Is a QB worth the money at the top of the draft?

This post will sort of be made obsolete when the rookie salary wage scale comes into effect with the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, but its a good topic to discuss anyways. First, lets look at Quarterbacks taken in the top 5 over the last 10 years:
2010. Sam Bradford, #1, St. Louis Rams, 6 years, $78 million
2009. Matthew Stafford, #1, Detroit Lions, 6 years, $72 million
          Mark Sanchez, #5, New York Jets, 5 years, $60 million
2008. Matt Ryan, #3, Atlanta Falcons, 6 years, $72 million
2007. JaMarcus Russel, #1, Oakland Raiders, 6 years, $61 million
2006. Vince Young, #3, Tennessee Titans, 5 years, $58 million
2005. Alex Smith, #1, San Francisco 49ers, 6 years, $49.5 million
2004. Eli Manning, #1, New York Giants, 6 years, $45 million
          Philip Rivers, #4, San Diego Chargers, 6 years, $40.5 million
2003. Carson Palmer, #1, Cincinnati Bengals, 6 years, $40 million
2002. David Carr, #1, Houston Texans, 7 years, $46.2 million
          Joey Harrington, #3, Detroit Lions, 6 years, $36.5 million
2001. Michael Vick, #1, Atlanta Falcons, 6 years, $62 million

Although there seems to be an upward trend in success for QBs taken in the top 5 in recent years, 6 of the 13 quarterbacks drafted (Vick, Harrington, Carr, Smith, Young, Russel) that high have been undoubtedly busts for the teams that drafted them. For a couple others, their success is either still being determined or questionable (Palmer, Stafford, Sanchez, Ryan, Bradford). Eli Manning is the only one to be the starter for a Super Bowl winning team, and outside of that has been pretty mediocre. Philip Rivers is, as of today, unquestionably the best of the bunch. When you draft a QB in the top 5, and you pay him the amount of money that they are paid, you should be expecting that QB to be a top QB in the league at some point.

If you take a look at the best QBs in the league, most lists would include, in some order, Rivers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers. Of these five, only Manning and Rivers were top 5 picks.

The problem is that all of the QBs taken early are taken based on college success. As Malcolm Gladwell has pointed out in his article Most Likely to Succeed, (which you can find here) with QB's you can not predict how they will do in the pros based on what they have done in the past. This is what makes taking a QB so high in the draft a risky proposition. You simply can not predict their success with any degree of certainty. There are too many intangibles. How fragile is the guy? (Stafford) How will he handle pressure? (Young) How will he handle the complex schemes? (Russel) Can he stay out of trouble? (Vick)

With other positions, like offensive linemen or almost all positions on defense, you can predict success on a number of factors. It makes them safer picks. If you bust on a QB, it sets your franchise behind by years because of the sheer numbers in their contracts. Taking a second round QB will push the contracts down to below $15 million in most cases. Taking a QB simply later in the first round saves you almost $30 million. (Joe Flacco, the 18th pick in 2008, signed a 5 year, $30 million contract)

Its really simply a gambling game. If someone came up to you and said, I will give you 20% odds of winning the lottery if you will pay me $20 million. If you pay me $60 million, however, I will increase your odds to 40%. When you put it in those terms, does it really seem worth the risk?