Christian Hackenberg, and When Second Round Picks First Start

by Chase Stuart on May 8, 2016

in Draft

In the 2016 Draft, the Jets selected Christian Hackenberg with the 51st pick. It was a curious move, given Hackenberg’s underwhelming college career; the book on him, though, is that he needs some time to be “rehabilitated” as a quarterback, whatever that means. ^[1]This anecdote about him making easy conversation about the Masters doesn’t exactly settle my fears about his inability to read defenses or throw accurately under pressure.

But how much time will he get? On average, how many games until a 2nd round quarterback starts his first game? There were no quarterbacks drafted in the second round in 2015, while in 2014, Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo were selected. Carr started his first game as a rookie, while Garoppolo will get his first start in the 33rd team game of his career, thanks only to a Tom Brady suspension.

In 2013, only one quarterback was drafted in the 2nd round…. and it was Geno Smith. The Jets didn’t exactly hand Smith the job, but he won a quarterback competition with Mark Sanchez by default when Sanchez suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the fourth quarter of the team’s third preseason game against the Giants.

The Jets don’t plan on starting Hackenberg in 2016, but they didn’t plan on starting Geno Smith as a rookie, and they didn’t plan on starting Ryan Fitzpatrick last year, either, until Smith was on the receiving end of a, um, training camp injury. Smith or Fitzpatrick is the likely week 1 starter for the 2016 Jets, and even Bryce Petty probably has better odds than Hackenberg of starting the opener. But with New York, strange things tend to happen.

The table below shows how many team games it took until a player started. For non-16 game seasons, I pro-rated them for 16 seasons, to make that applicable to modern times. So, for example, a 53 (like next to Ken Stabler) means a player started in the 5th game of his 4th year (i.e., after 48 games had passed), regardless of the actual facts.

Search:

Year	Quarterback	Pick	College	Tm	First Start
2016	Christian Hackenberg	51	Penn State	NYJ
2014	Derek Carr	36	Fresno State	OAK	1
2014	Jimmy Garoppolo	62	Eastern Illinois	NWE	33
2013	Geno Smith	39	West Virginia	NYJ	1
2012	Brock Osweiler	57	Arizona State	DEN	58
2011	Colin Kaepernick	36	Nevada	SFO	26
2011	Andy Dalton	35	TCU	CIN	1
2010	Jimmy Clausen	48	Notre Dame	CAR	3
2009	Pat White	44	West Virginia	MIA
2008	Brian Brohm	56	Louisville	GNB	31
2008	Chad Henne	57	Michigan	MIA	20
2007	Drew Stanton	43	Michigan State	DET	47
2007	Kevin Kolb	36	Houston	PHI	34
2007	John Beck	40	Brigham Young	MIA	10
2006	Kellen Clemens	49	Oregon	NYJ	18
2006	Tarvaris Jackson	64	Arkansas; Alabama State	MIN	15
2001	Marques Tuiasosopo	59	Washington	OAK	40
2001	Drew Brees	32	Purdue	SDG	17
2001	Quincy Carter	53	Georgia	DAL	1
1999	Shaun King	50	Tulane	TAM	12
1998	Charlie Batch	60	Eastern Michigan	DET	3
1997	Jake Plummer	42	Arizona State	ARI	8
1996	Tony Banks	42	Mesa CC (AZ); Michigan State	STL	4
1995	Kordell Stewart	60	Colorado	PIT	33
1995	Todd Collins	45	Michigan	BUF	16
1992	Matt Blundin	40	Virginia	KAN
1992	Tony Sacca	46	Penn State	PHO
1991	Brett Favre	33	Southern Mississippi	ATL	20
1991	Browning Nagle	34	West Virginia; Louisville	NYJ	17
1989	Mike Elkins	32	Wake Forest	KAN
1989	Billy Joe Tolliver	51	Texas Tech	SDG	8
1986	Jack Trudeau	47	Illinois	IND	3
1985	Randall Cunningham	37	UNLV	PHI	2
1984	Boomer Esiason	38	Maryland	CIN	6
1982	Oliver Luck	44	West Virginia	HOU	27
1982	Matt Kofler	48	San Diego Mesa J.C.; San Diego State	BUF	60
1981	Neil Lomax	33	Portland State	STL	2
1980	Gene Bradley	37	Arkansas State	BUF
1978	Matt Cavanaugh	50	Pittsburgh	NWE	44
1978	Guy Benjamin	51	Stanford	MIA
1977	Glenn Carano	54	UNLV	DAL	78
1976	Mike Kruczek	47	Boston College	PIT	6
1976	Jeb Blount	50	Tulsa	OAK	23
1973	Gary Huff	33	Florida State	CHI	12
1973	Ron Jaworski	37	Youngstown State	RAM	46
1973	Gary Keithley	45	Alvin CC; Texas; Texas-El Paso	STL	13
1972	Pat Sullivan	40	Auburn	ATL	35
1970	Dennis Shaw	30	Mount San Antonio J.C.; USC; San Diego State	BUF	3
1970	Bill Cappleman	51	Florida State	MIN
1969	Terry Hanratty	30	Notre Dame	PIT	6
1969	Bobby Douglass	41	Kansas	CHI	5
1969	Al Woodall	52	Duke	NYJ	22
1968	Gary Beban	30	UCLA	RAM
1968	Mike Livingston	48	SMU	KAN	20
1968	Ken Stabler	52	Alabama	OAK	53
1967	Bob Davis	30	Virginia	HOU	5
	Median	44			20

The best measure of average here is probably through the median; for all 2nd round quarterbacks since 1967, that number is 20, or the 4th game of his second season. If we only go back to 1978, the median jumps to 18; go back to 1990, and the median is at 17.5. Go back to 2000, and the median is 19.

In other words, it’s pretty consistent: September 2017 is a good bet for when Hackenberg would start his first game for the Jets. There are, of course, other measures of average. The mode — i.e., the most common team game for a second round quarterback to start — is actually shared among two numbers. Derek Carr, Geno Smith, Andy Dalton, and Quincy Carter all started their team’s opener as rookies. But, for whatever reason, four quarterbacks also started in game 3 of their rookie year: Jimmy Clausen, Charlie Batch, Jack Trudeau, and Dennis Shaw. After that, a trio of quarterbacks got their first start in game 6 and another trio in game 20. Of course, there were also 8 quarterbacks who never started a game at quarterback in their careers, too.

Since 1967, four teams — the Bills, Raiders, Dolphins, and Cardinals — have drafted four quarterbacks in the second round. But only one has done it five times. That team would be the Jets, and New York hopes that the fifth time will be the charm. Through 2016, the first four Jets quarterbacks drafted in the second round have a career 23-47 record as a Jets starter.

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References
↑1	This anecdote about him making easy conversation about the Masters doesn’t exactly settle my fears about his inability to read defenses or throw accurately under pressure.

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