Delay Of Game

What Savior? None of the six teams that spent a top-10 draft pick on a quarterback in 1992, '93 or '94 has a .500 record since making that choice.
Team (QB)	Before Draft*	Since Draft
Giants ( Brown )	33-15, .687	33-46, .418
Patriots ( Bledsoe )	9-39, .188	24-29, .453
Seahawks (Mirer)	18-30, .375	22-32, .407
Bucs (Bilfer)	13-35, .271	13-24, .351
Redskins ( Shuler )	27-21, .563	13-24, .351
Bengals ( Klingler )	20-28, .417	19-50, .275
TOTALS	120-168, .417	124-205, .377
*Three-year record before being drafted.

The NFL is in quarterback-development hell. And that has never been more apparent than in recent weeks, with the Seattle Sea-hawks' public dangling of Rick Mirer in trade talks with the Atlanta Falcons and the public flogging of Trent Dilfer by the fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers .

Mirer is a quiet Midwesterner, a high school coach's son from Indiana who played at run-oriented Notre Dame. Dilfer is a talkative Californian who came up throwing on nearly every down in his record-setting career at Fresno State . But as pros they have much in common. At week's end they were ranked 30th (Mirer) and 31st (Dilfer) among the 32 quarterbacks who have played enough to qualify for the passer ratings this season. In lopsided Week 5 losses, they combined for no touchdowns and six interceptions. Their play typifies an alarming trend over the last four years: Highly drafted, highly paid quarterbacks are flopping big time in the NFL .

It was going so badly for Mirer that when SI went to press on Monday the Seahawks were trying to trade him to the Falcons for suspended malcontent Jeff George . It was a historic trade possibility in that two such high draft choices—George went No. 1 in 1990, Mirer was the second player selected in '93—have never been traded for each other straight up. Seattle coaches have been disappointed in Mirer's on-field decisions and overall performance under pressure. Their frustration came to a head in the 31-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 29, when Mirer was 10 of 30 with four interceptions. After five games, in which he had thrown one touchdown pass and nine interceptions, Mirer was benched in favor of journeyman John Friesz . On Sunday, in a 22-15 win over the Miami Dolphins , Friesz threw touchdown passes of 80, 65 and 51 yards, all of them longer than any Mirer has thrown in four years.

Likewise Dilfer, the sixth overall pick in 1994, hasn't lived up to his draft-day billing as a franchise savior. His transition to the NFL has been grueling; he threw five touchdown passes on one glorious college afternoon, but five games into his third NFL season he has all of six TD throws—plus 34 interceptions, including 10 in '96.

During the NFL season, Thursdays and Fridays are teaching days, yet Dilfer says, "When I get under the center on Sunday, I still feel like it's Thursday or Friday. This isn't a game of Einsteins, but you can't play it well if you're thinking more than reacting." Knowing that first-year Tampa Bay coach Tony Dungy 's plan is to stick with Dilfer for the entire season, in three home games Bucs fans have lustily booed the man with the 35.6 quarterback rating.

Life couldn't be tougher for the player the NFL needs most: the gifted young quarterback. It seems a reasonable expectation that in years three, four and five of their careers, the brightest quarterback prospects should begin paying dividends. But almost without exception, the current crop isn't. Six quarterbacks were chosen among the top-10 players in the 1992, '93 and '94 drafts, and every one of them—Dilfer, Mirer, Drew Bledsoe , Dave Brown (a '92 supplemental draft pick), David Klingler and Heath Shuler—is struggling to fulfill draft-day expectations.

By the end of this season, NFL teams will have invested $68.5 million in the Struggling Six, but what kind of return are they getting on their investments? At 23, Bledsoe , the No. 1 pick in the '93 draft, was the youngest player to throw for 10,000 yards, and he has looked spectacular at times for the New England Patriots . But accuracy remains a problem. Brown , in his second year as a full-time starter for the New York Giants , directs an offense that at week's end ranked 29th in scoring. With 31 interceptions in 39 career games, he has been prone to throw to the wrong team. After four seasons the Cincinnati Bengals could not re-sign Klingler , the sixth player picked in '92, whom they planned to use to back up waiver-wire acquisition Jeff Blake . Klingler is now the Oakland Raiders ' third-string passer. After 13 starts by Shuler , the third pick in '94, the Washington Redskins opted to play Gus Frerotte , a seventh-round pick in the same draft.

"The bottom line?" says former Tampa Bay coach Sam Wyche . "God didn't make 30 great quarterbacks for one era, at one time."

According to San Francisco 49ers offensive guru Bill Walsh , quarterbacks taken at the top of the draft face near insurmountable hurdles early in their careers. "They're drafted not to manage teams but to carry them," he says. "Pass protection is abandoned to flood the field with receivers. And when the quarterback struggles, the media and fans are so demanding that the player gets devoured, the carcass is thrown away, and the teams find them another victim to chew on."

Here are four reasons why the brightest pro quarterback prospects fall to earth with such a thud.