FanPost

Kansas City QBs: Shopping in the Flea Market

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From the FanPosts. Good way to look at it. -Joel

Let’s assume there are three places a team can shop for quarterbacks. First of all, there is Rodeo Drive, the place where rich people spend incredible amounts of money because they want only the best. The football equivalent of shopping on Rodeo Drive is the first round, or the top thirty-two picks. In the first year of the modern draft there were twenty-five first round picks, but that number expanded as the league expanded, so the arrival of the Houston Texans brought the final total to thirty-two. How often have the Chiefs shopped for a quarterback on Rodeo Drive in the Super Bowl era? Four times, including the recent drafting of Patrick Mahomes.

The other three were Steve Fuller in 1979, who started thirty-one games for the Chiefs and forty-two overall. The Chiefs went the expensive route again in 1983 when they chose Todd Blackledge. Blackledge proved to be worse than Fuller, starting twenty-four games for Kansas City and twenty-nine overall. The third expensive quarterback bauble was Mike Elkins, drafted 32nd in 1989, he started zero games in the NFL, and played in only one. On average the three pricey quarterbacks averaged eighteen starts for the Chiefs and twenty-four in the NFL. My homey Mahomes doesn’t have a big history to live up to, but if a team keeps shopping on Rodeo Drive, they will eventually come home with a diamond, right?

Starting at pick thirty-three and running through pick two hundred, drafting a quarterback amounts to shopping at the local mall. The quarterbacks don’t cost as much, but a team is less likely to find a great one, although it happens often enough to keep things interesting. Quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, Joe Montana, and especially Tom Brady, prove that great quarterbacks are sometimes found in the pedestrian middle rounds of the draft.

By the time NFL teams reach the 201st pick in the draft, they are essentially drafting in the flea market of NFL talent. The emergence of Tom Brady filled fans with the idea that great quarterbacks are out there to be found late in the draft. Reality says otherwise. Since 1967 only twelve quarterbacks drafted later than the 200th pick played in one hundred or more games. Three of them, Pat Ryan, Koy Detmer and Jeff Rutledge started in nineteen, eight and ten games respectively, so let’s eliminate them from this discussion. For all practical purposes they were never starters. Of the remaining nine flea market quarterbacks with at least one hundred games played, Wade Wilson of the Vikings had the fewest starts with sixty-nine. Do you notice anything else about the flea market heroes?

Team

Last Name

First Name

P

Starts

KC Starts

Dallas

DeBerg

Steve

QB

140

52

Minnesota

Johnson

Brad

QB

125

0

St. Louis

Fitzpatrick

Ryan

QB

116

0

San Diego

Green

Trent

QB

113

88

Cleveland

Sipe

Brian

QB

112

0

New England

Cassell

Matt

QB

80

47

Miami

Kenney

Bill

QB

77

77

San Francisco

Grbac

Elvis

QB

70

47

Minnesota

Wilson

Wade

QB

69

0

902

311

Among the many other reasons the Chiefs struggled at quarterback was the fact that they kept shopping at the flea market. The nine best flea market quarterbacks played more than 1/3 of their starts for the Chiefs. Even if Patrick Mahomes fails miserably, it’s still a positive development if the organization starts looking at quarterbacks differently. If a team shops for a quarterback on Rodeo Drive and buys the wrong one, it’s an expensive mistake. If a team prefers to shop for quarterbacks in flea markets, it proves even costlier.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Arrowhead Pride's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Arrowhead Pride writers or editors.