[breily]

Out of the 9 years listed it really only happened 3 times that a better QB was left - 2000 (Tom Brady), 2002 (David Garrard - debatable, but he's starting and Carr isn't), and 2005 (Aaron Rodgers). So 6 times out of 9 the best one was taken first - that seems pretty good.

If you go back even further I'd imagine this trend would continue - even Gladwell's main example (Ryan Leaf) was taken second to the best QB playing today (Manning).

[utnick]

not to turn this into sports news but:

2003: romo 2004: roethlisburger 2006: cutler 2007/2008: way too early

Historically speaking: steve young, montana, marino, and I could go on were not thought of highly by scouts

I thought it was commonly accepted that scouting QBs is a guessing game.

[breily]

Yea, I don't want to get into a huge debate about this either, and the names you mentioned are definitely in the same class as the first picks. My main thought was that while its not a science, the scouts are definitely not just randomly picking players like Gladwell makes it out to be (saying that "there is no way to know who will succeed at it and who won’t" and that "college performance doesn’t tell us anything").

[prospero]

The rhetoric in the article is a little ridiculous, but for a moment let's gloss over his glossed over details:

Professional football teams have an extreme financial incentive to accurately predict an athlete's potential. They have a sizable data set to examine, and a lot of money to spend, but there have still been some very notable failures.

Our education system does not have the resources of the NFL to determine who will be a good teacher. But even if they did, it would be a misappropriation of funds. Instead of focusing on pre-facto credentials (graduate degrees, etc.), we should put them in the mix and see how they perform, and pay the best teachers accordingly.

These seem like the most salient points from the article, and I don't think any of them are particularly false or oversimplified. If you know a lot about something and the article is for a general audience, it's bound to seem like a bunch of outright lies. Life is never as elegant as the New Yorker makes it seem, but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining (and sometimes informative) to read.

[dpapathanasiou]

"Our education system does not have the resources of the NFL to determine who will be a good teacher. But even if they did, it would be a misappropriation of funds. Instead of focusing on pre-facto credentials (graduate degrees, etc.), we should put them in the mix and see how they perform, and pay the best teachers accordingly."

Thanks for trying to get us back on point ;)

[mattmaroon]

I'll give you 2003, not 2004, and I'd lump 2006 into too early to say for sure though you're probably right.

[mattmaroon]

Yeah, Garrard/Carr is debatable. Garrard wouldn't be starting over Eli Manning either. So it may be 7/9.