I don’t have data to back up my initial impression, but it seems that each QBs success was much more determined by the individual mental toughness, rather than when they played. You look as a guy like Eli, and he didn’t have a great rookie year, and he certainly had higher expectations put on him than just about anyone else on either list. What prevented him from crumbling and losing his self confidence? Mental toughness, confidence in his own ability?
Then you look as a guy like Leaf. MAYBE he would have been successful under other circumstances, but they didn’t call him Cryin’ Ryan for nothing. He just didn’t have that intestinal fortitude that you need to play this position in the big league.
Big Ben? Got it. Matt Leinart (beer bong bozo)…. probably not… Alex Smith… who knows.

But when you leave off guys like Kyle Boller, Charlie Batch, Rex Grossman, and Byron Leftwich from your success list, you are skewing the data. Those guys were not “ruined” because they were started too early. Those guys started and had moderate success, playing up to the limits of their abilities. Letting them sit a year would not have given them any additional physical talent, and that is where guys like that tend to fail.

I’ll give you Harrington as a guy that might have been better if he were allowed to mature a bit, but even that is a leap of faith. And Quincy? That guy was just another dumbshit (read: Michael Vick) who had a good thing but was too stupid to appreciate it.

Anyway, I believe that: 1) first you need the physical tools, and then 2) you need the mental toughness. While I’m sure you can break some guys by starting them before they are mentally ready, in the end, I kinda think those guys would break eventually anyway… first really bad game, losing streak, losing season, fans booing. Look at Vince. That guy has had some success, but he just does not have the mental toughness to weather adversity.

I think most of the guys that are successful, would (barring injury) be successful whenever you start them.

The more I see of Henne, the more I am becoming a believer that he is that sort of guy.

IMO

yes. But as stated before I wouldn’t make it before the half way point in the season and then only if we’ve not been hit too hard by injury like we were last year. No one individual will change the fact that this is a team firmly in rebuild mode that’s a long way from .500 and if you throw Henne in there either before you give the OL a chance to learn how to work together or after three or four key starters from the offensive unit have gone down then you’re not going to see the best of him. That just gives ammunition to the “fans” who will rip the team/players/coaches/front office at every opportunity to say “well, Henne looks useless out there, lets go trade for McNabb or spend our first on a QB who can be the next Marino”.

I’m all for giving Henne a chance but I’d rather give him that chance when he has an opportunity to succeed. JMHO.

I know you love Beck, but let’s be real. Why not (if the situation arises), start the guy in FRONT of Beck on the depth chart and prepare him.

stick him in
if he wins
by hitting Ginn
leave him in
he’ll be a Phin
til the bowl we’re in
and we’ll all have a grin
but if he fails to win
then draft a new kid in
Henne’ll ride the bench again

and Sparano doesnt seem like the guy who will be pressured by the fans.

I would like to see Beck make it through this season without getting hurt. Hopefully he will get picked up by a different team . There will probably be some team out there that will realize he has a couple of years under his belt even if it is only practicing with an NFL team. Given the deal with his age it is too bad that he even got drafted by Miami but may be as long as he doesn’t get hurt he will still have an NFL Career in head of him. I would just as soon see Henne play since everyone thinks Pennington is a bust (after 2 games)..Hopefully he will be able to hold up and if not they can always draft another QB next year.

simply because i’m perpetually leery of rookie QBs. why take that chance that he could screw it up and give him some kind of gunshy complex. i wouldn’t be opposed to letting beck start just because i think the whole Harlem Globetrotter impression he does it great.

Thank you for the statistical work Matty.
 I generally place quarterbacks in 2 categories. The first are athletic freaks who truly lack quality NFL level fundamentals, and accomplished, experienced guys who have fundamentals and experience. Some guys fall into both camps but they lean in one or the other. You have 19 guys who started 1 game as a rookie. The first category players are {Leaf, Couch, A. Smith, Carter, Ramsey} All these guys lacked fundamentals, they were thrown out there early based primarily on physical ability and they are all busts 100. The second-Category guys would be {P Manning, Eli Manning, McNabb, Carr, Harrington, Leftwich, Boller, Grossman, Roethlisberger, & A.Smith.} Here it gets more interesting. They all were long-time starters in college and had pretty good fundamentals in college. I would say that only 3 of these guys (Carr, Harrington, and A Smith) are complete busts. That’s only 30 of the guys who were accomplished long-time starters 70% are guys that played at a high level early on and most of them played in a Super Bowl.
The remaining four guys are tweeners{Vick, Grossman, Batch, McNown, King} This interesting so I’ll start here. Henne would not compare favorably to Vick or Grossman. He lacks Vick’s athletic ability and he is also a much different player than Grossman (even with this Grossman was good enough to make it to a Super Bowl so he is not that bad). Batch and King can’t be compared favorably because they did not play at a high level at a big –time program like Michigan. The best comparison would be McNown. Both long-time starters at big-time universities. That’s 1 out of 5 or 20% chance that he is a complete bust. Henne definitely falls in my 2nd category of long-time starters with excellent fundamentals. He started at a big time university for 4 years! Of the guys most like him since 1998 most have played in the Super Bowl. If you look at this year’s rookie starters, Flacco would be most similar to my category 1 guys who were all busts, and Ryan would be a category 2 guy who also falls in the 70% level. So this is why in my opinion, it is not problematic to start Henne Immediately.

along the same lines….

There reason the stats are deceptive on players that sit for a full year (or more) before starting usually have a winning record the year before, and teams go with a “if it ain’t broke, dont fix it” attitude in the first year(s). Which makes the team he eventually joins above average to begin with. If the team is really bad, they are pressured to throw the rookie in there and 75% of the time their career is ruined according to your analysis.

But since 25% (again, according to your numbers) of those guys would have been busts anyway if they had waited a year.. then basically its a 50/50 proposition. Funny that sounds familiar. I think it was Sparano who recently said that Parcell’s motto is that the personell business is a 50/50 proposition, so you just gotta try to be on the right side of that as much as possible.

he can handle being a NFL QB. Everyon knows you can make stats say whatever you want them say. When it comes to this though, he either is or isn’t gonna be a good NFL QB. The only way to find that out is to play him.

BTW, with Brees it didn’t do a d@mn bit of sitting him, he was stinking it up thats why SD drafted Rivers. The guy has to play, get some experience, and see if he learns and adjusts.

Now that being said, I don’t have nothing against him sitting 1/2 a season (or a full one for that matter if the team is doing good) to watch, listen, learn for a few games to see how NFL runs. But not play him at all when the team is stinking up just because some thinks he needs a entire season and offseason I think is a bit ridiculous.

He can take to the offseason some game tape, experience and learn from that. I see no sense in making him sit just for the sake of sitting.

Going back to what I was saying about stats, lets look at some of organizations that each was drafted into and how they were being run at the time shall we?

P. Manning – Colts .. Enough said
Leaf – Chargers when they were the “Chargers”
Batch – Lions .. Enough Said
Couch -the “revived” Browns
McNabb – Eagles….Enough said
A. Smith – Cincy Bungles….LOL

Some of these QBs were drafted into historically bad organizations not to mention a couple of “expansion teams”. It depends on the organization, the coaches, and teams around him. I’ll trust Bill/Jeff/ and Tony to decide whn its safe to put our Future QB in. Why not? I trusting them to reun everything else. Personally I don’t see any difference at all.

Also Matty you said:

Now let’s take a look at the 9 who didn’t start a single game as a rookie. Of those 9, I’d say that 7 of them are (or were) successful NFL quarterbacks (all but Losman and Tuiasosopo).

Really? REALLY?

Daunte Culpepper – has been NOTHING without Moss.

Pennington – What has he done to be successful?

Brees – He was stinking up for a few years until SD drafted Rivers.

Palmer – K, I like Carson

Rivers – He hasn’t shown me anything except he leans HEAVILY on the best
                                     RB in the game. Followed by 1 of the best TEs too.

A. Rodgers – How are you gonna call him successful? He has started 2 games!

Campbell – You just can’t be serious. When Washington made thier playoff run
                                      Campbell wasn’t behind center.

Sorry dude, I’m just not buying what your selling.

but….there are tons of unknowns yet. IF the line finally gets too know each other and work as a unit. Its not just talent at that position, its chemistry. And look what happened, they did o.k. for a young OL against the Jets, not great by any means, but it was a learning thing. BOOM, Thomas goes out, they plug in someone else and they have to find that chemistry with the “new guy”. I know, QB post. Later in the season, IF the o-line has found it, then put him in. You can’t handle him like a baby, shake him up, get him into a few full games and really see what we have.

I think if when the season is almost over and done with. Yeah i would start him for the last 2-3 games. But in all honesty I think its best he just stand on the side line and keep observing, keep learning, keep watching. See some tendencies and how the games progress. Get more reps on the practice field with the WRs. But at the same time is it just me or did the WR’s seem like they were trying harder for Baby Chad then they did his older brother?

Heck yeah… they need to start him for two reasons… QB’s take at least one full season of PT before their games begin to elevate… why put this learning period off into the future…

second – penny and his weak arm are killing the team right now… how can the team run against teams putting 9 -10 guys in the box and sitting under every route … when the QB can’t or wont take advantage of this and go over the top….

so all this said…you can’t just dump henne in their on the road against a complicated defense in say philly???

you have to start him at home against a straight forward team… so seatle followed by oakland and NE all at home gives him a good chance to start under good conditions…

here would be my plan… let penny punt the next two games (but if minn calls with a 4th for penny this all changes)… when the team is 0-4 … move henne up to 1/2 time in practice shedule some PT for him at home against blt & buffalo (say let him run the 2 minute drills at the end of the first half).

let him start the 3rd quarter in denver (and depending on the score – let him finish the game) and then he takes over the team at home against seattle…