1st round QBs in recent history (3 of 29)

And I'm back again with the third installment in my min-segment on 1st round quarterbacks.

If you're new to the site or if you just forgot what the segment is about here is a brief summary:

I want to know what classifies a guy as a 1st round quarterback. So I'm going back in time (oooh) in recent history (2000-2009) and looking at the quarterbacks that were picked in the first round during that time span.

• Note: The poll at the bottom is not what this post is about (it is just there because polls are fun). It is not the main topic of discussion. Read the entire post instead. 

Here is a link to the last installment which saw us looking at Michael Vick (within that post is a link to the first post where we looked at Chad Pennington).

Today we'll be looking at a guy that wasn't technically a 1st round pick when he was originally drafted. He was the 32nd overall pick of the 2001 NFL draft. Since there were only 31 picks in the 1st round in 2001(The Houston Texans didn't exist yet) he was classified as a 2nd round pick.

His name? Drew Brees.

Drew Brees was offered only two football scholarships coming out of high school (Kentucky and Purdue). He chose to go to Purdue and played for the Boilermakers from 1997 to 2000 (he started from 1998-2000).

Brees was not received with so much love at Purdue. Most thought the coach was joking when he introduced Brees as their quarterback of the future. He was so short and skinny that most thought he would break in half if he was tackled too hard.

But Brees had two things going for him that made up for his small size: His arm and his brains. Brees had an incredibly powerful and accurate arm and was adept at reading defenses and using his intelligence to pick defenses apart.

His first year at Purdue in 1997 was something of a redshirt year as the Boilermakers rolled with some guy named Billy Dicken at the quarterback position and Brees attempted only 43 passes on the year.

The 1998 season was a great one for the Boilermakers. 1998 saw Purdue go 9-4 and earn an invitation to the Alamo Bowl where they would face #4 Kansas State. Drew Brees led the Boilermakers to an amazing upset as they defeated the Wildcats 37-34 with the winning score coming from a Brees touchdown pass. In his first year as a full time starter Brees passed for nearly 4,000 yards and 39 touchdowns...but it's not as pretty as it looks, as he also tossed 20 interceptions.

In 1999 Brees and his Boilermakers regressed to 7-5 and lost to Georgia in the Outback bowl. The season was not all bad for Brees as he threw for over 3,500 yards and 21 touchdowns and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy race.

After the 1999 season Brees considered entering the 2000 NFL draft. He sought advice from Indianapolis Colt's quarterback Peyton Manning who advised him to stay for his senior year. (Hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar?) Brees took Manning's advice and returned for one final year at Purdue.

In 2000 the Boilermakers improved to an 8-4 record and a #14 national ranking. They were set to face another #4 team in Washington in the Rose Bowl. Brees played well in his final game but the Huskies held on to win 34-24. On the year Brees finished with over 3,600 passing yards and 26 touchdowns and finished third in the Heisman Trophy race. But those aren't the most important statistics Brees achieved in 2000. He left the Big Ten with the conference records for passing yards (11,792), touchdown passes (90) and completion percentage (61.1).

So with all those amazing numbers and history of winning Brees had to be considered a great prospect and worthy of being the first quarterback selected right? Not quite.

Brees played in the spread offense at Purdue so his numbers were somewhat inflated (it wasn't as bad back then as it is now but it was still something scouts were wary about), his height remained a problem as he stood at only 6ft and scouts questioned his deep ball throwing strength and accuracy (this is what really stood out to me). This led many to tag Brees as a late 1st/early 2nd round prospect (which is where he ended up going).

But lets step away from the negatives for a bit and look at the positives he had going for him at the time:

Although he played in the spread offense he was very good at reading defenses and identifying coverages/blitzes, he wasn't a one-read passer so he utilized all his targets, he was a tremendous leader, he had excellent field vision, had excellent pocket presence and moved around incredibly well in between the tackles, he hit his receivers in stride and put a lot of zip on the ball to allow his guys to keep running full speed after the catch, and he was somewhat of an elusive scrambler.

This scouting report states that he reminds him of our own Jeff Garcia.

Now that we know how Drew Brees turned out lets look back again at the negatives and see which qualities were overblown. Size was cited as a concern but it was never much of an issue for Brees in the NFL because of his elite field vision. His deep pass was questioned, but he is now one of the (if not the) best deep ball passers in the NFL because of his ability to hit his receivers in stride.

What do I take away from this?

When I hear someone compare a 6ft tall college quarterback to Drew Brees because of their height I'm going to smack them across the head. The importance of height in a quarterback may be overblown, but Drew Brees is successful in the NFL because of his elite decision making, accuracy, zip, touch, vision, leadership, pocket presence, and intelligence.

All those short guys they compare to Drew Brees don't even have half of his other skills.

So now lets take a brief look at Drew Brees' NFL career. Or rather, lets take some time to criticize the San Diego Chargers for being impatient and lacking any ability to see talent.

In his first year starting for the Chargers, Brees had a pretty solid year (as far as first year starters are concerned). He wasn't given the opportunity to start all 16 games in only his second year as a starter and so his performance suffered. And....that was it. After less than TWO YEARS the Chargers decided that Drew Brees wasn't good enough.

So they went on and drafted Phillip Rivers in 2004...and what do you know? Drew Brees passed for over 3,000 yards 27 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions with a completion percentage over 60% that same year.

D'oh!

And we all know what happened next so I'll just leave it at that. I'll close out the post with a video of the Boilermaker's final drive of the 1998 season when they upset #4 Kansas State

and his college statistics at Purdue.