When the Rams, presumably, select Sam Bradford first overall next week, it will be a gamble. The Rams cannot be sure Bradford's injured shoulder, which kept him out of most of Oklahoma's 2009 season, will never grace the injury report. They cannot be sure his gaudy stats are more than a product of a high-flying Sooner spread that might have made everyone in crimson and cream look good, a little too good.
But for a franchise nearly a decade removed from the magical reign of Kurt Warner, Bradford is a chance to push every last chip to the center of the table and hope for another franchise quarterback savior.
What makes St. Louis' gamble even riskier is what they will be passing up. No, sure things don't wear shoulder pads. But load up the video of Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh dominating Texas' pedigreed offensive line in the Big 12 title game, and you would swear he is as a safe bet as the draft could offer.
And then, of course, there is the money. Fellow signal-caller Matthew Stafford, the 2009 draft's top pick, earned $41.7 million in guaranteed money. JaMarcus Russell, the quarterback taken atop the 2007 draft, signed for $32 million guaranteed. Assuming a linear progression, Bradford would get somewhere near $47 million guaranteed.
By contrast, 2008 top pick and non-quarterback Jake Long earned $30 million guaranteed and 2006 overall No. 1 Mario Williams signed for $26.5 million guaranteed. If Suh could be signed along the same lines, he would garner something in the mid-$30 millions in guaranteed money. I tend to think this difference between guaranteed money for quarterbacks and non-quarterbacks is a little exaggerated, but even conservatively, Bradford will certainly cost the Rams at least $5 million more than Suh would the second he signs. And none of this addresses the larger difference in annual salary.
So why pass on the surer, cheaper player to roll the dice on Bradford? Because no position offers a flailing franchise instant credibility in the NFL like the quarterback.
Football is an intricate and complex game. Its grand masters spend 100 waking hours per week, at least, trying to out-scheme one another— and that doesn't include the hours they dream of Xs and Os. But for those of us who don't share their monk-like vigils to the technical side of the zone blitz, we watch the ball. And nobody dictates where that ball goes more than the quarterback.
The quarterback takes nearly every offensive snap. Even on running plays, he hands off, a subtle reminder that even though this play is not about him, it couldn't happen without him. And when time is short and victory is pinned to the next big play, coaches quit humoring the running game. When games are on the line, the running game heads to the kiddie table, and quarterbacks dominate the conversation. At least that's how the masses see it.
Really, it is an embarrassingly simple way to watch football, akin to blaming the waiter for a bland entrée. After all, the football fan food critic would point out, the waiter is the one with the plate in his hands last. Never mind that the farmer skimped on fertilizing before planting that batch of corn or the receiver ran the wrong route. No, it's the man with the pigskin or pork belly in his hand who is subjected to our instant judgment.
And that's exactly why the Rams will — no no, have to — take Bradford. The franchise is for sale. They have won six games in the last three years, total. They averaged fewer than 11 points a game last year. For a diagnosis that dire, the patient's loved ones and the team's fans demand aggressive treatment. Sure, those symptoms could be caused by a disease other than bad quarterback play. The Rams' goats on defense came within the hairs on their chinny-chin-chins of yielding 28 points per game over the past three years. But that's not what the fans see, that's not what they understand. Spare them field position and time of possession. After all, how many touchdowns will Suh score?
Once the Rams have taken their under-center white knight, Detroit will gladly snap up Suh, the most dominant player in the draft, the kind of stalwart around which great defenses are built. Are Lions fans just more capable of seeing the complexities of the game? Is their organization more sophisticated? Is the front office unwilling to kowtow to the screaming hordes of ball-watching media and fans?
Uh, no. They're just lucky enough to have already burned $41.7 million on a shiny new quarterback last year. For now, the new quarterback smell of Matthew Stafford will keep the ball-watchers occupied.
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