The risky move a title-starved team should try: Trade a young, star QB

[bleedspeed]

This is a great read about team building in the NFL. I always felt it might be a no-brainer drafting QBs every year in first 3 rounds. They seem to be assets that don't go down in value until they play meaningful games which a lot of them don't. If they look good in preseason or mop up duty some of them look great.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/24801136/how-nfl-teams-trade-young-qb-starters-thrive-bill-barnwell-2018

[Monster]

It's an interesting idea. The biggest question is how many teams are good at drafting and developing QBs? Andy Reid comes to mind. I'm not sure how many other teams could be confident they could even get the next Detmer much less a Nick Foles type. McVay came in and made a #1 overall pick look good. I'll give him plenty of credit there but as the article kinda pointed out what these teams can do they surrounded him with talent. He had one of the best pass blocking LT that they signed for a nice chunk of money. The list could go on. Could they do this with some guy they pick at #10 or whatever spot in a couple years? I'm not so sure. If you thinknhe can turn the guy he picks into the next Cousins then great.

Fun to think about but I'm skeptical. The Patriots did well with Matt Cassel and Jimmy G (but screwed up trading Jimmy too late) and got peanuts for a guy like Mallet who at some point had lots of buzz about him. It was a bad use of a 3rd round pick.

If you are serious about doing this you HAVE TO keep 3 QBs on your roster and hope one of the backups becomes a Case Keenum or Prescott or Schaub or Gannon or Tyrod Taylor etc etc. You would also need to be willing to throw a little extra money at some of those guys to make sure you have them locked up in case they actually became starters and be cheap...or you could deal them to get the draft picks to build around your current star high priced QB. Should the Browns have traded away Andy Dalton and gone with AJ McCarron a couple years ago? Right now the answer seems like no since it doesn't seem like the league values him particularly high but again do teams actually know QB talent?

[bleedspeed]

It is interesting. I was reading something about the Patriots and it was a former assistant. It was not said, but they felt like they had teams that they could win the Superbowl with other QB's other than Brady. Not any QB's but any top 10 QB. It certainly is not out of line.

[Monster]

What isn't covered also is just the human element. It's a business but there are times you flat out cant just treat players like they are just assets. That might be especially true of QBs if they are leaders of your football team which is pretty much expected of that position.

[bleedspeed]

I agree with that. I think that is one of the qualities Baker Mayfield seems to have. Watson also. I wouldn't have said that about Pat Mahomes, but Alex Smith has gotten credit for his development too.