Study: Success Rate of 1st Round QBs

in bold are/were good starters in the NFL ('06 and '05 players won't receive this)

2006:
Vince Young - Titans
Matt Leinart - Cardinals
Jay Cutler - Broncos

all three were very good in their rookie seasons. Young is a winner, Leinart was solid and Cutler may be the best of the group.

2005:
Alex Smith - 49ers
Aaron Rogers - Packers
Jason Campbell - Redskins

tough to judge this group. Smith was awful as a rookie but was better in his second season. Campbell was decent too. Rogers hasn't seen the field yet.

2004:
Eli Manning - Giants
Phillip Rivers - CHargers
Ben Roethlisberger - Steelers
JP Losman - Bills

very good group. Three have had good careers so far. Losman was surprisingly good this year after being named a bust in preseason. I originally made Eli bold. The I realized his stats are no better than Grossman's.

2003:
Carson Palmer - Bengals
Byron Leftwich - Jaguars
Kyle Boller - Ravens
Rex Grossman - Bears

Palmer is a great QB. Leftwich is solid. Boller flopped and Grossman too I believe.

2002:
David Carr - Texans
Joey Harrington - Lions
Patrick Ramsey - Redskins

bad group. Very poor group. Harrington and Ramsey are/were awful. Carr may be a good QB somewhere with an O-Line but so far he hasn't.

2001:
Michael Vick - Falcons

I hate Vick. Overrated as hell, but he has gotten the Falcons success.

2000:
Chad Pennington - Jets

Has managed to overcome a noodle arm to be a very good NFL QB when healthy...when healthy.

1999:
Tim Couch - Browns
Donovan McNabb - Eagles
Akili Smith - Bengals
Daunte Culpepper - Vikings
Cade McNown - Bears

ouch. A golden year for QBs has cursed all of them with injury plagued careers. DOnovan has been the best of the bunch and is the only one still starting in the NFL. Culpepper at one point was almost at the level of McNabb but his career has been haulted big time with a knee injury. Couch was a decent QB, but was injured out of teh league. Same happened with McNown and Akili, but neither were any good.

1998:
Peyton Manning - Colts
Ryan Leaf- Chargers

maybe the best of all time vs. possibly the biggest bust of all time

1997:
Jim Druckenmiller - 49ers

who?

1996:
/

1995:
Steve McNair - Oilers
Kerry Collins - Panthers

McNair and Collins both have had great NFL careers and McNair will be considered for the HOF.

1994:
Heath Shuler - Redskins
Trent Dilfer - Buccaneers

Trent Dilfer is one of the weirdest cases in the NFL. Was bad initially for Tampa Bay, became much better after his third year, then played in Baltimore for a year and won a Super Bowl (which made me bold him). Finally went out to Seattle and didn't do much. Heath Shuler is a trivial pursuit question at this point.

1993:
Drew Bledsoe - Patriots
Rick Mirer - Seahawks

Bledsoe could be a HOFer. Mirer was not really that injury prone, he just played his way out of the league.

1992:
David Klingler - Bengals
Tommy Maddox - Broncos

Who knows why Denver drafted Tommy? Klingler was just bad.


So in total:
29 QBs from 1992-2004
14 turned out to be good QBs.
that's less than half. (48.3%)

however, if I had to predict the outcome for '05 and '06 QBs, I would say Vince, Leinart, Cutler and one of Smith/Campbell will have good careers.
that makes 18 out of 35. (51.4%)

Still not great.

Better than the 10% of QBs drafted in rounds 2-4





I hope this makes people appreciate the drafting of Donovan McNabb a little more.