Premier positions

I've been thinking a lot about the draft lately from a big picture perspective, then trying to narrow down my thoughts to help me develop some core things I believe about drafting players and building a roster that can win championships. You'll have to excuse me if I go all John Madden and state the obvious over and over again. It's just how I think sometimes. A lot of these ideas tie into my post from yesterday as well, so I apologize if it sounds like you just read all of this.

The NFL is a players league. You can't win without great  players. But it's not enough to just have great players. You need your best players to play the most important positions. That isn't to say that you don't want great players to play non-premier positions in the league. And I also think that coaches must adapt their schemes to their best players, but without great players you're only going to go so far.

The NFL is clearly a quarterback driven league. I don't think it is possible to win a championship without a QB who is playing at an extremely high level. Take Joe Flacco for instance. There were times this season when he really stunk the joint up. There were 6 games this year when he didn't even throw for 200 yards. There were 5 games this year where he completed 50% of his passes or less. And there are stretches of games through his entire career where he has played like this. But this year, when the playoffs rolled around, Joe played some outstanding football, and it ended up resulting in a Super Bowl victory and an outrageous contract.

Because the QB is so important in today's NFL, teams have made a conscience effort to surround them with as much help as possible on offense. And defensively, teams place their number 1 priority on limiting a QBs effectiveness. To me, there are 4 premier positions in the NFL that every time has to have if they are going to win a championship. They are the quarterback, the left tackle, a pass rusher, and a cover corner.

A championship level QB must be at his best when the game is on the line. His focus, toughness, and attitude must be on full display in the biggest moments of games. He must be able to rise above difficult situations and execute flawlessly no matter what is going on around him. A great QB holds his opponents in contempt. He believes the players on the other team aren't even worthy of being on the same field as him. He holds his own teammates to an impossibly high standard, the same standard he holds himself to. He is a perfectionist in his preparation. He has trained his body to react, not think. He is prepared to overcome any obstacle, and losing is simply not an option. A QB MUST win.

The left tackle is the second premier position in the league. He must be capable of blocking the top pass rushers in 1 on 1 situations. The QB must have confidence that he will have adequate time in the pocket to do his job. Plenty of quality quarterbacks, especially young ones, have been ruined by bad offensive line play. Once a QB starts seeing ghosts and feeling pressure that doesn't exist, he stands almost no chance of being effective. His attention is no longer on his own job, and that leads to failure.

The third premier position is a pass rusher. I'm talking about the kind of guy that offenses game plan for, a guy the QB finds before he gets under center. This pass rusher must be able to win in multiple ways. He must have the quickness to threaten the edge off the snap, but also the strength and power to counter. He must always keep the tackle guessing. He must give superhuman effort on every single play. The success of the rest of the defense hinges largely on his ability to affect the quarterback.

The final premier position in the league is a cover corner. I'm talking about a corner you can put on a wide receiver and forget about it for 90% of the snaps in the game. This is man coverage, not zone. Great coordinators mix it up with their play calling, but when push comes to shove you MUST be able to play man coverage. If you play off coverage on third and medium against a good QB you're going to be watching completions all night long. You have to be able to take away an offenses first throwing option and schematically, you just can't afford to use 2 guys very often to do it.

After this list there is still plenty of debate in my mind. I think a lot of it depends on what you'd like to do schematically. Do you want to play in multiple WR groupings the majority of the game, or are you going to build your schemes around multiple TE groupings. Do you want to find more than 1 linebacker who is capable of playing on third down, or do you want to find corner/safety hybrids to play on third down.

I'm still working these ideas out in my head, and I'm not necessary sure that one is better than the other, they're just different. But I do know that if you're going to win a championship you have to have the premier positions in the league taken care of.