Draft strategy if your rookie QB becomes a star?

[Luvnit2]

(02-14-2020, 09:34 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Jason Fitzgerald from OverTheCap offers an interesting take on positional drafting/focus if you get a stud rookie QB:

'Having a rookie QB will always be the biggest “moneyball” advantage a team can have. Lets assume Joe Burrow becomes a star. His contract will effectively be undervalued by about $30M per year if that happens which is huge if the team can spend it effectively. But why just focus on the savings of a QB?

Once that same team know they have to deal with the high price of the QB (which they should know by 3 years in) maybe they should be moving their draft strategy in the first and second rounds away from taking linebackers, running backs, safeties, non-rush linemen, tight ends, centers, and guards to exclusively drafting cornerbacks, edge rushers, receivers, left tackles, and defensive tackles with rush ability. If you hit on an edge rusher late in the first at $3.3M a year well that’s about $17M in value. A corner would be around $12M. A left tackle in the ballpark of $13M and so on. Hit on a few picks using that kind of strategy in two or three seasons and you just made up the obvious “competitive edge” of the cheap QB with the less obvious one of hitting on premier positions in the draft.

There are ways to build a very successful team around an expensive QB. The problem is that too often team maybe get away from doing things the right or logical way and things get out of control and optically it looks really bad. But if a team develops a strategy early in the process and does its best to stick to the strategy it should never compromise their ability to make deep playoff runs year after year.'

There is a reason teams with young QB's who are very good like Ravens, KC and even Cowboys could field more complete teams. The way the salary cap is structured for rookies is huge if a team can hit on any first round QB as they have 5 years of cap savings at the QB position.

Great post!