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Josh Rosen

Dolphins cut former top-10 pick

The Dolphins cut Josh Rosen yesterday. It's possible he'll draw some interest; former top-10 picks usually do. But it doesn't look like anyone should hold out hope for him turning his career around. It seldom happens with quarterbacks who haven't shown it by now.

Rosen struggled as a rookie with Arizona, which wasn't a huge surprise; lots of rookies struggle. Had the Cardinals not been in the position to draft Kyler Murray and pair him with Kliff Kingsbury, he'd likely have had another chance with Arizona, and maybe things would have gone better.

But after landing on his feet with the Dolphins and being given the opportunity to start, he washed out of the lineup pretty quickly. Highly regarded college quarterbacks who continue to struggle mightily in their second year -- seldom do those guys go on to have successful careers.

In the last 30 years, 41 other quarterbacks have been drafted with top 10 picks and attempted at least 100 passes in year 2 of their career. (I excluded guys who either rode the bench or got injured and didn't play much in those second seasons, like Philip Rivers and Matthew Stafford.) Among those quarterbacks, 16 really struggled in those second seasons, which I'm defining as completing under 57 percent of their passes. Of those 16, I think three can be said to have had reasonably successful careers: Eli Manning, Kerry Collins and Michael Vick (up and down). Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl and Sam Bradford had his moments, but I don't think anyone would say they had good careers.

The rest of the quarterbacks in the Rosen area all flopped: Carr, Locker, Harrington, Klingler, Sanchez et al.

TOP-10 QUARTERBACKS, YEAR 2 STATS
YearPkPlayerComAttPctYdPTDPInt
20172Mitchell Trubisky28943466.632232412
201710Patrick Mahomes38358066.050975012
19991Tim Couch13721563.7148379
20063Vince Young23838262.32546917
19981Peyton Manning33153362.141352615
20161Jared Goff29647762.13804287
20183Sam Darnold27344161.939241913
19953Steve McNair8814361.5119764
20152Marcus Mariota27645161.23426269
20031Carson Palmer26343260.928971818
20151Jameis Winston34556760.840902818
20037Byron Leftwich26744160.529411510
20128Ryan Tannehill35558860.439132417
20162Carson Wentz26544060.23296337
20121Andrew Luck34357060.23822239
20122Robert Griffin III27445660.132031612
20181Baker Mayfield31753459.438272221
20187Josh Allen27146158.83089209
20143Blake Bortles35560658.644283518
20083Matt Ryan26345158.329162214
201110Blaine Gabbert16227858.3166296
20051Alex Smith25744258.128901616
19992Donovan McNabb33056958.033652113
19931Drew Bledsoe40069157.945552527
20111Cam Newton28048557.738691912
20021David Carr16729556.62013913
20118Jake Locker17731456.421761011
19955Kerry Collins20436456.02454149
20023Joey Harrington30955455.828801722
19926David Klinger19034355.4193569
20011Michael Vick23142154.92936168
20095Mark Sanchez27850754.832911713
19946Trent Dilfer22441554.02774418
20071JaMarcus Russell19836853.82423138
200610Matt Leinart6011253.664724
20101Sam Bradford19135753.5216466
201810Josh Rosen5810953.256715
19943Heath Shuler6612552.874537
20041Eli Manning29455752.837622417
19932Rick Mirer19538151.22151117
19993Akili Smith11826744.2125336

It will escape no one's notice that Mitchell Trubisky had the "best" second season by this metric, which looks pretty sketchy. Completion percentage isn't everything. Perhaps Rosen will end up as the next Kerry Collins, bouncing around for a while until finally finding a home somewhere and emerging as a viable NFL starter.

But most likely, if he were going to emerge as a quality player, he'd probably have shown more to this point.

--Andy Richardson

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