Is Russell really better than Quinn?

Fair enough. So what sort of career do you expect from Charlie "44 starts" Frye?Well, his draft projection was as a 5th rounder, so like most QBs taken after round two, I wouldn't expect a whole lot from him.

I'd really be scared if Frye had come out early...he might not know which endzone is his. ;)

Generally if you completely suck as a prospect, no amount of experience is going to save you. I'm not sure any teams would have spend a 2nd round pick on Frye to keep him from the Browns.

GTripp, I think you are making too big a deal out of these starts. Player's like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb aren't good because they started a bunch of games, they started a bunch of games because they were good. Several of the top quarterbacks in the league came from situations where they were good enough to secure the starting position at an early age. Fine, you would expect that with their kind of talent. But if you think that those starts are the reason they are succesful you are underestimating the importance of talent.

Let me put it this way. If Peyton Manning had been behind a superior upper classman for his first couple years at Tennessee would he be less of a pro today? I can guess your answer, and I strongly disagree.

Didn't Tom Brady only start like 25 games in his Michigan career? He was backing up Griese the first couple of years wasn't he?

Didn't Tom Brady only start like 25 games in his Michigan career? He was backing up Griese the first couple of years wasn't he?
I thought it was Drew Henson.

I thought it was Drew Henson.

Oh maybe. I thought it went Griese Brady Henson

Didn't Tom Brady only start like 25 games in his Michigan career? He was backing up Griese the first couple of years wasn't he?The system has a tough time explaining Tom Brady. Here's a guy that went to College playing sporadically for 4 years and had great success in the NFL. There are plenty of reasons why Brady is so good without traditional college starting experience, and one arguement would be that he IS experienced because the raw number of starts is not accurately reflective of the amount of experience he acquired playing off and on at Michigan.

No matter what the reasoning is, it seems that Brady is one oddball from a very strong trend. But he was also a late round crapshoot pick, so he is already a really rare case in the fact that he was a 6th rounder who made it. Even if he had 40 starts, Tom Brady being Tom Brady is still not something anyone could have predicted at this point in statistical analysis coming out.

It is really scary to think about Brady with 20 more starts though...really scary.

One thing it would be interesting to do is to college the college stats of the Brad Johnsons, Tom Bradys, Trent Greens, Matt Hasselbecks, and Mark Brunells (oh damn, I went there) of the world, and compare them to the stats of all the hundreds of day 2 guys who didnt make it and see if we can pull any trends outside of games started.

How about Rick Mirer (37 starts)?

http://www.michiganfansite.com/playerdetail.asp?playerid=205

Henson beat out Brady when he was only a Freshman.
Griese was before them both. Brady was there before Henson, but stayed there longer. Henson chose Baseball.

How about Rick Mirer (37 starts)?I don't have the stats on Mirer, so I dont know what his completion % look like, but the study of college exp I'm refering to only goes back through 1997.

There are many reasons for this. The NFL was far less of a mental game back when Mirer busted. Physical advantages were more of a factor than they are now. QBs were not picked in the first round every year, and they were evaluated very differently than today.

I'm not saying we shouldn't investigate why Rick Mirer busted with 37 starts, but we shouldn't treat that information as identical to someone with 37 starts in a more recent decade, such as a Matt Schaub.

http://www.michiganfansite.com/playerdetail.asp?playerid=205

Henson beat out Brady when he was only a Freshman.
Griese was before them both. Brady was there before Henson, but stayed there longer. Henson chose Baseball.

Thanks