Two years ago, when it was apparent that the Bills were dead set on taking a QB in the draft, I shared an extended history of Football Outsider's QB draftee forecast model, the Lewin Career Forecast, listing their hits and misses over the prior decade.
In a nutshell, the LCF formula was right about 65% of the time and wrong about 35% of the time, which if nothing else was a higher predictive rate than NFL front offices, given that QBs selected in the first three rounds have less than a 30% success rate of establishing themselves as league average or better starter.
In 2013, Football Outsiders scored EJ Manuel as mediocre to below average, and gave Mike Glennon a terrible forecast. Out of an uninspiring group, FO forecasted that Geno Smith would have the most upside out of any QB drafted that year.
In 2014, the model showed the whole QB class to again be mediocre to below average, with Garoppolo and Bridgewater receiving the highest scores, Bortles and Manziel the worst. In 2012, the LCF forecast was the only place I can recall that rated Russell Wilson on par with Luck and RG3 before the draft, and predicted that Nick Foles, not Weeden or Tannehill, would eventually emerge as the 4th best QB from that draft.
FO has retired the LCF, replacing with a new and improved QB analytical forecast called QBase. For now, the full article and new methodology is behind the ESPN Insider pay wall, although it will be available for free sometime in the next few weeks on the Football Outsiders web site.
In terms of the big two, the QBase system is high on Mariota, but predicts Winston will be a bust at David Carr and Tim Couch-like levels. For those Rumblers who believe the Bills should invest a draft choice this year at QB, here are the relevant nuggets for projected 2nd and 3rd rounders:
- Brett Hundley received the highest forecast score out of any QB in the last three drafts, including Manuel, Bridgewater, etc., giving him a 30.5% chance of becoming an upper tier starting NFL QB. QBase scores him highly on his performance vs. elite level defenses, his completion percentage and his adjusted yards per attempt, and believes that a 2nd or 3rd round investment on Hundley is a better gamble than a 1st rounder on Winston.
- Bryce Petty is rated very poorly, with his chances of being a bust over 80%. He is downgraded as a system quarterback who put up big stats against subpar college defenses.
- Garrett Grayson, who is often mentioned elsewhere as a possible sleeper due to his playing in a NFL style offense, is also rated exceptionally low- the 9th lowest projection of any rookie QB in the last 20 years.
- For QB late round flyers, the system is most favorable on Sean Mannion.
I suspect that the signing of Tyrod Taylor takes the Bills out of the QB draft scenario this year, unless they are able to trade down in this year's draft and pick up some additional selections to play with. This will be the third consecutive year that the QB draft class is considered mediocre to below average, compounding our difficulties in solving the QB situation via the draft.
