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[splatter]

Detroit: Should Matt Stafford be the first overall pick in the draft?


The Lions will need to make the most important draft selection in team history in April, and the front-runner for the pick appears to be Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford.

If they select Stafford, he'll become another player in the long line of Lions draft fiascos from this decade.

How can we be so sure? The answer has to do with the research first presented at FootballOutsiders.com by David Lewin; namely, that the only two stats that matter for a college quarterback are games started and completion percentage. For quarterbacks taken in the first two rounds, the numbers are inextricably linked to NFL success.

In his three seasons at Georgia, Stafford started 33 games and completed 57.1 percent of the passes he threw. That puts him in some pretty uninspiring company.

QBs similar to StaffordQuarterbackGSComp Pct.Patrick Ramsey3858.9Jake Plummer4055.4Shaun King3955.5J.P. Losman2757.8Matt Ryan3259.9Matt Stafford3357.1

Yes, reigning rookie of the year Matt Ryan appears on that list, but with a bit of an asterisk. Ryan played for a Boston College team that had no running game and threw 654 passes in his final season, skewing his completion percentage some. Even if Ryan doesn't come with an asterisk, a one-in-five shot of picking a quarterback of Ryan's caliber shouldn't encourage Stafford's selection in the slightest.

One of the arguments against a statistical-based system for projecting college quarterbacks is that a system quarterback such as former Hawaii star Colt Brennan would put up inflated numbers that weren't true indicators of his NFL ability. Although scouts should sniff that stuff out and encourage teams to avoid taking such players in the first two rounds (something Lewin built into his system), another easy way to control for system quarterbacks is to compare the quarterback to the previous starter at his school.

Stafford was directly preceded at Georgia by the recently retired David Greene; both spent their entire college careers under head coach Mark Richt in similar offensive systems. Stafford's college numbers are actually worse than Greene's, with the latter completing 59 percent of his passes and averaging 8.01 yards per attempt to Stafford's 7.83. If Stafford was really a star in the making, wouldn't he have put up better numbers, in the same system, than a guy who washed out of the NFL without taking a professional snap? If it was our $25 million guaranteed, the answer would need to be yes.

http://insider.espn....tory?id=3899972

[kingseanjohn]

I still think Matt Ryan isn't that good. With his defense playing great and a running game consisting of Michael Turner and Jerious Norwood, most QB's would look pretty good.

I really hope we don't draft Stafford or Sanchez. Stick with Thigpen and surround him with talent.

[cbuschief]

kingseanjohn, on Feb 12 2009, 09:38 PM, said:

I still think Matt Ryan isn't that good. With his defense playing great and a running game consisting of Michael Turner and Jerious Norwood, most QB's would look pretty good.

I really hope we don't draft Stafford or Sanchez. Stick with Thigpen and surround him with talent.

I'm with you on Stafford but a year from now I don't know that I'd feel the same about Sanchez. He played a hell of a Rose bowl and thats all I'm basing his ability on but he was money in that game so if he pans out in the NFL I'd love for it to be with the Chiefs.
Thiggy can't play the whole year by himself and for once I'd love to develope a QB that we actually use.

[kingseanjohn]

cbuschief, on Feb 14 2009, 04:35 AM, said:

Thiggy can't play the whole year by himself and for once I'd love to develope a QB that we actually use.

Why not?