Headhunter wrote:Jason wrote:Ryan Leaf went #2 overall.
The Chargers released Drew Brees.
The Raiders traded Jon Gruden.
Maybe nobody knows anything for sure.
1. Draft projections are educated guesses
2. They had a huge investment in a younger QB who ended up being great
3. Gruden is incredibly overrated as a coach, it was great value for Oakland
But yes, teams miss evaluations. Siemian is still obviously terrible though. There is no defense of his play, the only starter who might have performed worse was 21 year old rookie Kizer. Siemian was bad enough to never get a chance to compete for a starting job again.
1) If it's all guess work I guess there shouldn't be pro-days, scouts or player meetings.
2) Phillip Rivers is solid, but at least a full tier or two below Brees. You can't justify that nonsense. When they got rid of Brees, I thought it was stupid, and I turned out to be right. "Great" is hardly a word to be thrown around so loosely. Phillip Rivers is not great. Also: nO riNgZ, br0 lol
3) Gruden took the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl and pounded the Raiders in year one. The same Bucs team that Tony Dungy couldn't take to the promised land. Is Gruden overrated? I certainly won't rule it out, but you've said this about him before without giving any specific reasons. When I'm going to make an unpopular claim, I will at least put my theory on the table... As far as Siemian, my honest assessment is no, I don't believe "God King Semen" would've taken the Packers to the Super Bowl in place of Aaron Rodgers. I believe Siemian has performed exceptionally behind one of the worst lines the NFL has ever seen. At the absolute minimum, Siemian deserves a shot at starter behind any team with a decent offensive line. He has made incredible plays under extreme duress caused solely by the line, it's only a wonder what this same quarterback might be able to do without the anxiety of getting blitzed or blind-sided on every other pass attempt.
Siemian performed better than a lot of quarterbacks last year, by the way. He performed better than some quarterbacks with good lines. He performed better than some quarterbacks whose teams made the playoffs. He made more than a couple of mistakes that
weren't caused by the line, too. His "stats" are eerily similar to Marcus Mariota's. I watched every game from start to finish of Tennessee's this year. The main difference between the two is for every one great play that Mariota made, he is making two remarkably god awful decisions all on his own, but doing so behind perhaps the best offensive line in the NFL. But if you ask the experts, the analysts, the average fan, all will say Mariota is the better QB... Why? Because the experts and analysts will a) ALWAYS favor a more well-known/popular player and b) because instead of evaluating the sport, they are evaluating their neat and tidy stat sheets of every player sitting on the table in front of them, and the average fan is clinging to their opinion as if it will validate their own.
A Trevor Siemian behind a line that is capable of providing moderately consistent comfort is a quarterback that can be anywhere from average to excellent. He deserves a shot, without question. And he is the most unnecessarily criticized player in the NFL today, by far.
