The Mid Round QB fallacy

[GTripp0012]

But here's the more important point: addressing the line "later on in the draft" is no less of a fallacy, especially for a team that appears to need a pair of tackles.

You can choose to not take the best tackle on your board at No. 4, opting instead for a higher player on your board. That's the BPA principle. It's worked for teams in the past. But it's a poor strategy to BPA the first round, and then try to compensate for that by drafting for need after that.

It's contradictory, in my mind, to identify the line (specifically tackle) as a pressing need, which I believe it is, and then look at the number four pick and say: let's try to pick up one later. Sure, it's a strategy that might pay off. Heck, we could not draft a tackle until 2014 and win two super bowls before then. It's certainly possible.

If you do well in your evaluations, going BPA in every round could land us three starting quality football players in addition to a pretty solid quarterback prospect who is only 22. If you're right, of course. And maybe the value suggested that no OT should be taken at any pick we had.

But I'll say this. In every draft I can remember, there has been an offensive tackle, if not two, who was worthy of a top five draft choice, who went somewhere in the first round. This player has not always been the first guy drafted. Mike Williams was the first guy off the board in 2002. Alternatively, there have been 3, maybe 4 years, in the last decade where a quarterback taken in the first round was worthy of a top five draft choice.

So if you have good scouting, and the market conditions are equal (not heavily weighted towards either QBs or OTs), which I think they are, and you have a shot at the No. 1 QB, and No. 1 OT on your board, the OT is the more valuable player about 2/3 of the time in a ten year sample.

When you consider that our needs between the positions are certainly NOT equal, the confidence level in the QB has to be extremely high to justify the pick. There are people here who believe Clausen is the best QB, and those who believe Bradford is the best. The point is, if it's not really, really, REALLY obvious to the front office who the best of the two is, (and if it is, that's a very easy BPA pick), then this is without a doubt the wrong course of action.