At roughly 4:30 P.M. on Saturday, April 25th the name Matt Stafford will in all likelihood be called from a podium in New York City marking him as the 1st overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft. Being the first pick is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand you've been anointed as the best franchise building block in your draft class and you'll be paid handsomely because of that. On the other hand you're about to go somewhere horrible, teams that draft 1st rarely come off a Super Bowl season the previous year. In the case of Stafford, he's about to make enough money to purchase an entire voting district in Detroit with enough left over to own two of the three American car manufacturers.
But before we spend the next week playing the roll of Asian massage therapist to the Lions, I'd like to interrupt this happy ending to talk about the Greatest (Disaster) #1 Pick of all Time in the NFL Draft. Tim Couch.
Here is a little game that I want to play, compare the college numbers of these two mystery players.
MYSTERY QB A
Comp: 564
Att: 986
Yards: 7,731
Comp%: 57.2
TD: 51
INT: 33
MYSTERY QB B
Comp: 825
Att: 1232
Yards: 8,772
Comp%: 67.0
TD: 76
INT: 37
If you're the fan of the Detroit Lions you might look at those numbers and pray to Spongebob that your franchise is going to put the keys to the kingdom in the hands of Mystery QB B -- and they still might, because the last time I checked Tim Couch is available. Mystery QB A, well that's the guy that your team is tempted to give the equivalent of the GDP of Western Africa to for the next five to seven years.
Do I mean to insinuate that Matt Stafford is potentially a Couch in sheep's clothing? Not necessarily, I just mean to bring up the point that the man who holds the crown as the greatest disappointment in NFL Draft first pick history was light years ahead of the kid who will take to the podium first this year. That's not exactly the type of thing that I'd want to hear right now in Detroit. I suppose this is one of the benefits of a massive economic downturn, there isn't a Lions fan in the city of Detroit that can afford the internet access required to look up numbers like these.
However, just in case you jumped online at the library Mr. Ford allow me to soothe those fears. Tim Couch had a QB Rating of 73.2 in his rookie season which was better then the 71.2 QB Rating of a certain 6'5 quarterback with a laser, rocket arm. Perhaps you've heard of him -- Peyton Manning. So hell, maybe Tim Couch was on his way to becoming the next Peyton Manning but was sidetracked by a horrible franchise, in a terrible position, with no redeeming qualities anywhere on the field.
Luckily Matt Stafford won't run into those problems in Detroit -- I mean hell you couldn't possibly be coming off a worse season then the 1997 Indianapolis Colts who went 3-13, with a point differential of -88 points, right?
Oh wait -- that's right, you went 0-16 with a point differential of a ball clenchingly bad -249, losing every game by almost 16 points on average.
But I'm sure you have nothing to worry about. I'm sure Matt Stafford isn't en route to becoming the subject of a column ten years from now talking about the Greatest (Disaster) #1 Draft Pick in NFL history. Then again I'm not the person shelling out the type of money that would make Eliot Spitzer's heads spin so that some dude can sling a football around an empty stadium, in the most depressed city in the country, for the next seven years.
If you want to see how monumentally bad this could work out for you Mr. Ford - might I suggest taking a road trip over to Cleveland and just yell Tim Couch onto a busy street. If you survive that experience perhaps you'll give Jason Smith's agent a call.
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