By Dave Razzano, Playmaker Correspondent
Unlike last season with QB Sam Bradford possessing all the traits of a star NFL QB, this upcoming Draft is much different as questions surround all potential picks for the Carolina Panthers. Auburn’s Cam Newton and Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert, in my view, are both big time reaches in the first round. It is difficult to draft at the top simply because a lot of it is media and ownership driven. Everyone knows a “franchise” QB is a necessity in terms of winning and that is one big reason so many QB’s become overvalued on draft day.
It is always good to remember the many QB’s taken late in the draft or as undrafted Free Agents, such as Tom Brady, Kurt Warner, Tony Romo, Joe Montana, Rich Gannon, Matt Schaub, Matt Hasselbeck, Brad Johnson, to name a few. These are all successful NFL QB’s undervalued on Draft Day. Or the players traded by their original teams, like Steve Young, Drew Brees, and Brett Favre.
I know that the majority of good QB’s come out of the first round but when you start to research, there are several, like the players mentioned above, that get overlooked for different reasons. There is high probability that this year’s best QB will be drafted after the first round. Could it be Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick, TCU’s Andy Dalton, Florida State’s Christian Ponder, Washington’s Jake Locker, or Delaware’s Pat Devlin? Or maybe someone like Iowa’s Ricky Stanzi or Idaho’s Nate Enderle?
This is the beauty of scouting. The answer to this question is four or five years away, and in Kurt Warner’s case, seven or eight.
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Dave Razzano is a former NFL scout and Playmaker Mobile correspondent with more than 22 years of professional scouting experience with the San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals under NFL coaches including Bill Walsh, George Seifert, Chuck Knox and Dick Vermeil. He's been a part of five Super Bowls with three Super Bowl wins (49ers, 1989, 1990; Rams, 2000).
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