Second-day studs can make a draft

By Lou DiPietro  |   Thursday, April 23, 2009  |  Comments( 3 )

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Any sports draft is an inexact science. Whether it be through injury, inability or just plain being a bad fit on the team that drafts them, players picked high don’t always pan out. Sure, Matthew Stafford is projected as the No. 1 overall pick in this weekend's NFL draft, and while most think he’s a great quarterback prospect, fans and personnel directors alike must remember one thing: For every Peyton Manning, there’s a handful of Cade McNowns.

Any team can look amazing (or foolish) by drafting a stud high in the first round. Where teams truly make their mark, however, is on what they find in the later rounds.

Just in terms of quarterbacks, there have been more than 40 taken in the first round in the last 20 years; the exact number depends on how you view supplemental draftees Dave Brown, Timm Rosenbach and Steve Walsh. Of that group, roughly half have had what you could call “good” or even “productive” NFL careers, and while that stat might not be fair to guys like Brady Quinn or Matt Leinart (recent draftees who haven’t had much of a chance yet), the “good” half generously includes Daunte Culpepper, Michael Vick and Trent Dilfer.

But do you know whom that group of 40-plus doesn’t include? Tom Brady, Brett Favre, Brodie Croyle, Tarvaris Jackson, Drew Brees, Tony Romo, Matt Hasselbeck, Derek Anderson, Marc Bulger, David Garrard, Jake Delhomme, Matt Schaub, Kurt Warner, J.T. O’Sullivan, Trent Edwards and Kyle Orton.

In case you didn’t figure it out that quickly, that list is exactly one-half of the men who started 2008 as their team’s No. 1 signal-caller. And in that list of 16, some of them were second- or third-round picks, but a few of them weren’t even drafted at all.

That’s just quarterbacks. Stats are even gaudier at other positions, where teams employ six to eight players on their roster as opposed to two or three.

Truly, then, when a team finds a late-round gem, it is a good thing. Usually, by that point, franchises are selecting players they think would be a good fit in their system, regardless of whether the position is one of need. If they don’t click, it can be written off as a gamble; when it does, however, it is easily lauded as good scouting.

Take Tom Brady, for example. Brady was a two-year starter at Michigan, but he wasn’t selected until the No. 199 overall selection in the sixth round of the 2000 draft. The Pats were rumored to be torn between him and Tim Rattay, but Brady got the nod and started the 2000 season behind starter Drew Bledsoe, veteran backup John Friesz and Michael Bishop, a seventh-round choice by the Pats the previous year.

Brady worked his way up the depth chart, and when Bledsoe went down a few weeks into the 2001 season…well, if you’re reading this, I don’t have to tell you what happened. Suffice to say that Brady is one of the best (if not the best) signal-callers in the league, and has been for almost a decade now.

The quarterbacks taken before Brady in 2000? Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn. Only half of them are still in the league, and Redman is a backup. The other three? Martin is an assistant coach at the University of New Mexico, Wynn coaches high school football in Florida and Carmazzi’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a “Venture Capital & Private Equity Professional” in the Sacramento area. Considering their quarterback situations now, do you think San Francisco (Carmazzi) and Cleveland (Wynn) wouldn’t love to have that choice back?

Rattay himself was taken about a dozen picks later by San Francisco, and even his “small” career totals of 4,853 yards and 31 TDs beat those of the two quarterbacks -- Todd Husak and JaJuan Seider -- selected between him and Brady. Ironically enough, when Brady was lost last season, the Pats brought Rattay in for a tryout before deciding to go with Matt Cassel instead.

Cassel himself, albeit in a lesser way, fits into that same category, as he was drafted in the seventh round in 2005 -- behind such luminaries as Charlie Frye, Andrew Walter, David Greene, Stefan LeFors and James Kilian. Two of them have never thrown a pass in the NFL, Walter may be out of a job thanks to Oakland’s signing of Jeff Garcia and Greene spent two seasons as Seattle’s third-stringer -- until he was released when they acquired Frye in 2007. Such is life.

Need proof at a different position? Let’s flash back to the 2001 draft. With the fourth pick of the seventh round (No. 204 overall), the Cincinnati Bengals plucked a little-known receiver named T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Perhaps the only reason the Bengals even knew about him was because he was a college teammate of their second-round draft pick, one Chad Johnson.

It took a few years, but Houshmandzadeh has emerged as one of the league’s elite receivers; he made the Pro Bowl in 2007 after his second straight 1,000-yard season and recently signed a five-year, $40 million contract with the Seahawks. But if Houshmandzadeh went that late and Chad Johnson wasn‘t even selected until the second round, surely that draft had to be loaded with receivers, right?

Maybe. In 2001, six receivers were selected in the first round. Two were Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss; the other four? David Terrell, Koren Robinson, Rod Gardner and Freddie Mitchell -- three of whom are out of the league, with the fourth (Robinson) possibly being done thanks to a chronic knee injury.

Other “greats” drafted ahead of Housh included Marvin “Snoop” Minnis, Cedric James, Milton Wynn, Vinny Sutherland, Alex Bannister and Scotty Anderson. Minnis now sells cars, the other five have a grand total of 27 NFL receptions, and Wynn is so insignificant to life that he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that even Steve Smith wasn’t taken until the third round in that draft, so maybe the entire league missed the boat there.

And finally, I offer Terrell Davis. You remember TD, right? Super Bowl MVP, looked like the second coming of Jim Brown until a knee injury destroyed his career? Yeah, him. He was the 196th overall selection (sixth round) in 1995, and earlier busts in that draft include Ki-Jana Carter (whom Yahoo! Sports named in 2007 as the worst No. 1 overall pick since the merger), Rashaan Salaam (who won the Heisman Trophy in 1994) and the “other” James Stewart.

Those are just four of many, like Green Bay WR Donald Driver (seventh round, 1999), Atlanta RB Michael Turner (fifth round, 2004) and Chiefs LB Zach Thomas (fifth round, 1996), who had to wait a long time to hear their name called on the NFL’s version of selection Sunday. All are Pro Bowlers, by the way. Thomas particularly irks me, as my beloved Eagles took the vaunted Whit Marshall a half-dozen picks before Miami jumped on Thomas.

As I posited at the beginning of our draft coverage, it truly isn’t when you go, but where. Had San Francisco drafted Brady instead of Carmazzi, maybe Giovanni would have broken the record for touchdown passes in a single-season while Brady sold insurance. Same with Houshmandzadeh; a lot can be said about playing alongside Ocho Cinco, and maybe if Milton Wynn had that chance, he’d have a Wikipedia page.

But that’s what makes the draft so special. Teams do all this scouting, spend millions on making personnel decisions…and sometimes it’s that guy you draft with your last pick because one of your assistant coaches went to grade school with his uncle who ends up becoming a Pro Bowler.

I, like many, will be on my couch at 4 p.m. Saturday watching the draft. But unlike many of those, I’ll be there Sunday, too. Why? Because I never know if the Eagles are going to find and draft the next Trent Cole in the fifth round.

Hey, it’s where they found the first one, right?
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About Lou DiPietro

Lou DiPietro is an accomplished freelance writer who is fascinated with all things sports. In addition to his duties at RealFootball365.com, Lou contributes to TheBleacherReport.com and Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine, and has been featured on "The Sports Buffet with Matt West" on 1080-AM ESPN ...
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