Rams, Bucs have been on different No. 1 paths

Rams, Bucs have been on different No. 1 paths

By Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News

[www.redlandsdailyfacts.com]

It’s bad enough the Rams concluded the second week of their season without crossing the goal line for a touchdown, but then the Football Gods went and served up a heaping dish of Carson Wentz making like Ben Roethlisberger while leading the Philadelphia Eagles to an easy win Monday night on national TV, and, well, everyone is in a panic.

The Rams, you’ll remember, had the first overall pick in last April’s draft and could have had Wentz.

Instead they decided to take Jared Goff, who hasn’t seen the field in the first two weeks of the season and might not be in uniform when the Rams play the Buccaneers Sunday in Tampa Bay.

Meanwhile, Wentz is rapidly emerging as a hero in the City of Brotherly Love. As we all witnessed on Monday Night Football.

To quote The Dude from The Big Lebowski: “That’s like, not cool man.”

Feel free to freak out. But do so at your own risk.

History reveals there is more than one way to grow a National Football League quarterback and that time lines don’t always accurately reflect draft status, talent or foretell future success.

It’s often about circumstance more than talent. And whose doing the picking more than at what point in the draft.

In 2002 David Carr and Joey Harrington were drafted first and third overall and both were starting by Week 1 of their rookie seasons.

Neither had memorable, nor particularly long, NFL careers.

Three years later Aaron Rodgers was drafted at the bottom of the first round by the Green Bay Packers and stood on the sideline for three years behind Bret Favre. When Rodgers finally took over as the starting quarterback, stardom soon followed and within two seasons he was hoisting a Super Bowl championship trophy.

Despite dubious beginnings, he’s on pace for a Hall of Fame career.

See, it’s not necessarily when you’re drafted or whether you deserve the keys to the car when you get them, it’s what you do when you get behind the wheel.

For every successful quarterback drafted first overall, such as Peyton or Eli Manning or Troy Aikman, there are busts such as Tim Couch or Lamarcus Russell or Jeff George.

Russell Wilson and Joe Montana were both third-round picks. Drew Brees was taken in the second round.

Wilson started for the Seahawks on Day 1. Montana and Brees rode the bench their first seasons.

All three won Super Bowls.

Ryan Leaf and Rick Mirer were taken second overall in their respective drafts and began their careers as their team’s starter. Both ended up NFL washouts.

“Every case is different,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter said.

The Buccaneers are a prime example, being in the exact same position in April of 2015 that the Rams found themselves in April 2016. They were at the top of the draft with a quarterback at the top of their wish list, but operating on a remarkably different time lines.

Which brings us to Goff, and in a roundabout way to Jameis Winston, whom the Bucs drafted first overall last year.

Goff may or may not be in uniform Sunday as he stands on the sideline in Tampa Bay watching Winston quarterback the Buccaneers. In fact, there is a chance Goff might not see the field at all this year.

Winston, on the other hand, has started every game during his first two seasons. So has Marcos Mariota, when healthy, after being selected second behind Winston last year.

We already know about Wentz, who was drafted No. 2 behind Goff last April.

It’s stuff like that that makes people wonder if the Rams blew it by picking Goff.

Valid concern. But way too early to tell, or worry.

As much as Goff and Winston have in common — same position, same distinction as first-overall picks — their differences reveal how tricky this whole quarterback development thing can be and why it behooves everyone not to make sweeping assumptions this early in the game.

Not all things are equal, even when it comes to being the first player picked. Winston was drafted by a team that won two games the season before and approached 2015 with a grow-with-our-young quarterback mentality no matter the affect it might have on the record.

The Rams drafted Goff coming off a seven-win season, and after trading up 14 spots to get to the top of the draft, while in win-now mode even if it means delaying the starting career of the future face of the franchise.

In a new market, with a coach in the last year of his contract and conviction within the organization if a few things break right they can push past the 7-9 mark to 9-7 or 10-6, the Rams will long-play the transition to Goff in pursuit of wins,

In Tampa Bay it was push, push, push.

In L.A. it’s patience, patience, patience.

Koetter was the Tampa Bay offensive coordinator last year when then-coach Lovie Smith made it abundantly clear he wanted Winston to be the Day 1 starter.

Didn’t matter if he was ready. As in really ready. The order was the order.

Koetter’s job was to make it happen.

“It’s just a matter of figuring out a game plan to give him a chance to be successful.” Koetter said.

Whether Winston deserved the job or not, or was fully prepared, was almost beside the point. The plan was to get him on the field as soon as possible. Learning on the job was just part of the deal.

Winston just rolled with it.

“I think you just have to go out there because you never know when you’re really ready,” Winston said. “You just have to go out there and compete.

“I think the biggest thing is just being a good teammate to your teammates, finding out the personalities and finding out the guys that you’re going to be battling with for the beginning of your career. Once you get on their good side, the football part is the easy part. I think just the team camaraderie, that’s the biggest part. The football; that’s the easy part.”

His first NFL pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, incidentally.

All part of a learning curve the Bucs were perfectly fine with.

“We definitely had some rocky beginnings,” Koetter said. “In Jameis’ case, he played a lot of big time games at Florida State under pressure situations in front of big crowds. But still, we had to figure out how he was going to do in the NFL. It was definitely a learning experience.”

Winning and losing wasn’t necessarily second to the play-now edict, but close.

“I would say there is some truth to that,” Koetter said. “And the key ingredient there is that every situation is different. Again going back, in our situation last year, it was made clear from the start that we picked Jameis No. 1 and he was going to be our starting quarterback, and we were going to build around him. After that decision is made, as an assistant coach, I mean the direction is very clear, you’re going to follow directions and do your best to get it done.”

Winston threw for 4,042 yards and 25 touchdowns with 15 interceptions. His quarterback rating was 84.2 and the Bucs finished 6-10.

The experience was beneficial going into Year 2.

“I just feel like I’m more comfortable in the offense, which allows me to have more control of the offense just by my comfort level and by my knowledge of the game plan,” he said.

The growing pains remain, though. Winston threw four touchdowns in a season-opening win over the Atlanta Falcons, then followed up with four interceptions in Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals.

“This is a very humbling league,” Koetter said. “Sometimes when you think you’re making progress, sometimes it’s two steps forward, one step back.”

We haven’t yet seen that with Goff.

But then, the Rams situation this year is remarkably different than the Bucs last season.

Frustrating, yes. But hardly a predictor of what the future holds.