Coming Up Empty in Search For the Next Tom Brady

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

This Sunday, Denver quarterback Jay Cutler will start his first NFL game. He is the last of this year’s firstround quarterbacks to enter the starting lineup, and like Matt Leinart and Vince Young, NFL fans have been talking about him since before the season began. First-round quarterbacks get special attention long past their rookie seasons, as evidenced by all of the articles about the successful season of Philip Rivers, or the troubles of Eli Manning.

But not every “quarterback of the future” is a former first-round pick. Some teams hope that lower-round steals will eventually lead the franchise to glory. There are plenty of examples from recent years: Tom Brady was a sixthround pick, of course, and so was Matt Hasselbeck. New Dallas superstar Tony Romo went undrafted four years ago.

But superstardom is probably not in the cards for the young lower-round picks who have had their chance to start this year. Oakland’s Andrew Walter and Cleveland’s Charlie Frye were both third-round picks in 2005. Tampa Bay’s Bruce Gradkowski was a sixthround pick in 2006. Each of these teams hoped to find a diamond in the rough, but things haven’t quite worked out that way.

Cleveland, Oakland, and Tampa Bay are the three teams with the fewest points scored, and poor quarterback play is a big part of that. Football Outsiders’ DPAR metric (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement) breaks down each play of the season and compares a quarterback’s performance to replacement level (i.e.a typical secondstring quarterback), adjusting for strength of schedule. Based on DPAR, the three least-valuable quarterbacks in the NFL this year have been Gradkowski, Frye, and Walter.

Now their teams must ask: Are our late-round steals just taking a long time to develop, or is their bad early performance a sign that they never will transcend their humble late-round beginnings? At what point do you give up on developing one starting quarterback and find yourself another one?

Frye’s performance is the most worrying, because he is not a first-year starter. Frye started five games at the end of his rookie year, and although he didn’t play well, he wasn’t the worst quarterback in the league either. Most analysts expected him to grow with experience. Instead, he’s stagnated and maybe even regressed.

Frye’s completion percentage is better this year, up to 63% from 60%, but he’s second in the league with 16 interceptions. Furthermore, those additional completions haven’t resulted in more yards, because Frye is more often dumping the ball off for short gains.

Is two years enough evidence that a quarterback will never develop into a reliable starter? Actually, an analysis of the past decade says yes. Unless he dramatically turns things around in the final five weeks of the season, Frye will finish with a DPAR below replacement level for the second straight year. Since 1995, 15 quarterbacks who have thrown 100 passes in either their first or second season and were below or at replacement level both of those seasons. Not one of these players had a successful career. The list includes famous flops such as Ryan Leaf and Akili Smith, as well as lower-round quarterbacks who got playing time but didn’t develop, like Ken Dorsey and Danny Wuerffel. Tim Couch blew out his shoulder, and the jury is still out on J.P. Losman, but otherwise the best player on the list is probably Joey Harrington.

Like Frye, Gradkowski has gotten worse with more experience, not better. When Chris Simms suffered a ruptured spleen in Week Three, Gradkowski entered the starting lineup, and he won two of his first three starts. But since then the Buccaneers have resumed their losing — and offense-free — ways.

Gradkowski was impressive in the preseason, and became a favorite of head coach Jon Gruden. Respected analysts like Ron Jaworski and Peter King have praised both his mechanics and his character, and ESPN’s Merril Hoge went so far as to call him “the best quarterback of this year’s rookie class.” But the numbers simply don’t agree. Gradkowski is completing just 54% of his passes and averaging a meager 5.1 yards a pass. He has only six interceptions, but five of those have come in the past three weeks.

Simms is set to become a free agent after this season, and when Gradkowski won those early games, there was talk that the Bucs would let Simms leave and hand the offense to Gradkowski permanently. But after his subsequent struggles, the Bucs changed their minds, and they’ve offered Simms a new two-year contract.

Like Gradkowski, Oakland’s Walter also got his chance because of an injury, in this case to Aaron Brooks. Most people expected the switch to be permanent; after all, the Oakland organization had been playing up Walter as its quarterback of the future since drafting him a year ago. But of all the bad quarterbacks this year, Walter was the worst. He couldn’t even complete half his passes and threw nine interceptions with just three touchdowns. When Brooks came back two weeks ago, the Raiders gave him the job back and stuck Walter back on the bench.

These quarterbacks obviously do not bear sole responsibility for the poor offenses of these teams. All three have suffered behind bad offensive lines, but they haven’t suffered from a lack of weapons. Frye gets to throw to Kellen Winslow, one of the best tight ends in the league this year, as well as last year’s third overall pick, receiver Braylon Edwards. Gradkowski has talented halfback Cadillac Williams and speedy veteran receiver Joey Galloway. Walter had Randy Moss and La-Mont Jordan.

Where do these teams go from here? Tampa Bay probably will give the job back to Simms. Oakland has already given the job back to Brooks. Cleveland has no alternative to Frye, and therefore has the hardest decision: to give him one more year to develop, or find a competent, inexpensive veteran.

Then again, perhaps one of these players will transform into a franchise quarterback after all, in a roundabout fashion. The one who loses the most games likely will earn the right to be replaced by Brady Quinn of Notre Dame.

Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.


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