No Super Bowl Pass

The Houston Texans will make Fresno State quarterback David Carr the No. 1 pick in today’s NFL draft. But there’s a very good chance Carr will never make the Texans No. 1.

Of the 57 quarterbacks selected in the first round of the regular and supplemental drafts since the 1970 merger with the old American Football League, only four have won a Super Bowl with the teams that drafted them. Pittsburgh’s Terry Bradshaw did it. So did Chicago’s Jim McMahon, Dallas’ Troy Aikman and the New York Giants’ Phil Simms.

Carr will be the 12th quarterback taken with the top pick since the merger and the fourth in five years, following Michael Vick by Atlanta in 2001, Tim Couch by Cleveland in 1999 and Peyton Manning by Indianapolis in 1998.

The top four quarterbacks last season, according to the league’s passer ratings, were Kurt Warner of St. Louis, who was not drafted; Rich Gannon of Oakland, fourth round; Jeff Garcia of San Francisco, undrafted, and Brett Favre of Green Bay, second round. Not on that list is New England hero and Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick in 2000.

“Sometimes, it’s just a crapshoot,” said former San Francisco coach Bill Walsh, widely considered one of the best judges of quarterback talent in NFL history. Even for Walsh, scouting quarterbacks is part skill and part luck.

Baltimore Coach Brian Billick learned about that early in his career, when he was a low-level assistant with the 49ers. He worked the draft room at team headquarters in 1979, where he was entrusted with keeping the coffee flowing and the doughnuts within reach. That was the year Walsh drafted future Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana. The milestone moment was, well ... nothing special.

“There was no whooping and hollering, no ‘Yeah! We got our guy!’” recalled Billick, who 21 years later won a Super Bowl as coach of the Ravens. “In fact, Bill jokingly said, because [Eddie DeBartolo, who then owned the 49ers] was a Notre Dame guy, ‘We’d better take the Notre Dame guy because otherwise my butt is out of here.’

“No one did that with the precognition that we just got the great quarterback of the NFL. It just didn’t go down that way.”

The Texans know much more about Carr than the 49ers did about Montana. General Manager Charley Casserly likes Carr’s size and strength, and isn’t bothered by his semi-sidearm delivery, which is a bit unusual but apparently effective. Only nine of Carr’s 533 passes were intercepted last season. Equally important, Carr appears to be mature and stable. He married his high school sweetheart three years ago, and their son will be 2 next month.

The other top quarterbacks in the draft are Joey Harrington of Oregon--who could be selected as high as third, by Detroit--Patrick Ramsey of Tulane, Kurt Kittner of Illinois, and Rohan Davey of Louisiana State.

Walsh, who now works as a consultant for the 49ers, likes the 6-foot-4 Harrington, although the 49ers have more pressing needs. The math doesn’t work anyway. Harrington could be among the top 10 players picked and the 49ers draft 27th.

“[Harrington] has demonstrated just about everything,” Walsh said. “He’s a great competitor with real poise. He’s quick on his feet, and he’s proven himself to be a winner. He’s a top-flight, can’t-miss quarterback.”

But, put simply, can’t-miss quarterbacks often miss. Five were selected in the first round three years ago--Couch by Cleveland, Donovan McNabb by Philadelphia, Daunte Culpepper by Minnesota, Akili Smith by Cincinnati, and Cade McNown by Chicago--yet only McNabb, Culpepper and Couch proved themselves worthy of the investment. Smith and McNown were busts. Notably, McNabb and Culpepper, the most successful of the five, watched from the sideline most of their rookie seasons. The three others played right away.

The Texans recently signed veteran Kent Graham as their probable starting quarterback. But the pressure will be intense to get Carr on the field.

“I think he’s going to be able to handle the bigness of this league maybe sooner than some guys have,” 49er Coach Steve Mariucci said. “It will depend on whether he’s going to get thrown to the wolves immediately, which is a possibility, or is he going to be allowed to develop gradually? A lot of it will depend on his supporting cast.”

In order to keep him out of a plaster cast, the Texans will have a lot of beef in their offensive line, beginning with tackles Tony Boselli and Ryan Young. Almost as important, Mariucci said, is that Carr plays on a team with a good defense.

“If he’s on a team that gives up a lot of points and he’s having to play from behind, and in the pocket more than he should be, it’s going to be difficult for any rookie quarterback to be in that boat,” he said.

The best rookie quarterbacks rarely are afforded that luxury. Usually, they wind up on teams coming off lousy seasons. That was the case with Jeff George, drafted No. 1 by then-woeful Indianapolis in 1990. He fizzled there, then bounced from Atlanta to Oakland to Minnesota to Washington. Now, he’s out of the league. In each city, he rode in as the savior and rode out the sap.

Ah, but those whistling spirals were spectacular. Mouse Davis, his quarterback coach in Atlanta, tells about working out George before his rookie season, when Davis was a Detroit assistant.

“He was a puffy kid, an ugly sucker,” Davis said. “He threw the ball two or three times and I said, ‘He’s getting better looking.’ After he was done, I said, ‘Gee, isn’t he a beautiful kid?’”

The same scouts who were enthralled with George projected Gannon as a safety and Warner as a supermarket stock boy. Those same scouts anguished over Drew Bledsoe vs. Rick Mirer, burned out their calculators over Manning vs. Ryan Leaf.

“What you can’t evaluate about a quarterback is, how is he going to react under pressure?” said Kansas City Coach Dick Vermeil, considered an outstanding judge of quarterback talent. “How is he going to throw with a man in his face? How is he going to make people miss? There are a lot of kids, when it’s seven on seven vs. air, they’re 70% or 80% complete. You take that quarterback and send a guy coming right down his throat and it’s different.”

Vermeil wears a Super Bowl ring in large part because of Warner, who rose from the anonymity of the Arena Football League to lead St. Louis to a championship in the 1999 season. Warner had to win over everyone--even his coach--after starter Trent Green went down with a season-ending knee injury. The Rams opened the 1999 regular season against Baltimore, and Billick remembers Vermeil telling him the Rams were simply trying to hang on with Warner until Paul Justin grasped the offense well enough to step in.

“We had concerns,” Vermeil confessed. “I thought Kurt could play, but I never projected he’d play like he played. Nobody could have predicted that.”

George and Leaf had exceptionally strong arms, which left lots of scouts ignoring all the fluttering red flags. Turns out, neither player had the leadership skills to consistently rally an NFL team.

ESPN analyst and longtime Philadelphia quarterback Ron Jaworski doesn’t think he would have made the same mistake the Chargers made in using the No. 2 pick on Leaf.

“If I were scouting a guy, I’d spend a week at the campus and take his linemen out for dinner and beers,” Jaworski said. “I’d get them in a relaxed atmosphere, then ask them to really tell me about the guy.

“I don’t know Ryan personally. But I’m sure if I visited with his offensive linemen in college, along the way I would have gotten the inkling that this guy had a problem.”

Billick had the opposite feeling when he went to the airport to pick up Montana mere hours after the 1979 draft had ended. It was a late flight, and the two had never met. Still, Billick had no problem spotting the young quarterback in a crowd.

“When you met the guy, I can say there was a look in his eye that I’ve only seen in a few people,” Billick said. “There was a dead calm. Not that glazed ‘I have no idea what my name is right now’ look, but a real calmness. Bjorn Borg had that same look. It made you feel like, ‘Yeah, everything’s going to be all right.’”

Of course, Montana had to prove it on the field. As NFL scouts know well, all the statistics, measurements, predraft interviews, and, yes, even dead-calm expressions only point to a quarterback’s potential. And that brings to mind the words of longtime NFL coach Bobby Ross: “Son, your potential is going to get me fired.”

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*--* The Dirty Dozen Quarterba cks since 1979 who were top-10 draft choices but fell well short of high expectati ons: YEAR PLAYER COLLEGE OVERALL PICK TEAM 1999 AKILI SMITH Oregon 3rd Cincinnati Slipped to third string on the Bengals to Jon Kitna and Scott Mitchell last season 1998 RYAN LEAF Washington St 2nd San Diego The yardstick by which future busts will be measured. Jerry Jones signed him in desperati on move last season 1994 HEATH SHULER Tennessee 3rd Washington Lost starting job to Gus Frerotte and faded into obscurity 1993 RICK MIRER Notre Dame 2nd Seattle Showed promise in rookie season, then slowly slid off the gridiron. Currently with Raiders, his sixth NFL team 1992 DAVID KLINGLER Houston 6th Cincinnati Threw 16 touchdown s passes in six seasons with the Bengals and Raiders 1990 ANDRE WARE Houston 7th Detroit Heisman Trophy winner never could grasp the nuances of an NFL offense 1989 STEVE WALSH Miami 1st* Dallas Intellige nt signal caller couldn’t compensat e for a weak arm 1987 KELLY STOUFFER Colorado State 6th St. Louis Threw seven touchdown passes in four seasons, never supplanti ng David Krieg as Seahawk starter 1983 TODD BLACKLEDGE Penn State 7th Kansas City The underachi ever of the heralded quarterba ck class of ’83. Had 29 touchdown passes in seven seasons 1982 ART SCHLICHTER Ohio State 4th Baltimore Played only 13 games for Colts. Gambling addiction cost him his career and altered his life 1981 RICH CAMPBELL California 6th Green Bay The heir apparent to Lynn Dickey threw nine intercept ions in 68 career passing attempts 1979 JACK THOMPSON Washington St 3rd Cincinnati “Throwin’ Samoan” had 33 touchdown passes and 45 intercept ions with Bengals and Buccaneer s *suppleme ntal pick Roy Jurgens

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