Should we draft a QB in the 1st round?

I understand that all things have to be measured equally, but I don't see how the consistent failure of QBs drafted in the 2nd round is not a valid point on its own. Think of it as QBs that weren't evaluated by NFL scouts as the top of their class consistently fail.

A large part of the reason they don't succeed is that there's only 1 starting QB per team, unlike many other positions where there's multiple and thats not even counting positions where players are rotated in and out based on down/formation/etc. Of the ~5 QBs drafted this year, chances of more than 1-2 having a successful career are really slim. Going further, chances of the 4th-5th rated one having a successful career are even slimmer.

There's a gamble to be made on virtually every QB coming out of college. Ponder's is injuries, Mallett's is attitude, Newton's is football intelligence, Locker's is accuracy, etc.. Any one of those weaknesses could potentially be the difference between a successful QB and an unsuccessful one.

I'd imagine NFL scouts are pretty good at their job and they factor risk/reward into the decisions they make. As an example, comparing Locker and Ponder they'd look at the chances of Locker's accuracy improving vs. chances of Ponder remaining healthy.

Also, wasn't Locker projected to possibly go 1st overall last year?

 

The way I look at it is, regardless of what the reasons behind it are, a failure is a failure. The same exact reasons would apply to a QB that is drafted in the 2nd round now as a QB that was drafted in the 2nd round over the past 10 years.

We are not comparing apples to oranges here. We're projecting the probability of success for a QB drafted in the 2nd round this year by using QBs drafted in the 2nd round historically. I'm not saying they've failed because they lack talent. I'm just saying that they've failed (which could be like you said a result of not having the same opportunities).

The one point that you've got me thinking about is that often, QBs that are drafted in the 2nd round are drafted to be backups, whereas QBs drafted in the 1st round are picked up by teams that are in need for a starter right away. So looking over the list of 2nd round QBs that could potentially fall under that category I'd add these three to the list of potentially successful QBs that weren't given a fair shot due to an already established QB on the team:

2006 Tarvaris Jackson Vikings
2007 Kevin Kolb Philadelphia
2008 Brian Brohm Green Bay

That would up the ratio to 33% (4/12) which is significantly better than the previous 8% but still significantly worse than the 52% of 1st round picks. That may have been the argument you were trying to make and I misunderstood you.

Again, I'm not saying Ponder is bad. I don't know him well enough to judge. I'm just looking into what's happened historically for general probabilities. There are always exceptions and great players are found late in the draft, I'd rather not take a bigger risk than we have to with the QB position which we've pretty much agreed is the cornerstone of any NFL team.

Edit: To clarify, the other 8 QBs drafted in the 2nd round have had ample opportunities to succeed due to being on teams that have had serious QB troubles.