Rule of 26-27-60

There is a pretty cool article up on SI.com right now talking about the rule of 26-27-60 as an excellent way to predict QB success.  Basically, a college QB prospect should have a wonderlic score better than 26, should start more than 27 games in college, and should have a completion percentage higher than 60%.  Seems pretty simple, right?  

Here's a list of people in the past 20 or so years who did not made the cut:  Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, Michael Vick, Akili Smith, Tim Couch, David Carr, Vince Young, Daunte Culpepper and, yes, Joey Harrington.  See any commonalities there?  All disappointing and/or terrible picks (with the possible exception of Culpepper initially), and mostly busts.  

Now, let's look at the QB's who have passed the test: Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees, Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Matt Schaub, Kyle Orton, Kevin Kolb, Matt Ryan and, you guessed it, Matthew Stafford.  Pretty good company, right?  This certainly does not guarantee that Staff will have success, but it's definitely enough for all of us to have a little mid-summer hope about his prospects.  

I'm not going to lie, my most optimistic time ever as a Lions fan was either A) after we drafted Mike Williams and we legit thought that we had three stud WR's (along with Roy Williams and Charles Rogers, completely foolish in hindsight) or B) After Shaun Rogers returned an INT for a TD, helping us crush the Broncos a few years ago and moving our record to 6-2 (too bad they then went 1-7 the rest of the way).  That said, I'm officially saying that this is my 3rd most optimistic time to be a Lions fan.  I feel really really good about the direction this team is going, and I'm legitimately pumped to see these guys hit the field.  Here's hoping it turns out differently than the last two times I felt this way.

If you're curious, here's a link to the article: http://j.mp/akscya