(05-04-2022, 01:54 PM)Giants Wrote: Being prudent does not win Super Bowls. Being bold yields Lombardi’s.
Lance was a bold move. Jones would have been a prudent move.
For example, the Rams made a bold move by acquiring Stafford at a cost of a number of high draft picks. They reaped the benefit of that trade. I don’t think anyone can question the wisdom of that deal.
IMO, the odds of Lance leading SF to a Super Bowl win are much greater than the odds of the other aforementioned 20221/2022 QB’s or Garappolo doing so.
What the Niners did is pretty close to the opposite of what the Rams did with their bold move to trade for proven mega stars rather than prioritize draft picks. Draft picks are crapshoots, especially at QB. What the Rams did was assess that trading for a proven QB definitely good enough to win a Super Bowl was worth quite a bit of speculative draft potential. What the Niners did was trade their capital for speculative draft potential. Not the same thing. The Rams' insight was that Stafford and Miller were quite a bit more valuable in trying to win a Super Bowl than some draft picks.
A bold move with a good chance of being successful would have been to trade a ton of capital for Stafford or Rodgers or Watson. Heck, Tannehill would be more likely to win a Super Bowl than Trey Lance (or any non-number one overall pick QB who has never played in the NFL).
To think about how crazy this trade was, think about the fact that to get Lance the Niners gave up 2021, 2022, and 2023 first round picks and a 2022 compensatory third round pick whereas to get Stafford the Rams gave up 2022 and 2023 first rounds picks, a third round pick, and Jared Goff. Not a big difference between what those trades gave up despite Lance (ANY number three overall pick, no matter how much ceiling one thinks they have) having probably a 10-20 percent chance of ever being as good as Matthew Stafford.
It's a false choice to choose between bold and prudent. If you want to be bold go out and find a way to get Tom Brady or Matthew Stafford or another QB you KNOW is the level you need. It's a meathead, arrogant philosophy to look at Trey Lance and think that bold move would yield Lombardis. I realize you're not saying it will happen, just that fortune favors the bold. But in making the trade the 49ers brain trust essentially placed a bet that it will happen.
I suppose reasonable minds can differ but I don't get all the talk of "ceiling." Ceiling just means how good a player can become. Mid-first round, second round, and even third round picks become better players than number three overall picks all the time. All the time. Statistically, I dare you to look at QBs picked top of the draft (but not number one overall) and say that they can be counted on to reach a higher ceiling than those picked around #12. I don't even know what people mean when they say Trey Lance has a higher ceiling than Mac Jones. Because Lance runs better? If Jones ends up being able to mentally process/throw in tight windows/be more accurate, he'll reach a higher ceiling than Lance regardless of whatever tools somebody thinks they see in the QBs.
Being a Super Bowl-quality QB is not a predictable, scientific function of who looked good at the combine. It's instructive to look at draft selection spots of the QBs who have actually won Lombardi Trophies. Looking at every Super Bowl since 1980, here are the draft spots and how well they're represented:
#1: Jim Plunkett (2), Troy Aikman (3), John Elway (2), Peyton Manning (2), Eli Manning (2), Matthew Stafford
#5: Jim McMahon
#6: Trent Dilfer
#7: Phil Simms
#10: Patrick Mahomes
#11: Ben Roethlisberger (2)
#17: Doug Williams
#18: Joe Flacco
#24: Aaron Rodgers
#32: Drew Brees
#33: Brett Favre
#59 Jeff Hostetler
#75: Russell Wilson
#82: Joe Montana (4)
#88: Nick Foles
#99: Joe Theismann
#146: Mark Rypien
#199: Tom Brady (7)
#227: Brad Johnson
Undrafted: Kurt Warner
N/A: Steve Young drafted to USFL #11 and #1 in NFL supplemental draft
The move, obviously, is to draft a generational QB at #1 overall. The pick in last year's draft that can give a reasonable hope of uber-greatness was Trevor Lawrence. But the Jaguars wanted that pick and the Niners didn't have that "bold" move available, so they pretended that picking #3 would significantly increase the odds of going to a Super Bowl. The problem is that is wishful thinking. The 2-4 spots in the draft have been a wasteland for Super Bowl aspiring QBs. In the decades covered by this span above, there have been 21 QBs drafted in those spots (18 before the Niners made the trade) and none have yet won a Super Bowl. A few (Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, and Matt Ryan) have been good enough to get there but didn't get that brass ring. I don't know why 2-4 has empirically been a wasteland for QBs. Maybe it's the worst of all worlds of having massive, franchise-determining expectations but not the talent of the generational guys at #1.
Whatever the reason, I'm just being honest that the historical track record is that drafting a QB later in the first round or second round or third round is as likely to get you that Lombardi. QB in the NFL is just that hard. Those who tell you Trey Lance has so much more upside than Mac Jones really don't know what they're talking about. Sorry. They're clueless. Nobody knows who the great NFL QBs are going to be, and there is only one spot in the draft where you can somewhat cut through that paralyzing uncertainty: #1 overall. But that's not what the Niners traded for.