Factoid
It's an increasingly quarterback friendly league, as we've noted in recent weeks, with more passers throwing for 4,000 yards or 30 TDs than ever before. Perhaps that's why rookie quarterbacks are making an impact sooner than ever before, as well.
Since 1967, there have been 93 quarterbacks selected with first-round picks, and the days of those passers sitting and watching for a year or two are disappearing. In those 43 rookie seasons, 20 passers have thrown for at least 2,000 yards. More than half (11) have done so in the last decade (bold), and more than a third (7) have reached that total in the last five years (bold, italics).
First-rounders to throw for at least 2,000 yards as rookies. 1967-2010
Year PYds Player
1998 3739 Peyton Manning
2010 3512 Sam Bradford
2008 3440 Matt Ryan
2008 2971 Joe Flacco
1993 2833 Rick Mirer
2003 2819 Byron Leftwich
1995 2717 Kerry Collins
2004 2621 Ben Roethlisberger
2002 2592 David Carr
2006 2547 Matt Leinart
1993 2494 Drew Bledsoe
1999 2447 Tim Couch
2009 2444 Mark Sanchez
2002 2294 Joey Harrington
2009 2267 Matthew Stafford
1983 2210 Dan Marino
2006 2199 Vince Young
1971 2158 Jim Plunkett
1990 2152 Jeff George
1967 2005 Bob Griese
--Andy Richardson
- Comments [2]
Readers' Comments
Add a Comment
Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.
To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.
Posted by Brian Grzybowski | Mar. 02 at 12:29 AM
It seems like this year that more teams than usual that may draft a QB in the first round already have a franchise-caliber receiver on the roster. Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, Arizona, Tennessee, and maybe Cincinnati, depending on how the Palmer situation plays out.
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Mar. 02 at 01:12 AM
The success rate on first-round quarterbacks has been remarkably high the last three years -- Ryan, Flacco, Stafford, Sanchez, Freeman and Bradford all look very good. But that's not the norm. If you look at the previous 10 years, there are far more misses than hits, most notably Leaf, Couch, Akili Smith, Carr, Harrington, J.Russell and Alex Smith with top-3 choices. Either teams are getting a lot better at scouting and developing quarteracks, or they've just been lucky in recent years. I'm guessing the latter. This year's group of quarterbacks is deep, but all of them have various flaws; I'm guessing that many of these guys will flame out.