I'd like you to meet Phil Simms, Jim McMahon, Doug Williams, Mark Rypien, Trent Dilfer, Joe Flacco...
I don't think any of those guys show that a team made a long-term commitment to a guy they believed wasn't a top 10 guy. Most of your list qualified as top 10, at least as of their Super Bowl appearance and before their decline. Simms made two Pro Bowls, Doug Williams won the Super Bowl in a year in which he only started two games, but outplayed Schroeder so he was given the start for the playoffs. His career was shortened by injury. McMahon was the NFC offensive rookie of the year, and made a Pro Bowl before he started declining. Rypien made the Pro Bowl his first year as a starter, and again two years later when his team won the Super Bowl and he was (like Williams before him) named Super Bowl MVP.
Dilfer, I'll give you. And they rightly shitcanned him the very next season. Flacco was drafted as the Ravens QB of the future, and has drifted in and out of the top 10 ratings.
Not even close, they have a great starting offensive line and some young backs who aren't ready for the glue factory yet. Gordon might turn it around. Other than that, meh. They could use some offensive play makers, and more Browns fans seem to see it this week. Scapegoating Hoyer became a lot less convenient with Johnny's performance.
Our offense -- minus the injuries -- is good enough that it could win with a top 10 QB.
Again, by talking to fans of so many different franchises, I keep seeing only about ten franchises who aren't critical of their QB. The ten QBs who aren't generating sweaty palms aren't lining up to leave their stable franchises to come to Cleveland. Aside from criticizing the QBs on the roster, find a plan that involves winning with an average QB.
I still think that is much more rare historically than you believe, and requires you to hit on a lot more high draft picks because it takes so many more impact players at other positions to equate to the impact of a top 10 QB. The fact that most Super Bowls are won with top 10 QB's is your evidence that it is easier to find one of those guys and win that way than it is to build a team capable of wining with an average/below average QB.
There is a better chance of getting one of those than drafting some miracle worker. And if the miracle happens, awesome, I won't complain.
I think "miracle worker" is setting the bar too high. If you go with "guy who will generally be in top 10", that's excluding "miracle workers" but
includes guys who generally play well, and occasionally play great.
The question is how to get a top 5 QB... and how many QBs become top 5 with a crappy offensive supporting cast.
I don't think anyone is arguing that unless you have a
top 5 QB, you should keep changing that position until you do. The argument, I think, is that unless you have a guy who is currently in the top ten, or a young guy still developing who looks like he may have a legit shot at becoming one, you keep looking. So taking the top 10 QB's, plus the young developing guys, includes at least half the league.
But when you're stuck with a guy you're pretty sure is going to be in the bottom half, without a reasonable shot at cracking that top 10, you keep looking. because by that metric, I think Dilfer is probably the only guy in history who meets that metric. Every other Super Bowl was won by a guy in the top 10, or by a younger, still developing guy folks thought had a chance to become one.
