Anytime you see the word “Extrapolated” in a post, you know that some serious research was done.
I think that even if Edwards exceeds that “elite” numbers, this team is still a year away from being a serious play-off contender. Thats not to say they won’t make the play-offs, but that the Super-Bowl run is still at least a year or two away.

Good work Brian. With Edwards only playing half a season as the starter, would it be more accurate to call this season Edwards first season? I know we all hope he plays like it is his third season!

My first impression was that Trent’s extrapolated numbers were not as good as I thought, but keep in mind two of his data points were bad weather games (not just bad weather, but horrible weather). That hurts the extrapolation.

Comparing average first year stats to those of proven QB’s proves that most great QBs struggle early. It doesn’t prove that all struggling rookie QBs will become great.

I think we’re all looking for signs – regardless of the stats – and I think we saw them. We need to find out if he can get it done at crunch time because almost every NFL game is close. I can’t wait to find out because we have a team that will afford him the opportunities. With JP, the team sucked so it was hard to know how much blame to assign to the QB. I’m fairly sure both will see plenty of playing time.

I notice you didn’t use QB rating as one of the stats. I checked it out, and found the elite QBs gain an average of 6.4 points, while the comparison group gained an average of 5.4 points. It’s interesting to note that three of these quarterbacks had 20-point increases in their ratings (both Mannings and Palmer).

Also, MrFurious1 has a point; this is looking at good/great QBs and seeing their first few years in the league. Note that five of those QBs were drafted in the top 4 picks overall… Instead, what if we select players just based on their draft status? Over the last 20 years, here’s the list of QBs drafted about where Edwards was (70-110) who had two or more years as a starter: Rob Johnson, David Garrard, Craig Erickson, Steve Beuerlein, Brian Griese, Scott Mitchell, Neil O’Donnell, Rich Gannon, and Chris Chandler. Ouch. That list covers pretty much every team in the league, since all but Garrard have played for 4 teams or more.

Out of this list of nine players, most weren’t starters until their fourth or fifth season, so what about the players in this list who started early? The best comparisons to Edwards then could be Erickson, Griese , and O’Donnell, who all started two out of their first three years in the league. If we look at these three players, they increased completion percentage from 54.4% to 59.9%, YPG from 190 to 218, and touchdowns from 1 per game to 1.3 per game. Also, they dropped INTs from 1/game to 0.6/game, and two (Griese and O’Donnell) ended up going to the Pro Bowl in their second year as a starter, despite only starting 10-12 games that season. So even average quarterbacks should improve in their second year as a starter…

Trivia note – of the 50 QBs drafted in the 70-110 range in the last 22 years, nine played for the Buccaneers at some point. Yikes.

Good job on the article, but the 13 QBs chosen seem too random for my liking. It almost looks like stat-loading for the benefit of talking yourself into Edwards. Does anybody have true rookie QBs who started somewhere between 7-10 games who had stats that were similar to those of Edwards? Dennis Shaw started as a rookie and had a similar completion percentage, but his stats don’t really make a good comparison because it was a much diffrent era that was harder on QBs and Shaw liked the deep ball. Thinking harder, I immediately thought of Andrew Walter because they were both pro-style QBs with good size on crummy Pac 10 teams in college and that’s who Edwards reminded me of his entire career at Stanford. Unfortunately (actually, fortunately, since Walter sucks), he’s a better comparison for Losman in that he sat his rookie year. I think “bad” rookie QBs would be more relevant to look at in trying to gauge what we can expect from the Trent Edwards Experience in year two. How many rookies rebounded? (I hope most of them did). Un fortunately, I doubt too many QBs since the advent of the forward pass ever led their teams to TDs in 4 of the 9 games they started and ever got an encore, so Edwards might be the guinea pig of sorts…

...I found calling Romo and McNabb “elite” to be kind of comical. McNabb, for example, has made a career out of the 1st and goal from the 1 yard line TD pass (a Tom Brady* favorite as well) and looking like a deer in headlights in playoff games, while Romo is something like 0 for 10 in terms of playing well in games after Thanksgiving for his career…those 13 QBs are at different stages of their careers, but if I had to guess how they should all be evaluated after their careers are over the way one evaluates NBA point guards from different eras and systems in terms of their overall “game” to get around stats that don’t translate, I’d go:

1. Peyton Manning (Magic Johnson- a once in a generation, all-time legend)
2. Tom Brady* (Isaiah Thomas- best player on a loaded team that cheats)
3. Brett Favre (Allen Iverson- an original; great early career, later he’s overkill from media)
4. Eli Manning (Chris Paul- good kid; impressive career gets progressively better)
5. Ben Roethlisburger (Jason Kidd- a little overrated, but I’d take him on my team)
6. Matt Hasselbeck (Gary Payton- hidden gem in Seattle that’s better than his stats)
7. Carson Palmer (Steve Nash- full of talent, but his teams play no D)
8. Phillip Rivers (Chauncey Billups- late bloomer who turns into a gamer)
9. Donovan McNabb (Tim Hardaway- system guy with gaudy stats…but he’s soft)
10. Drew Brees (Kevin Johnson- undersized all-star, never wins it all)
11. Marc Bulger (Mark Price- decent player who’s not going to carry a team)
12. Tony Romo (Stephon Marbury- me-guy w/ great stats; lousy point guard)
13. Jake Delhomme (Rod Strickland- one shining moment for each- Delhomme played in Super Bowl/ Strickland was prominently mentioned in Wu Tang’s “Triumph”.

14. Trent Edwards (Rajon Rondo- horrible rookie season, plays for a clueless coach and on a once proud team that has been run into the ground in recent years- wins a league title in his 2nd year)...it’s July.