It's a funny coincidence that Alan brought up prospect QBs this year and the Giants draft status, because on the way into work I was thinking about what I would do if I was a GM of a team in need of a QB possessing a high pick (Because I'm a dork and these are the things I think about on the way to work.)
If I were a GM (and no one would do this because most GMs are cowards, particularly Joe Schoen) I would trade lower value day two or day three draft picks for a couple backup QBs who were mostly unknown commodities, but 'could' be good, and have an old school QB battle in the preseason. I would then use the 1.1 or 1.2 on an OT or DE, or better yet, trade down to a QB hungry team at 1.5 or 1.6 and get another 1st rounder, and take an OT AND a DE (in consecutive years, if necessary.)
Examples:
Hendon Hooker
Sean Clifford
Jake Browning
Kyle Trask
These guys could be good... we don't know. We haven't seen much of any of them, aside from Browning who looked promising. Hooker was going to win the Heisman and would have been highly drafted had he not gotten hurt. Now he is stuck behind Goff and won't play unless there is an injury. Who is to say Hooker isn't good, or that he doesn't have a ceiling of Ward, or Shedeur Sanders, or whomever? And do you really want the Shedeur Sanders headache, anyway? Same with Kyle Trask. he's thrown 11 passes. He could be good... we don't know.
Sure, the NFL execs might have a better handle on IF these guys are good than we do, but that's even more to the point. It doesn't have to be two of these four guys specifically, just grab two you like if you hapen to be an NFL exec who thinks he knows better. These backups can be had for cheap. You could probably get these guys for 2nd or 3rd rounders, and in the case of Clifford, maybe a 4th.
None of these guys make shit money-wise, Hooker and Clifford both have 2 years left on their contract. Browning has 1 year left. Trask is an RFA, so presuming the Bucs sign him, the draft pick compensation would probably be along the lines of what I mentioned, somewhere between a 2nd thru 4th.
If you're the Giants, would you rather take Cam Ward (or whomever is the defacto #1 QB prospect in a down year for QB prospects) and thats it,
OR:
Trade the 1.1 for two 1sts, take an OT and an EDGE, trade a 2nd for Hooker and a 5th rounder back, trade a 3rd for Trask and like a 6th or 7th back, then sign both to 3 year 10M per deals and let them battle for the job, and hope one of them is servicebale like Purdy? If it doesn't work, you're not much worse off financially since 20M annually to two QBs in today's NFL is nothing, and you just rinse and repeat.
What's funny is this sort of thing used to happen 20-30 years ago somewhat frequently, but somehow it's stopped even though it makes even more sense now, economically. The Packers used to trade their backups to Brett Favre all the time to harvest draft picks, and the Seahawks lucked into a good/borderline great QB in Hasselbeck (largely because Holmgren wasn't a coward and had conviction in what he saw with Hasselbeck in Green Bay.)
It's wild to me how midwits can think that doing what everyone else does is somehow going to merit results. the contrarians are always the ones who excel. The contrarians often times fail miserably as well, but a surefire path to mediocrity is to do what everyone else is doing and think you're smart for doing it. The reason why analytics was an edge 20 years ago is BECAUSE it was contrarian. To fundamentally be an edge, it must be a strategy that isn't widely used. That's an inherent criterion of an "edge". These people need to grow some balls.
There is NO way that there isn't a few talented QBs buried on rosters for whatever reasons: being low draft stock, previous college injury, stud starter ahead, etc. We KNOW these GMs aren't that good, therefore there must be talent buried on rosters. These players can be had for cheap, allowing the unused resources to be spent on making a better roster everywhere else.
good point -- money ball only worked because no one was onto it. Then all these dorks with stats 1.01 under their belts thought they were geniuses, but had no edge at all.
I hope Hendon Hooker gets traded to Falcons and is teammates with Michael Penix and Younghoe.
this is a good post
It's a funny coincidence that Alan brought up prospect QBs this year and the Giants draft status, because on the way into work I was thinking about what I would do if I was a GM of a team in need of a QB possessing a high pick (Because I'm a dork and these are the things I think about on the way to work.)
If I were a GM (and no one would do this because most GMs are cowards, particularly Joe Schoen) I would trade lower value day two or day three draft picks for a couple backup QBs who were mostly unknown commodities, but 'could' be good, and have an old school QB battle in the preseason. I would then use the 1.1 or 1.2 on an OT or DE, or better yet, trade down to a QB hungry team at 1.5 or 1.6 and get another 1st rounder, and take an OT AND a DE (in consecutive years, if necessary.)
Examples:
Hendon Hooker
Sean Clifford
Jake Browning
Kyle Trask
These guys could be good... we don't know. We haven't seen much of any of them, aside from Browning who looked promising. Hooker was going to win the Heisman and would have been highly drafted had he not gotten hurt. Now he is stuck behind Goff and won't play unless there is an injury. Who is to say Hooker isn't good, or that he doesn't have a ceiling of Ward, or Shedeur Sanders, or whomever? And do you really want the Shedeur Sanders headache, anyway? Same with Kyle Trask. he's thrown 11 passes. He could be good... we don't know.
Sure, the NFL execs might have a better handle on IF these guys are good than we do, but that's even more to the point. It doesn't have to be two of these four guys specifically, just grab two you like if you hapen to be an NFL exec who thinks he knows better. These backups can be had for cheap. You could probably get these guys for 2nd or 3rd rounders, and in the case of Clifford, maybe a 4th.
None of these guys make shit money-wise, Hooker and Clifford both have 2 years left on their contract. Browning has 1 year left. Trask is an RFA, so presuming the Bucs sign him, the draft pick compensation would probably be along the lines of what I mentioned, somewhere between a 2nd thru 4th.
If you're the Giants, would you rather take Cam Ward (or whomever is the defacto #1 QB prospect in a down year for QB prospects) and thats it,
OR:
Trade the 1.1 for two 1sts, take an OT and an EDGE, trade a 2nd for Hooker and a 5th rounder back, trade a 3rd for Trask and like a 6th or 7th back, then sign both to 3 year 10M per deals and let them battle for the job, and hope one of them is servicebale like Purdy? If it doesn't work, you're not much worse off financially since 20M annually to two QBs in today's NFL is nothing, and you just rinse and repeat.
What's funny is this sort of thing used to happen 20-30 years ago somewhat frequently, but somehow it's stopped even though it makes even more sense now, economically. The Packers used to trade their backups to Brett Favre all the time to harvest draft picks, and the Seahawks lucked into a good/borderline great QB in Hasselbeck (largely because Holmgren wasn't a coward and had conviction in what he saw with Hasselbeck in Green Bay.)
that's what I would do, but the moneyball nerds took over and convinced everyone to take any QB in the hopes he would be Mahomes.
It's wild to me how midwits can think that doing what everyone else does is somehow going to merit results. the contrarians are always the ones who excel. The contrarians often times fail miserably as well, but a surefire path to mediocrity is to do what everyone else is doing and think you're smart for doing it. The reason why analytics was an edge 20 years ago is BECAUSE it was contrarian. To fundamentally be an edge, it must be a strategy that isn't widely used. That's an inherent criterion of an "edge". These people need to grow some balls.
There is NO way that there isn't a few talented QBs buried on rosters for whatever reasons: being low draft stock, previous college injury, stud starter ahead, etc. We KNOW these GMs aren't that good, therefore there must be talent buried on rosters. These players can be had for cheap, allowing the unused resources to be spent on making a better roster everywhere else.
good point -- money ball only worked because no one was onto it. Then all these dorks with stats 1.01 under their belts thought they were geniuses, but had no edge at all.
Desperately credulous is a great description!
ha -- glad you caught that. hoping it catches on