And That's Why You Don't Trade a Rookie

And with the 33rd overall pick in the 1991 NFL draft, the Atlanta Falcons select:

Brett Favre, QB, Southern Miss.
So the Packers didn't draft Favre, the Falcons did, and the rest was just little surprises along the way. Whoopsie!!!! Except that the Packers and then general manager Ron Wolf actually wanted Favre, while Falcons coach Jerry Glanville was quoted "It will take a plane crash for me to put him in the game." Unfortunately for Glanville, he was not aboard oceanic flight 815 and now he looks like the biggest boob to ever coach a legend. (Certain recent Vikings coaches aside)

Southern Miss was the only college to offer Brett Favre a football scholarship. That might come as a shock or maybe you knew that ages ago, but the fact remains that Favre was an unknown going into college. In high school Irvin Favre, Brett's dad, coached the football team. Despite being the coach's son, Irv's gameplan and offense was the wishbone so Brett never got to chuck the ball around the field despite his natural ability. Most high school games he only threw five or six passes. Mike Martz and Dean Coolbaugh shudder at the thought of such wasted talent.

On a side note, did Irv Favre repress Brett to the point that he began to compensate in the NFL by forcing the ball into coverage just to prove he could? How about audibling out of runs to throw game losing wounded ducks in the playoffs? We'll let Freud figure that one out I guess.

Once at Southern Miss, they wanted him to play corner, but Favre insisted on playing QB so he was relegated to 7th string. 7th string at Southern Mississippi. There are definitely some zero to hero stories in the NFL such as Samkon Gado (2nd stringer at Liberty to starter for the Packers), Willie Parker(his time is up), James Harrison (his time is now after years in NFL europe and the practice squad). Nevertheless, that Favre came from 7th on the depth chart to 33rd overall draft pick remains impressive.

Looking at Favre's college resume coming out of Southern Miss, 33rd overall does seem a little high for what amounted to a seemingly good player on a historically poor team. That Favre did as well as he did at Southern Miss is impressive in itself, but the NFL draft is often a matter of appearances more than football talent and Favre didn't have the pedigree or hype to overcome the lackluster reputation of the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.

Killer logo, but still a pitiful football team.

Coming out of college, Favre was somewhere between zero and hero, but still no one was willing to commit to him in the first round. There are always pre-draft storylines for the upper-echelon players and Favre's centered around his off the field problems. Only they weren't "problems" in the conventional sense. Favre had been in a near fatal car accident prior to his senior year. He survived, although doctors reportedly removed 30 inches (that's 3 shiancoes or 26 coolbaughs for you dick-counters at home) of his small intestine. Really this was just an irrelevant yet interesting story about a lesser known QB. It does not excuse the Falcons' actions in any way. Why the Falcons would ever draft any player, let alone a player high in the draft at the quarterback postion that their coach disliked is beyond me, but Ron Wolf of the Packers intended to draft Favre with the very next pick in the draft. That little tidbit would come to be quite relevant down the line, but for now Favre was a Falcon.

Favre began his time on the Falcons in horrid fashion. He would ultimately throw 2 interceptions on 4 attempts with no completions in his first year in the NFL. Quite the start for one of the best QBs ever.

The interesting part about Favre's time on the Falcons is not actually his play on the field or even in practice. Ron Wolf, the man who is forever legend in titletown for swinging the Favre deal, had coveted Favre since he missed him on draft day. Typically general managers are all too objective, and for good reason. If a GM becomes infatuated with a specific prospect he can end up staking his entire reputation and job security on a 21 year old man who really just wants to get paid. In the GM business it makes sense to be cautious and make every attempt to remain level headed about player evaluation and transactions. Football is a business from a GM standpoint and it is easier to avoid error and remain consistent if you treat it as such.

Bill Polian, current Colts GM is a perfect example of this. He drafts consistently well and almost never gets caught up in the hype of draft prospects be it good or bad. Ron Wolf was the opposite of Bill Polian, but he made it work by landing guys like Favre and Reggie White. Unfortunately for Wolf, his opinionated style cost him the shot at Randy Moss and he has continually stated that it still bothers him to this day that he passed on Moss.

Because Wolf was so unconventional, he never forgot about Favre and still wanted him even the season after his dismal rookie year. Wolf was daring enough to trade a first round pick (no 19) for a QB who had shown nothing and was originally drafted at 33. Only the infatuation of a GM with a player could cause such a deal to go down. The Falcons were ecstatic, and with any other player they probably laugh all the way to the bank. Call it great player evaluation, bad player evaluation by the Falcons, overvaluation of draft picks, luck, whatever. This time the rest really was history.

Ok, so maybe his first completion as a packer wasn't ideal, but he picked it up after that.

Perhaps it's because people would rather celebrate the forsight of Wolf than admonish an already mediocre franchise, but the Packers and Wolf get all the credit and the Falcons none of the blame. Well, I'm here to blame them because it was a stupid stupid move. ESPN did an entire documentary about how dumb it was to trade Wayne Gretzky. At least Edmonton got a few good years and some championships out of the guy! The Falcons got squat. That's right, they used the 19th overall on ANOTHER guy from Southern Miss.

How you can even conceptualize trading away what you must clearly believe (again, 33rd overall) is young talent at a position where you are starting the worst pro bowler of all time!!!? 53.3% completion percentage in the modern era is atrocious, and making the pro bowl with those stats is a travesty. Mike Vick never even got as low as 54% in his three pro bowl years and he makes chris miller look like he's playing women's ultimate.

Of the worst moments in Falcons history, this Favre trade should rank just below the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. Instead it is chalked up to Favre's "Lost Falcons Year" or something like that. Have some accountability for trading away the best NFL player ever to be traded.

Schaub Stumps the Texans

What a Beautiful Release Point

Powerful, Driven, Matt Schaub is... Unstoppable. Like his citizen eco-drive... wait a minute Texans QBs don't get commercials like that. When a quarterback lacks big market appeal or the expectations that come with first round draft status, it becomes hard to put your finger on exactly how effective that QB actually is. Big name QBs get national media attention, and so do lesser guys who start for big market teams like the Giants or Cowboys. When it comes down to it, how do you compare a QB like Matt Schaub to someone like Dallas' Tony Romo? Neither are high draft picks, but Romo gets the attention and scrutiny that a Cowboys player deserves. To compound the problem, the Texans as a franchise have never even had a winning season or played in a playoff game. Is Matt Schaub Good, Bad or an In-Between? The sleazer is taking off the kid gloves and getting into the grit of an important yet ignored player in today's NFL.

The trade that got Matt Schaub his chance was strange in that while the Falcons got first round value for Schaub they never physically got an extra first round pick. As it went down, the Falcons received two 2nd rounders (in '07 and '08) and traded up two slots from 10 to 8 in the 2007 draft. All in all, the value is somewhere around a mid first rounder for Schaub, but the Texans attempted to save some face by not actually giving up the first rounder in case Schaub flopped. I'm not gonna go into the ins and outs of what the picks turned into since that's more of a trade/franchise evaluation than anything.

Trading what is essentially a first round draft pick for a semi-experienced former backup clearly represents a strong display of faith in a quarterback. When you use a draft pick on a QB, you generally have the luxury of providing him some years of instruction in your system. On the other hand, when you trade for a 25 year old QB with 150 in game attempts and two games started you have to be hoping for an out of the box product who will grow along with your team. Schaub's situation was hardly common in the NFL, especially considering he was probably the better passer on his former team. Then again, Mike Vick is anything but common.

Taking a look at Schaub's similarity score, a relative comparison to other qbs, at age 26:

(courtesy of profootballreference.com)

we can see that Schaub had potential that ranged from horrible (Tim Rattay, David Carr, Josh McCown) to average (Aikman, Brunell, Hasselbeck) to sublime (Joe Montana). These across the board scores are another indication of the risk/reward factor involved in the trade.

Not that there weren't flashes of talent from Schaub. In his 2005 game against the Patriots, Schaub was 18-34 for 298 yards, 3 TDs and no INTs. He hit on a number of deep balls against what was still a good NE defense, and he showed the ability to run the offense and avoid negative plays.

After the completely undeserved amount of faith placed in David Carr, the Houston Texans were desparate for a serviceable qb. In the end, what they got in the first two years from Schaub was inconsistency and injury. Schaub started 11 games each year in his first two years as full-time starter. When he played, his numbers were efficient if unspectacular. He clearly outclassed Carr in that he didn't take 5 sacks per game, but with playmakers on the offensive side like Andre Johnson (undoubtedly the most complete WR in the NFL), Owen Daniels and eventually Steve Slaton the Texans appeared to be an explosive offense on paper heading into 2009. Schaub had improved from '06 to '07 and '07 to '08 and another jump in production would be expected as the overall team talent improved.

The Texans also managed to bolster what was once an attrocious defense by spending high pick after high pick on front seven players like Amobi Okoye, Demeco Ryans, Mario Williams and most recently Brian Cushing. And it worked! So why hasn't this Texans team blossomed as most assumed it would this year?

It's not quite as simple as Matt Schaub case closed. The run game has struggled more than expected, but even as Schaub improved his numbers (he led the league in TD passes by week 10,) it was his untimely interceptions and inability to get the offense started early that led to a horrible 4 game losing streak by the Texans. All of the games were losses by 7 or less, and in each of them they either struggle in the 1st or 4th quarter. In fairness, the losses are to good teams. But also in fairness, you aren't a good QB if you score big against teams like Seattle and Buffalo. What you are is a good fantasy QB.

After a really mediocre performance yesterday against an equally mediocre St. Louis defense, Schaub continues to show us more of the same: he can hit Andre Johnson since he is almost always open, and his good stats (completion percentage, TD:INT ratio) hide the fact that he fails to convert important first downs and score touchdowns in the red zone.

At this point in the Texans' potential playoff arc, they are just entering their Superbowl window. The defense is young and flies all over the field. The receivers and offensive weapons are in place and in their primes. If Stump the Schaub is the hero Houston deserves, he needs to start showing it in these next two games; otherwise, it might be time for Houston to start exploring other QB options.

With the 2010 season potentially uncapped things could get crazy in a hurry, but to his credit Schaub has really only three full years as starter under his belt. I don't think it's unreasonable for the Texans to stick with Schaub and hope he continues to improve. For the Texans, even playing in a playoff game would be a huge step forward, but so long as you have the talent on the roster why not gamble with a QB change if it can put you over the top?

Nevertheless, I would prefer they don't roll the dice with the options currently on their roster, or options they have already explored for that matter:




I think when all is said and done, Schaub's best years will have overlapped while the team's overall talent was at its pinnacle. It's a good situation for Houston, but in the end Schaub might be cast as the goat who held a talented team back.