<p>Hah. This is why I don’t do the whole mock draft thing. Who figured my Pats to land the best QB prospect in the draft. Son of coach, big film room study guy. Should learn a lot from Tom Brady.</p>
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<p>Sure, throw-aways hurt your passing percentage. But every decent QB throws the ball away when the situation calls for it. Locker is not unique in that regard. And good QBs have higher completion percentages despite the throw-aways.</p>
<p>I guess I’d have to ask, what’s the time period over which Gruden observed those 66 throw-aways? If it’s Locker’s entire college career, that’s just a little over 1 per game, which is probably less than average. If it’s all in one year, that seems exceptionally high, but then I’d have to ask, why? Were his receivers exceptionally bad, and just didn’t get open? Was his OL exceptionally bad, and just didn’t give him the protection to allow him to find an open receiver? Or was he just a Nervous Nellie in the pocket, whose first instinct was to run or throw the ball out of bounds when he felt pressure? I admit I only saw him play 2 or 3 times, but to me he looked like the Nervous Nellie type. Quite a few out-of-bounds throws, probably more than necessary. A few great throws. Lots of misses of open receivers. Lots of rushing yards, often on premature flushes from the pocket. Great athlete. Erratic QB.</p>
<p>That’s corroborated by reports from leading NFL scouts I heard on the radio in the draft post-mortem, who said Locker can’t hit the broad side of a barn and in the combine was overthrowing guys by 10 yards, without coverage.</p>
<p>Glad my team didn’t draft him, but good luck to yours.</p>
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<p>Well, best arm in the draft. Not sure about “best QB prospect.” Lots of people have character questions. </p>
<p>Rumor has it Mallett quit Michigan because he was flunking out and using drugs. There are also stories saying he came off as arrogant in NFL pre-draft interviews; if so, that can be a huge impediment to his development. He’s got an ideal situation in New England, with a great coaching staff and the opportunity to be understudy to the consummate pro in Tom Brady. But it’s a big question whether he’ll have the discipline, patience, and humility to play second fiddle for the 4 years remaining on Brady’s contract. I have my doubts.</p>
<p>Some sportswriters are suggesting the Pats took Mallett mainly as trade bait, with the intention to develop him just a bit, give him a few cameos, then essentially auction him for future draft choices. Not a bad strategy, but hardly enough to convince you this is a legit pick.</p>
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That goes without saying but my point was that merely being a college superstar doesn’t guarantee pro success quite as much as it does in say basketball. But I think everyone got the gist…</p>
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<p>While I don’t disagree, this doesn’t really say quite the right thing.</p>
<p>Virtually all star NFL QB’s were complete studs in college. The fact that some of them were “unknowns” had a lot more to do with the fact that they were ignored in the draft or even ignored by most college teams and had to go to low-profile schools.</p>
<p>Take most Pro bowl QB’s over the last decade, including the reserves, and almost all of them starred in college. Even if they didn’t get national attention, they still were extremely highly achieved (by setting school or conference records, etc)</p>
<p>Sure, there are a few outliers (Kurt Warner specifically), but not many. The only other extreme outlier is Matt Cassel, but we have no way of knowing whether he would have been a stud in college or not (given he was a highly touted recruit out of HS and sat behind 2 Heisman winners, it is plausible that he could have been)</p>
<p>Because of that I would not have taken Locker in the 1st round, because there is not much point drafting a QB that high unless he at least has good potential to become a Pro Bowl level QB, which seems unlikely. </p>
<p>That said, Jake Locker played for arguably some of the worst teams that UW has ever fielded and it is reasonable to think that he did well with what he had.</p>
<p>bc- I am a Giant fan so Locker means nothing to me. I was just pointing out what Gruden, supposedly a QB guru said. I thought the 66 were all one year and basically Gruden said his receivers were weak.</p>
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<p>Well, that is just testimony to the stupidity of sportswriters. The Pats’ only got a second round pick for Matt Cassel, who had just played a full-season starting for the Pats, posting an 11-5 record. So, if a second is the upside, how does investing a third round pick in Mallet make any sense if the goal is to simpy flip the pick? </p>
<p>Belichick knows how to leverage future picks. If he wanted to leverage the Mallet pick, he would have just traded it to someone for a second round pick in next year’s draft an not bothered bringing in Mallet to Foxboro for a visit and film session with Belichick earlier this month.</p>
<p>We are optimistic about Jake Locker here and are trusting in our new coach. Time will tell.</p>
<p>In defense of Locker, Phil Simms was a 48.9% career passer in college when he was picked 7th overall, and he ended up being a Pro Bowl and Super Bowl MVP QB.</p>
<p>But despite the atrocious stats Simms also set personal passing records in college, so he had done very well relative to where he played.</p>
<p>It seems risky to think that Locker will turn out like that, though.</p>
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<p>NFL teams tend to value current year picks far more than future picks, so Belichick takes advantage of those teams that will overpay for his current picks. (by giving him more value in their future picks than his current picks are really worth)</p>
<p>He can do that because he has way more job security than most NFL coaches who have no idea whether they will be around in a year to cash in future picks.</p>
<p>The best explanation of Belichick’s draft strategy is that he uses an extra first round draft pick as an “endowment”. He never has any intention of “spending” his extra 1st round pick. Instead, he simply trades it for a 2nd round pick in this year’s draft and a replacement 1st round pick the following year to continue his “endowment”. The result is that he always has an extra 2nd round pick. That’s the dividend or interest return on his perpetually reinvested first round pick.</p>
<p>He does the same thing with a pepetually reinvested extra second round pick. The annual dividend on that is an extra 3rd round pick. So, in perpetuity, Belichick picks one guy in the 1st round and 2 guys in the 2nd round and 2 guys in the 3rd round (or he might trade one of his annual dividend 2nd or 3rd round picks for a vet like Randy Moss.</p>
<p>Pats fans get so upset because he never actually uses two first round picks, but he never goes into the draft with any intention of using two first round picks. He’s rather have two shots at hitting on an actual NFL player in the 2nd and 3rd rounds and not paying 1st round money.</p>