A Risky Draft for the Rams and Eagles

There is a line from the move Citizen Kane (most of life’s situation can be summarized by a line from Citizen Kane) where someone says a news story isn’t worthy of a banner headline, and Kane replies, “If the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.”  The Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles are apparently applying this philosophy to quarterbacks—if you pick someone at number one or number two in the draft, that MAKES them deserve a number one (or number two) pick.

Supposedly The Rams and the Eagles expended a truckload of draft picks in order to draft Carson Wentz of North Dakota State and Jared Goff of Cal with the first two picks of the NFL draft.  This despite the fact that ESPN rates both prospects outside of the top ten in potential.  Both the Rams and the Eagles apparently believe that taking Wentz or Goff at the top of the draft will magically turn a moderate pro prospect into another Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck.

First of all, prospects who WERE in the top two often turn out to be busts; exhibit A is Ryan Leaf.  At the end of the college season neither Wentz nor Goff were considered top flight talent; neither was invited to the Heisman Award ceremony, and neither competed for the national championship.  But now two teams desperate for a quarterback have traded away their futures on these two athletes being able to not only succeed in the NFL, but succeed immediately despite never working with a pro-style offence.

This is logic born of desperation.  The Denver Broncos proved you really don’t need a quarterback to win it all in the NFL (a lawn gnome could have played as well as Manning did in the Super Bowl), but the QB is still the most important cog in any NFL machine.  If you can’t acquire one through free agency, the only other avenue is the draft.  But what do you do if there is no quarterback project in the draft?  Instead of taking a QB prospect with the 15^th pick, at which point Goff might have been available according to ESPN, the Rams gave a bunch of picks to the Titans and now will draft Wentz or Goff number one. 

This is an example of what economists call the “greater fool” theory.  In some economics experiments, people will bid more than a dollar for the right to own a dollar, if they believe there is a bigger fool than them who will bid even more.  The Rams believed someone else (the Eagles) would take Goff or Wentz too high, and then neither would be available at 15, so they traded to be number one.  This proves that they are an even bigger fool than the team that considered taking Goff in the top ten.

Goff was not a terribly successful QB at Cal, and North Dakota State didn’t exactly play Notre Dame or Alabama.  Yet these two quarterbacks will be drafted one and two and be asked to immediately step in and lead an NFL team to a winning record.  Both Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston, two QBs who earned the #1 and 32 draft slots, struggled to adapt to the NFL, so how will two supposedly less qualified QBs adapt?

And this is coming at a time when Sports Illustrated has run a couple of pieces on why there is a chasm between the college game and the pros.  Could Wentz really run a wide open offense at North Dakota State (school motto: yes, we are part of America) and then learn to run a complex pro-style system?  If he was the 12^th pick in the draft and had time to learn the system, that would be one thing; to pick him #1 and let him start on day one, that would be a huge set of baggage for him to carry.

Okay, stranger things have happened.  A gangly back up QB from Michigan State drafted in the sixth round is now considered one of the best QBs of all time.  But as Damon Runyon warned, “Remember, the battle is not always to the strongest, nor the race to the swiftest; but that’s the way to bet.” 

The Cleveland Browns, surprisingly, made a smart choice to trade away their #2 pick.  They need everything, so multiple picks will help.  And if you are going to take a chance on Robert Griffin III as a free agent, there is no need for a backup plan; if he succeeds, you don’t need a QB, but if he fails you’ve got a high draft pick in next year’s draft.  If this is Hue Jackson’s influence, then he just may be the coach to turn the Browns around.

Goff and Wentz may prove worthy of their #1 and #2 draft statuses.  One or the other or both may show un-demonstrated skill at checking off pass rotations or reading NFL defenses.  But neither has done so yet.  And doing it with the burden of expectations that come with a high draft pick for a quarterback?  That has crushed more promising prospects (seriously, you do remember Ryan Leaf, right?).  There haven’t been many of these mega-deals to move up to the top of the draft, mainly because they almost always help the team collecting the draft picks.  It will probably be a frustrating, but exciting, season for the Rams and the Eagles.