Which "Franchise Quarterback" Did The Vikings Miss Out On?

Apologies to Ted for sort of running over his post. . .I had been working on this one for a little bit and didn’t know he was going to post one at the same time.

Stupid clairvoyance not working.

How dare you use logic and stats to justify your argument, sir? How dare you I say.

I would only say we “missed” on Henne. Kinda wished we had drafted Tony Pike this year, though…

And with everything said, i think you are correct. I just want to see this years class of QB’s over the next few years, to compare to jacksons progress. Again mainly being the golden boy from notre dame and Texas’s finest.

Not so much now

Hard to complain about not taking Kolb after how Sidney has turned out. Not to mention it was only 1 year into TJ’s development and way too early to write him off at the time.

Henne was probably a miss but we will see if he can actually put it all together this year. To be fair, Parcells is one of the best in the biz at picking talent so it’s not surprising if he turns out to be a steal.

There really isn’t any player he’s missed terribly on aside from Henne, and even that one isn’t that bad.

For me his mistake isn’t so much missing a guy or two in the draft, it’s how he went about developing Jackson. He put him out there way before he was ready, and it seems like it had a big effect on Jackson (especially his confidence).

… very well done.

Drafting QBs seems to be about the most hit or miss, risky thing you could do. The fact that they passed on guys like Quinn suggests they know what they are doing.

I’ve never totally understood why fans are down on Childress. Since he’s been coach, I think the drafting has been quite good. Of course, that’s the whole organization.

I think Dennis Green did a good job with picks too, but I think had more flops than Childress, especially on defense. Green struck me as a more stubborn, go-it-on-your-own guy. I thought and still do think that Daunte was a mistake, even given his good years. I’m not convinced his success wasn’t in large part to what a solid team was built already, including Randy Moss.

I liked what I saw with Joe Webb. Sometimes QBs come out of no where, while top picks vanish as your post nicely shows. Tom Brady came out of nowhere. Tommy Kramer had all the talent he needed, but he was a total lush. Russell either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care, or both.

 Drafting at the top period costs teams huge amounts of money for unproven players. We are lucky we never are at the top, because very often you can get an Adrian Peterson or a Randy Moss towards the middle or even end of the first round.

Although I’m not a fan or even optimistic about TJ, I am definitely happy with our personnel moves in Chilly’s tenure. You’ve made a strong case for having the same confidence with regard to the QB position. For obvious reasons you did not include this year’s potential QOTF… Claussen.

Should we have taken him instead of Toby? At this point it looks like YES to me, and I realize that would also remove Webb from the picture as a potential QB. I hope Toby and Webb ultimately prove me wrong, but even if they don"t, it’s not really a reason to bash Chilly. He surely wasn’t the only head coach not interested in Claussen.

This is what I’ve been saying for a long time now. Let’s compare Jackson to the other guys.

Now, extend Tarvaris Jackson’s contract!

But then I’ve been known to be wrong before. Wait, scratch that.

Fact is QB’s are hard to find, second fact is that people will play differently for different teams. I think that several busts would do better if they had been picked up by a different (aka not so sucky) team and been given a bit of time. Personally, I think the most important thing for a QB’s success in the pro’s is his QB coach.

Had BC n Staff taken some of these other guys, over TJ, that they may very well be still on the Vikings roster in the same position as TJ.
The surprise for me was maybe JD not getting much time after being picked….however I do think BC is not as involved in the draft as he was prior to Rick coming in….so JD may have been a Rick pick as Sage was or seems to be a Rick trade.
There is no doubt that a Franchise type QB is hard to hit on…How many really Great QB’s do we see in the NFL? Not just starters but true great winning QB’s…..not many. They are no doubt very hard to find…and some that may have been land on very poor teams.

Could’ve been drafted without any trades. Or insterad of drafting Gerhart could’ve grabbed him.

Of course, no one knows how Clausen wuill end up panning out, and Lord knows I’m no scout.

Just throwing that out there.

For the most part I agree with the article. We missed out on a lot of stinkers. Kolb is the one guy I think is going to go on to great things.

But I think player development is a big factor too. The kind of coaches, scheme, and the overall situation affect the development of a QB. Some of these guys might have ended up being good with us. Or possibly worse.

Still.. I like our current situation just fine.

but nobody has that luxury on draft day. The fact that none of the guys we possibly could have drafted has turned out to be much doesn’t really excuse a team that hasn’t had a franchise QB from taking a chance on one. But I think even Brad Childress has to realize at this point that he needs to get a developmental QB in next year’s draft. But I think we also must be ready for the possibility that Childress will put us all through this again with Webb. Could be Tarvaris part II.

This was discussed a few months back. The only draft pick I’d like to have back is Henne over Tyrell. Otherwise Brad and Rick have done a great job with the war room.

One of the things we’ve spoken of on the DN is that if the FO really really wants to get someone, if they really believe that a prospect is The One, they’ll find a way to go get him. If they need to mortgage the draft for the next 3 years to grab a Bradford or Stafford, they can do it.

When you limit your analysis to what the Vikings actually did, working within the boundaries they had, you end up with the same or similar results. Considering how good Speilmann and Co have proven themselves to be, this is not surprising. In fact, it’s almost a self-fulfilling analysis.

But if you look at the actual plate of prospects over the past 4 years, ALL OF THEM, not just the ones easily available at the picks the Vikings did have, the picture changes. Who would they have to give up in order to get a higher pick? Who knows, it’s a big woulda-coulda-shoulda game, but there’s one thing about that I do believe; if they really really wanted to pull the trigger, they could do so. There’s been plenty of crap teams out there that would have given their left nut for a couple of Pro-Bowl caliber players, the only question is who would have to be sacrificed to get that high #1 draft pick and what wheeling and dealing the Vikings would have to engage in.

Because of this, Chris, your post reads more like an apologia for the Vikings decision to not go for an apparent franchise-caliber QB in the draft, rather than a well-reasoned exposition. What you do is explain what actually did happen and why those were good choices at the draft positions which they actually went with, not what could have happened if the FO had identified The One higher up and gone for him. I believe they could have jumped higher at any time, if they though it was worth the price.

All of this is a calculation, a cost-benefit analysis, and so far the FO has been right. They got Favre to shore things up just in the nick of time, but we all know that as great as Favre is, he’s just a stop-gap solution and the Vikings have done nothing in terms of getting a franchise-rated QB in the meantime. What they’ve done in taken repeated shots in the dark, looking for diamonds-in-the-rough whom they figure no one else identified but them. That hasn’t worked out so well yet, and the question there has to be, will they change that strategy next year, or will they try to get a McNabb to hold the line for a few more years while they continue to bring in low cost-high potential players in the hope that one of them will catch fire?

Oops, forgot to answer your question. The answer is simple.

All of them.

I think nobody know the heart beat of the Vikings better than you guys. I’ve heard rumor that your owner wants to move the Vikings to LA. Is this BS, or is there any truth in the rumor?

Tarvaris Jackson
John David Booty
Tyler Thigpen
Joe Webb

All are still in the NFL.

Would be best be another teams young back up QB. I mean after all Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Matt Hasselbeck etc…..all were someones back up at one point. Hell the packers only gave up RB Tony Smith for Favre (does anyone remember RB Tony Smith’s NFL career? me neither) I even think he was 3rd on the depth chart at the time of the trade.

Chilly would be smart enough to see talent at QB and Ziggy could easily pull the trigger….this is way the Vikings will solve their QB problem.

PS Sage does not count he was traded for to be stop gap.

I think you misspoke about Brady. He was drafted as a Patriot. But he did back up the starter for one year as a third stringer.

But why are you saying it needs to be another teams QB instead of the draft? I think everyone was offered a lot of QBs last year with all the RFA tenders. Only Whitehurst was wanted by anyone. Chilly already has spotted talent. Joe Webb. If they find someone else he will have to show either more immediate promise or more experience.
That could be tough to find.
Although if an accurate passer is what we want we need look no further than Matt Leinart.

Few complain about enjoying them once they are there, but nobody is all that eager to build one or fund one.

Some want to draft the messiah, but messiahs don’t arrive on a schedule like buses, and few can identify the “chosen one” from among the false prophets in college.

To become a great quarterback, you need to learn, and learning involves making mistakes and correcting them repeatedly, until you can do what needs to be done in a few seconds as if you’ve done it all your life.

The problem with magic is that magic is something amazing that you actually don’t know how to do yourself.

Being the Beatles looks really glamorous, but playing the same old sets over and over in smoky strip joints in Germany until you can play very well is not as much fun as it sounds.

Hindsight is wonderful. I can look back at Cleveland, recalling those who said with venom and conviction that Bill Belichick was a mumbling moron and Vinny Testaverde will never last as an NFL QB. They said we’ll never build a new stadium with my taxes and Art Modell will never leave because he’s got it too good here.

Once someone discovers a Tom Brady in their backyard, it’s easy for them to be wise enough not to trade him for Troy Williamson or some guy you may have who has a broken arm.

When asked for directions, the old farmer says in the old joke that you can’t get there from here.

Well, of course you can, but it’s just not as easy as it looks.

However, I think that you should take a shot when it is there to be taken.

When Clausen was there I thought they should have grabbed him. And I was hoping for them to move up to get Tebow before the draft. But I assumed Clausen would be gone.
I know what happens when one assumes.

Still, Clausen was the #2 consensus ranked QB. IMO you have to take a shot even if he turns into a bust (which I personally think he will not).

When you consider that Favre is done after this year, TJack is not signed past this year, and the only other guy signed is Sage, it seemed logical. Clausen would not even have any expectations this year. He could sit back and learn as much as possible. Of course if there are injuries he would be thrust into the lineup but by that time who cares.

The dude played almost the entire year last year with something wrong with his foot. He was consistently bringing ND back into games because their defense was horrible. he could not really plant or push off of whichever foot was hurt thus his arm looked weaker than it is. His foot is still bothering him and it may not get better until next off-season when he can rest.

He can still be a bust. Just like Chris Cook. So what is the difference between the two? IMO none. Just that Clausen plays QB.

I could care less about his personality or attitude or silly things he did as a kid (he still is a kid).

The dude threw 28TDs with 4 ints. And they played 7 or 8 teams that went to bowl games.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. If they can MOVE UP to draft TJack in the second round then they can damn sure draft Clausen in the 2nd round.

But that is just me.

If you do not take a shot then you will not win.

I think this is the one move we will have to wait to see. But I also agree with DCPurple in that they could move up if they wanted.

I do not know what the plan is for 2011 and beyond. Right now, it is Sage who is under contract.

Here’s a potential one: 2008 draft, 7th round, Matt Flynn, QB and offensive MVP of the national champion LSU Tigers. His potential is looking higher with each passing year.

David Carr had been considered a franchise QB, and he performed well in HOU on teams that were supposedly worse than in MIN. The Chilly ego angle says that he wanted nothing to do with a talented QB that had some expectations attached in favor of “a piece of clay” that he could mold and take a great deal of credit for.