caesarbear said:
But we're talking about back-ups not starters, not Brady's successor. Lots of late round QBs still playing as backups, including Curtis Painter.
Why not select a backup in the 1st round otherwise?
Patriots have found at least two backups "good enough to start in the NFL" without drafting them early. Where's the evidence that you have to draft them high? How much talent difference is there between Mallett/JG and Hoyer/Cassel and why is it worth "4 rounds."
I get that you're being flippant, and that's fine, but I don't know why you don't want to go there. You say stuff like you think it's "ludicrous" but then back it up with nothing. Make an argument instead of just saying "4 rounds."
I don't think the Patriots went into the process saying "we need to draft a QB in the second round." Obviously it was a priority for them, but they evaluated QBs at various different price points. Here's a list of their meetings. These are just what was publicly reported; certainly there were more meetings, and certainly there was more film study on guys they didn't meet with.
http://walterfootball.com/draft2014meetingsteams.php
Tajh Boyd, QB, Clemson (PRO) - 6th round (216)
Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Louisville (PRI) - 1st round (32)
Jimmy Garoppolo, QB, Eastern Illinois (PRI) - 2nd round (62)
Garrett Gilbert, QB, SMU (PRO) - 6th round (214)
Kenny Guiton, QB, Ohio State (PRO) - undrafted
Seth Lobato, QB, Northern Colorado (INT) - undrafted
Johnny Manziel, QB, Texas A&M (PRI) - 1st round (22 overall)
A.J. McCarron, QB, Alabama (PRI) - 5th round (164)
Zach Mettenberger, QB, LSU (PRI) - 6th round (178)
Aaron Murray, QB, Georgia (PRI/PRO) - 5th round (163)
Connor Shaw, QB, South Carolina (PRO) - undrafted
Logan Thomas, QB, Virginia Tech (PRI/PRO) - 4th round (120)
Keith Wenning, QB, Ball State (PRI) - 6th round (194)
It's not like they didn't look at a bunch of late-round / UDFA options. Evidently they didn't feel the value was there as it was with Cassel and Hoyer, or Garoppolo was just such a great prospect in their eyes that it was worth using a fairly high pick. I think if they'd felt like Lobato or Shaw was some sort of Cassel-esque super-sleeper they might have gone there in the 6th or 7th and used the 2nd somewhere else. I also think if they'd thought Bridgewater was a Luck / Newton-caliber prospect slipping for stupid reasons, they would have taken him at 29 (and there were rumors they would have taken Bortles there).