I'm more of a baseball fan. I watch some NFL games and even fewer college games other than when the wife wants to see her alma mater, Illinois. I go to an indoor driving range during the Super Bowl. I know the Chiefs won it all last year, but didn't see a minute of it.
Being baseball fan, particularly the Chicago Cubs, my sports prognosticating skills are minimal at best and based primarily of dreams and wishful thinking. In short, I was right once, in 2016, and that also involved a lot of handwringing and prayer on a certain November night in Cleveland.
So take what I say with a proverbial grain of salt.
The sports news in my area was all about the Bears and their Number One pick in this year's NFL draft. They picked Caleb Williams from USC.
Williams is a darn good quarterback. By most accounts, he is a good person. He can run and throw and has great stats in both those areas. He wants to win. He says he wants to play for 20 years with the same team. That's probably why the Chicago Bears drafted him with the 1st overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.The question of whether he will lead the Bears to the Super Bowl, however, remains to be seen.
He had a pretty good freshman year at Oklahoma, but then jumped ship to play his final two college years at USC. Neither Oklahoma nor USC were in the national college playoffs with Williams. In 2022 Williams won the Heisman Trophy and led USC to the Pac 12 championship game, but lost to Utah. In 2023 USC was only 5-4 in the conference.
Based on the results of recent picks and acquisitions Bears have made, their fans might rightly suspect the team's judgement or ability in picking quarterbacks They thought Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields were the answers, but neither brought them more than two games into the playoffs.
Maybe Williams is the answer. I honestly don't know, but I wouldn't expect too much immediately. Some previous number one picks in recent NFL drafts have helped their teams to the playoffs quickly, but not in the first year in the league, and not to the Super Bowl, yet, in their careers.
Some stats about QBs drafted Number One
No one really knows how a QB, or any player, will do over his career. The average career of an NFL player is 3.3 years. QBs are a little higher at 4.44 years. Injuries and simply not playing up to expectations are factors for any player's success in the league. And few achieve instant success at quarterback. Since 2000 only Eli Manning and Matthew Stafford, both No. 1 selections, have won the Super Bowl. Manning took four years. Stafford took 13 years and going to a different team to win a SuperBowl.
It's not an easy road no matter when a player is picked, and there are exceptions. One that comes to mind is Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers. In 1956, the NFL had 12 teams, 30 draft rounds, and 360 players chosen. Starr wasn't picked until the 17th round, 200th pick overall. He went on to win five titles: three NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls.
Here are some other players, when they were drafted, and how they've done:
Brady excelled almost immediately as a starter his second year. And, considering he was not a high draft choice, it makes his seven career Super Bowls even more impressive. Mahomes became the starter for the Chiefs in his second year and has won three Super Bowl MVPs. Aaron Rodgers didn't start his first three season. When he took over from Brett Favre, it took him three years to win his first and as yet only Super Bowl.
The real anomaly here is Brock Purdy who was "Mr. Irrelevant" in the 2022. "Mr. Irrelevant" is the nickname given to the player who is picked dead last in the draft. Because of injuries and other factors he started for San Francisco in his first season and took them to the NFC championship game. In his next season, he took them to the Super Bowl, losing to Mahomes.
Like Starr, Brady and Purdy were not highly regarded out of college. Yet, they succeeded. Many Number One picks don't work out. Even being a first or second round pick is not guaranteed to be successful. Sometimes players just rise to the occasion and exceed expectations.
I don't know if Williams be a Mahomes or a Brady and bring the Bears to the playoffs and a Super Bowl. I don't doubt that he wants to. But so did Jim Harbaugh, Rex Grossman, Mitch Trubisky, and Justin Fields, all of whom the Bears drafted in the first round.
There's an old saying about counting chickens before they're hatched, and while Chicago Bears fans have something to be excited about, they would do well to remember not to do any counting yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment