If you want to pinpoint the day it all fell apart, point to May 23, 2000. It's the day ownership was transferred from Eddie DeBartolo Jr. to his sister, Denise DeBartolo York and her husband, John York. They are the Romulus Augustus in the story of the 49ers empire, ineffective leaders who watched the organization crumble during their brief reign. (The great site, DumpYork.com seems, sadly, to no longer be updated.)In a sport where management means everything, they've destroyed the organization through a series of personnel mistakes.The Yorks made their first critical error when they fired Steve Mariucci after a 10-6 season in 2002 (he went 12-4 in 2001). Mariucci's 49ers had suffered losing seasons in 1999 and 2000, but he had compiled a 57-39 (.594) record in six years at the helm. San Fran fans can only wish they had it so good today.
I think--in the main--owners are way to quick to fire coaches in the NFL. It's pretty insane. Jeff Fisher has never won a Super Bowl, but he is probably the second or third best coach in football. Mooch wasn't nearly as good, but how do you fire him after 10-6? And then hire a coach who'd already failed in the NFL. Dennis Erickson is exhibit A for black folks who want to bitch about coaching hires in the NFL. It doesn't really work anymore, but dude, Dennis Erickson is white privilege.
Also--Is it just generally stupid to draft a quarterback with the number one pick?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Ta-Nehisi:
He's missing the forest through the trees. Alex Smith, while far from great, wasn't always destined to be a stiff. The guy has had four offensive coordinators in four years. Who was his offensive coordinator the one season he had success? Norv Turner. And Turner left after that year to coach San Diego. If Smith is released, watch for Turner to pick him up to back up Rivers.
the track record of picking qbs with the number 1 is fairly mixed and some of the all-time great quarterbacks (johnny unitas, bart starr, joe montana come right to mind) were nowhere close to first-rounders.
given the "slotting" approach to salaries, i probably would not pick a qb with a number one pick, but unlike in the nba, i'd at least make the pick (my philosophy in the nba would be to always, always, always trade my number one pick for the best package available).
Yes, it does seem pretty stupid unless its an absolute sure thing. Mabye a "sure thing" doesn't exist, but Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer were pretty damn close.
This reaction about the 'Niners seems a bit knee-jerk. The difference in talent between the teams is as small as ever. Its not the end of the world if your team has five down years. That's going to happen. If they're still in the same position three years from now, then its time to cry.
Also, that year was a really weak draft going into it. Alex Smith became the number one pick by default. Braylon Edwards is the only guy that stands out on the offensive side of the ball, and he's not even a Pro-Bowler yet. On defense, however, I think you had Shawn Merriman, and DeMarcus Ware.
If you've got the number one, your team is bad. If your team is bad, it is highly probable that your offensive line is bad. If you have a bad offensive line, your rookie quarterback is going to struggle.
Of course, I'm an embittered ex-Oilers fan who must settle for the Texans. Damn you, Boselli. Damn you.
Braylon Edwards did make the Pro Bowl last year.
I think drafting a QB #1 is definitely a risk, but it's just stupid when you let a guy like Alex Smith become the #1 overall pick. That year sucked, but there are still other guys in the top 10 that are at least starting for their teams (or presumably will if reinstated with the league). I don't think anyone thought Smith was the very best player that year, but the 49ers had the top pick and the 49ers needed a franchise QB. Thus, Smith gets reached for at #1.
Sometimes it does work out (Manning, Palmer). And hey, if it's pretty much guaranteed you're gonna have to throw a fortune at whoever you pick, might as well roll the dice all the way and pick a position that's already expensive.
Nah, it's not stupid to draft a QB #1. Peyton has been the colts franchise and will continue to be as long as he's there. It's stupid to elevate a mid to low 1st round talent to #1 overall just because QB is the most important position and there isn't anyone better available. Thinking back that draft, the niners didnt want Smith back then, and really they wanted to trade out of the spot because they didnt think he was worth it. They took a player in a spot he didn't deserve to be in because they needed him. That is dumb- for virtually every position.
Wow, I knew Edwards had a breakout season last year, but I didn't know he had 16 TD's. Thanks for the correction...
I don't know, why don't you ask Ryan Leaf instead? Better yet, ask the Chargers.
To me, Leaf is the prime example of the failure of the scouting combine. Let's face it, at 22, you are about as smart as you are ever going to be, you may acquire wisdom, but your analytical and decision-making skills are pretty set. Given a position that has to make multiple decisions on every play, go with the smarter guy every time at QB.
Yup. Franchise record... record for yards, too. 16 TD is normally pretty awesome, but in a year when Randy Moss catches 45 bajillion TDs it seems somewhat less awesome.
The mistake is drafting for position rather than best athlete. Teams like the Eagles and Pats that are consistently good can draft to fill need. But the 49ers just need live bodies. Now, often the QB will be the best athlete, and in those situations, teams drafting in the first 5 or 6 picks will most likely not have a QB like Manning on the roster.
What's exciting about the NFL is that there are only about 16 passably good quarterbacks but 32 teams.
Dennis Erickson is exhibit A for black folks who want to bitch about coaching hires in the NFL.
Wrong, TC. Dennis Erickson is a very good football coach whose Miami teams laughed and danced through college football. Erickson developed so much pro- talent that NFL GM's had to give him a shot. He wasn't horrible in Seattle, for one season he actually made Rick Mirer look like competent NFL QB. That takes talent.
Rich Kotite, however, HE is WHITE PRIVILEGE!
And taking a QB high is the first round in a risk. Look at all the top pick QB busts since 1998: Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Cade McNown, Ryan Leaf, Rick Mirer, Joey Harrington, flat out sucked from the git go. Injuries to Byron Leftwich make the argument he was a bust, and injuries have made it hard to really assess Dante Culpepper and Chad Pennington. Rex Grossman & Kyle Boller are busts, David Carr was beaten into becoming a bust, JP Losman was drafted too high, if he were a third round pick, people who consider him serviceable if not a starter, since he was a first round pick, he is a bust. Alex Smith is a bust. Vince Young and Matt Leinart look like their planes are boarding. Brady Quinn can't beat out Derek Anderson. JaMarcus Russell is on the Raiders, he's doomed.
Of the top picks since 1998 Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer and Big Ben are as good as advertised, although Palmer is stuck with such a bad franchise and he's been beaten so bad the past two years (and htis exhibition season) you have to wonder how long he'll last. McNabb is a great QB, despite what obnoxious Eagles fans believe. Eli won a Super Bowl, Rivers looks serviceable, as long as he has LT he'll be fine. Too soon to tell about Jason Campbell and Aaron Rodgers. They seem to be in good situations with good franchises. Jury out on Jay Cutler, but he has Shanahan, so that helps him.
#1 overall QBs actually have a really good track record - check out this post at Pro Football Reference. It's with every pick after the #1 overall pick that it becomes a crap shoot.
Shine,
You're about right on all your assessments I think, but I'll take exception to just a few...
1. Daunte Culpepper-definitely a victim of injuries. He had one of the top 5 seasons ever for a QB. Dude was legit.
2. Brady Quinn- Derek Anderson was awesome last year. Let's give him a chance. Also, he was the 19th pick, right?
3. Vince Young- Awesome rookie year, regressed a bit last year. But far from boarding the bust plane, right?
No one mentioned Eli Manning yet. He's had his struggles, but can't argue with Super Bowl MVP.
There are other good ones: Drew Bledsoe, Troy Aikman, John Elway, etc.
I'm curious if anyone has any data on the success rate of #1 overall QBs versus other first-day drafted QBs. It really is a very difficult position to project into the NFL and it's extremely difficult for young QBs to make it in the league. You don't hear as much about the Charlie Fryes and the J.P. Losmans as you do the Tim Couches and David Carrs.
Troy Aikman was a pretty good #1 overall pick...
Had Matt Leinart not been a punk and stayed for his senior year he would have been the #1 pick the year Smith was drafted. As a Longhorn fan I am very pleased with the progress that Leinart has made in the NFL. I see Steve Walsh reborn througgh him.
I don't think it's any more risky to draft a QB #1 overall than any other specific position. After all, Peyton and Eli Manning were both overall #1 QBs who have now won Superbowls, and Courtney Brown and Ki-Jana Carter were both non QB #1's who were total flops. I think it's just that QBs are more likely to go #1, and that they get more attention when they bust, that makes it look that way.
What is dumb though is taking a guy high in the draft who has skyrocketed up draft boards based on a workout. That was the big thing about Smith remember? How he'd complete like 95% of his passes and had the best workout since Aikman? That almost never works out, and I think actual game performance is something that teams don't put enough weight into when they make picks.
Brien,
I'm pretty sure that Alex Smith was a Heisman finalist. So while I agree with you about avoiding 'workout wonders,' Smith was actually pretty accomplished in college.
Brien, there's a more complicated issue: qbs are extremely well-compensated, even rookie qbs who haven't done a thing.
in the zero-sum world of the nfl salary cap, overpaying for a failing qb is much worse than overpaying for a failing rb, because your overpayment is enough higher that you're paying a price elsewhere.
I think drafint QBs that high has more to with GMs and coaches following a herd mentality and playing CYA. If a team drafts a highly touted QB and he tanks, they can point to any number of criteria and say "He looked great on paper, but in the end, he did just didn't execute" or some such. If they go out on a limb, however, they run the risk of drawing attention to themselves. It may turn out to be a brilliant pick, but if it fails, the coach and the front office will be out on a limb. The perverse incentive for these folks is to please their peer group and the media. This is especially true for coaches. The odds are a coach will get fired within a fairly short time (5-6 years), BUT, if he deviates too much and fails, he stands out in a bad way. This not only shortens his tenure, but decreases the odds of him getting hired again somewhere else. In short, it's football groupthink that drives these picks.
Speaking of draft picks and smart GM's, that Mario Williams pick isn't looking so bad anymore, is it?
All Dennis Erickson mentions should be accompanied by EDSBS's picture of him driving a golf cart into a volcano.
Jake: I've read that PFR article, and my issue is that you really should only go back 10 years. Offenses all across the League are so much more complicated than they were 15 years ago. To make it worse, the college game has changed. At one time it you recruited by saying "we'll make you an NFL player." Now it's "We'll win the BCS." With limited time you can spend coaching (20 hours a week), you can only develop so much, so that's why the trend in college is to go with athletes, fast running QB's and spread offenses. You compete for the BCS with Vince Young, Tim Tebow, Dennis Dixon, Pat White and that Prior kid at OSU. You win in the NFL with Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady.
Stacey:
Re Vince Young: If Norm Chow can't help him ... good luck.
BTW: How awesome is it that TNC is an A-List political blogger who loves and understands football.
It would be even better if he would link to MY's basketball posts every now and then...
I'm curious if anyone has any data on the success rate of #1 overall QBs versus other first-day drafted QBs. It really is a very difficult position to project into the NFL and it's extremely difficult for young QBs to make it in the league.
The metric I've seen mentioned lately for evaluating QBs pro potential is the number of games they started in college.
J.T. O'Sullivan will be the NFL's most improved player this year thanks to Mike Martz, Frank Gore, and the most underrated athlete in the league of the last decade, Ike Bruce.
Along the same lines, anyone else pretty underwhelmed with Matt Ryan? Not real accurate, not a real strong arm, not real mobile... but good size and, uh, character I guess. Good but not great stats (19 picks?) against mediocre competition in the ACC.
He's not the #1 overall pick, but I think this one smells like a bust.
Strobopotamus,
As a long time Rams fan, I'd like to thank you for your kind words for Bruce. I am very depressed to see him go. I cried myself to sleep for a few nights after we cut him. Underappreciated around the league, but certainly not by Rams fans. He better be HOF bound...
Man, fuck Dennis Erickson. I was at Idaho when he jumped ship on us for Arizona. He didn't right the ship during his one pansy-ass season here, and so he left for a cush job at an already-winning program. Fuck that bitch.
"Brien, there's a more complicated issue: qbs are extremely well-compensated, even rookie qbs who haven't done a thing.
in the zero-sum world of the nfl salary cap, overpaying for a failing qb is much worse than overpaying for a failing rb, because your overpayment is enough higher that you're paying a price elsewhere."
Well I think that's because QBs are critical to success in the NFL these days. And on the whole, I think problems arise from bad scouting, or bad circumstances, not necessarily anything regarding QBs in particular. Tim Brown is a famous bust, but Donovan McNabb went right behind him, and that worked out pretty well. And really, screwing up a #1 pick any time is bad, if only for what you miss out on. How bad would Indianapolis feel if they'd passed on Manning out of insistence on not taking a QB #1?
On the other hand, I do think you get problems when you take a QB just to take a QB, or when you feel the pressure to get a franchise guy and you ignore problems. With Smith, the 49ers didn't want him, but they decided they had to take a QB. That's really dumb, and they should have taken Braylon Edwards or Ronnie Brown. With a guy like David Carr, the Texans OL was just atrocious, Carr had really bad mechanics, and as such he was just never going to work out in Texas.
But all in all, I'm not passing on a Peyton Manning if it's me.
The DLewin QB predictor over at FootballOutsider's is pretty good. It puts a heavy emphasis on games started. It uses all the information bundled into a QB getting the chance to start games in college (effectiveness being key) with the opportunity those games started afford scouts to get acquainted with the QBs ability. If a guy is a 4 year starter in college and is still viewed as a top 5 pick the odds of him being successful in the NFL are good.
I think you have to buy the book to get the full projection system. But the link in my name deals with it at some level.
PS. Regarding Braylon and his 16 TDs. Moss has 3 seasons with > 16 TDs. :) Moss is awesome.
Well, crack, Moss has also played about 3x more seasons than Edwards. So I figure Edwards is right on pace...
I actually had to watch most of the 49ers games last season, living in the bay area and all, and Smith's biggest problem last year was that unless it was a roll out, he was getting knocked to the ground on even a 3 step drop. Then he was playing on an obviously injured shoulder that occured when a Seattle lineback came through the middle of the O-line completely untouched. Meanwhile his coach is telling the media that his body is ok, when everyone in the world can tell that something is wrong. After 2-3 weeks of being thrown under the bus by his coach, he finally says "Yeah my shoulder is killing me" earning the hatred of said coach and leading to his benching this year.
I'm not saying Smith is good, but the reason we even know who Shaun Hill is is because Dilfer lasted about 2 weeks before the O-line got him knocked out for the season. You can't really get a fair assessment of Smith based on last season.
Just looked at a list of #1 overall draft picks since '67. 16 qbs were taken #1. Six of those won a total of 13 Superbowls as starters. Four are in the Hall or bound for it (Bradshaw, Aikman, Peyton & Elway).
A few were just busts (Smith, Couch, Jeff George). A few were solid starters (Bledsoe, Steve Bartowski). And a few are still up in the air (will Palmer win a Superbowl? what's going to happen to JaMarcus Russell? How do you categorize Michael Vick?).
Looking at the overall list of #1 picks, QBs don't seem much riskier than other positions. It's just that when one fails it's going to stick out much more than when a WR or a lineman fails.
Do NOT even mention the name of whiny-ass-titty-baby Eli Manning as a successful #1 pick. He is not playing for the team that drafted him #1, because he threw a toddler tantrum and threatened to sit out the entire year.
So the Chargers drafted him and immediately traded him. In exchange for Eli, the Chargers got:
Philip Rivers (Pro Bowl)
Shawne Merriman, (Pro Bowl, Rookie of the Year)
Nate Kaeding (Pro Bowl)
Roman Oben
Immediately after the trade, the 2004 Chargers went 12-4 and won the AFC West.
Immediately after the trade, the 2004 Giants went 6-10.
Individual statistics? Okay:
2004 (Rivers backing up Drew Brees; Manning started midway through season)
Manning: 95 of 197 (48.2%) for 6 TDs and 9 INTs.
Rivers: 5 of 8 (52.5%) for 1 TD and 0 INTs.
2005 (Rivers backing up Drew Brees; Manning starting)
Manning: 294 of 557 (52.8%) for 24 TDs and 17 INTs.
Rivers: 12 of 22 (54.5%) for 0 TDs and 1 INT. (ugh)
2006 (first year of Rivers starting; also Rivers Pro Bowl year)
Manning: 301 of 552 (57.7%) for 24 TDs and 18 INTs.
Rivers: 284 of 460 (61.7%) for 22 TDs and 9 INTs.
2007
Manning: 297 of 529 (56.1%) for 23 TDs and 20 INTs.
Rivers: 277 of 460 (60.2%) for 21 TDs and 15 INTs.
whinyasstittybabytantrumboy.
Stats are great, elmo, but the bottom line is that one has a Super Bowl ring and one does not. That may not be a fair or accurate way to judge things BUT it is the ultimate benchmark of success in the NFL. Now, I'll grant you that this could change in a year's time. Still, until it does, the onus is on Rivers in a way that it's not on Manning. Eli's burden is to prove that last year wasn't a fluke. Rivers' is to prove it, period.
Shawn:
I wholeheartedly grant you that the Super Bowl ring is what they all play for. But that doesn't tell us anything about the merits of Manning as a #1 pick. Unless you're saying that, by virtue of Super Bowl XLI, every member of the 2007 Giants is automatically a superior player at that position than every other player in the League. That would mean Michael Matthews is a better TE than Antonio Gates. Steve Smith is a better WR than Randy Moss. I don't think that's a good argument when comparing one player against another.
Otherwise, Dan Marino is automatically a lesser QB than 41 other QBs, including Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer.
Elmo,
As a Pitt alum, you know how to hit where it hurts! ;)
Still, there are some that would make that case. I would disagree as Marino's numbers paint a stark contrast. Still, stats aren't the end-all be-all for a QB. After a certain point, the expectation for a big name, high-profile QB is to win at least one Super Bowl. If he doesn't, that will always be there, hanging over him. Eli's in good shape right now. That might change, or it might not. Only time will tell as to whether or not he was deserving of that #1 overall pick, but he has what so many other want and do not have.
Also, for the record, no, I don't think it makes every player on the Giants superior to the rest of the NFL. Although I will say that an individual player can make a bid difference. God knows, Strahan's refusal to come out of retirement isn't boding well for the Giants' chances of repeating.
But I digress. The main point is that this is a false debate. Everyone knows that the best QB to come out of that draft plays in the 'Burgh. Not that I'm biased. ;)
Well, remember that Rivers' season ended in the AFC Championship when he was playing on an ACL that had been stitched together 5 or 6 days earlier, with his starting running back sitting on the bench and his best receiver playing on a broken toe. And his team almost won anyway.
Shawn,
Har! Didn't mean to make it sting -- as a Chargers fan since the early days of Air Coryell, I have very little history with big-time NFL players, so little room to talk. (The comment earlier about Ryan Leaf -- that stung.)
And sure, it's an expectation that they have hanging over them, and sure, Eli "Tittybaby" Manning has checked that box. But while the lack of a ring may put an asterisk on the career of an admitted great QB (like Marino), I would say that the presence of a ring can't turn a mediocrity (like Dilfer) into a great QB.
Bottom line (to me), Eli threw a fit that the Chargers (4 and 12 in 2003) weren't worthy of his greatness, but the Giants (4 and 12 in 2003) were. In order to walk that talk, he can't just be a decent QB, getting a ring as part of a really good team -- he, himself, has to be great. He, himself, has to transform the fortunes of whatever team is blessed with his presence. And in his opportunity to do that, he laid an absolute egg, and -- here's why stats are important -- wasn't as good as the guy he was traded for. HA!
I wish you well with Phillip Rivers but in the end, only time will tell.