As we are drawing closer and closer to the NFL Draft, I’m sure all of our heads are being mentally screwed by draft experts and breakfast meetings with NFL coaches. At this juncture, I’m just swimming in massive BS. I just hate waiting. Anyways, I always try and look at different angles for drafting players. A few weeks ago, I looked into the notion of whether a rookie QB should start from day 1 and the bust/boom ratio of drafting QBs in the first round.
Today, I want to look at one of the bigger red flags that are surrounding Cam Newton, and that’s the “1-hit wonder” complex. I’m sure we all know that Newton has started only one full season of Division-1 college football. Some experts/fans are skeptical of selecting a player who has only started one season at the collegiate level. For some Bills fans, the memory of Aaron Maybin comes to mind. However, it’s very easy for a fan or an expert to just say that they are scared of drafting someone with such a short body of work. It’s a statement that kind of makes sense, but you don’t actually know the exact numbers.
Well, I got the numbers.
Since 1990, only 3 QBs have been selected in the first round with less than 17 games started at the Division-1 level. They are as followed:
Mark Sanchez: Sanchez turned a lot of heads at USC by declaring for the NFL Draft after his Junior season. If you don’t remember, Pete Carroll wasn’t all that happy about #6 leaving the program after just starting 17 games. Sanchez did start in 2008 and was impressive, throwing for 3,207 yards and 34 touchdowns. In the end, Sanchez took advantage of a great situation with the Jets, where he has been surrounded by an all-world defense and superior offensive line play.
Mike Vick: Vick was a freshman phenom at VT. He guided the Hookies to a undefeated regular season, but they lost the National Title game against Florida State. The following year, Vick played exceptionally well, except he missed parts of 4 games due to injury. After his sophomore season, he declared for the NFL Draft and the rest was history.
Dan McGuire: Before McGuire’s final season at San Diego State, the QB had only attempted 84 passes. When McGuire finally had his shot to shine, he played well, throwing for 27 touchdowns and over 3,800 yards passing in his final season.
That’s it.
Out of the 48 QBs taken in the first round from 1990-2010, only three of them have started less than 17 games. So, Newton is definitely in rare company. In fact, he’s started the least amount of D-1 college games (14) than anyone on the list. Now of the 32 current NFL starters, only Matt Cassell has the unique distinction of not starting one college game at USC, as he backed up Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. Every other starter (Excluding Sanchez and Vick) had started at least two seasons worth of college games.
Now, before we throw up the red flag or start over-thinking this, I’d like to mention that the majority of the QBs that I went through have started between 2-3 seasons worth of college ball. Plus, not all of them have won the Heisman Trophy and guided their teams to the National Title. Even still, I find it interesting that there aren’t many 1-hit wonder quarterbacks who were selected that high in the draft. Also, it’s not like you can sit here and say “Oh, I’m so worried about Cam Newton being a 1-year wonder,” because 3 of the 4 guys that I just mentioned are still starting in the NFL.
In the end, it doesn’t really happen all that much, but you still don’t have enough information to make a bad or good declaration about it.
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The writers over at bloguin.com have decided to do a NFL Mock draft. Click here to see who I selected for the Bills
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