and guess who couldn't wait to correct every one of them? Taco.  

[Dutch Oven]

While it was an intriguing draft class for QBs, the top four all came with major question marks. I'll be honest, I wasn't happy we took Mayfield.

But I would have been batshit livid if the pick would have been Josh Allen. So there's that ray of sunshine, I suppose!

We'll see if Taco is just being a Debbie Downer, or if he is right to have his doubts on an offseason so many Browns fans are excited about. 

[gumby73]

2 hours ago, Dutch Oven said:

 I'll be honest, I wasn't happy we took Mayfield.

But I would have been batshit livid if the pick would have been Josh Allen. So there's that ray of sunshine, I suppose! 

If ya believe anything Baker would tell NFL Radio? Baker stated & believed the 2nd choice was Josh Allen.. Here's Baker's offseason work out training video to help us all celebrate 

    Hee Hee !!