Allure of QBs too much to resist

Some view them as a forbidden fruit, an object of great desire whose appeal is a direct result of knowledge that can't or shouldn't be obtained.

At one point or another, all NFL teams disagree.

They can't resist taking a bite.

Maybe there just isn't enough game film of David Carr and JaMarcus Russell to go around.

At best, it has been proven that taking a quarterback in the first round of a draft allows you a 50-50 chance of either winning big or searching for a new coach.

It is as much an exact science as successfully defining why in the world more than 2 billion people would be interested in watching a wedding today that doesn't include footage of the honeymoon.

But the itch for quarterbacks, however deadly to those who fail in their choice, was apparently too great this year when it came to football's most important position.

Three went in the top 10 on Thursday night, including one as the first overall selection who might think naked-waggle, 7-X quarter is something out of an adult magazine rather than an NFL playbook.

It didn't stop with Cam Newton going to a Carolina franchise that isn't more Super Bowl ready than the Auburn team from which Newton arrives, which makes sense in that the Tigers might pay their quarterbacks better. Or at least fathers of quarterbacks.

Jake Locker was taken eighth by Tennessee, and Jacksonville traded up to select Blaine Gabbert at 10, making it the first time since 1999 that three quarterbacks went in the top 10.

The names back then: Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb and Akili Smith. The odds for success didn't even reach 50-50 that year.

I understand it. History doesn't lie. You almost always need a good quarterback to win a Super Bowl because there are only so many Trent Dilfers and Brad Johnsons to mess up the theory.

It explains why since that 1999 draft, 36 quarterbacks have gone in the first round.

Thirty-six bites of the fruit, with far more worms in the bushel than not.

There was no quarterback on the board this year as alluring and yet also precarious as Newton, the Heisman Trophy winner who spent much of his senior season dodging questions about a pay-for-play scandal involving his father and recruitment.

In taking Newton, the Panthers proved how seductive the idea of landing a franchise quarterback can be despite all the warning signals.

They saw Newton's frame (6 feet 5 inches, 250 pounds) and arm strength and mobility and chose it over his spotty accuracy and questionable desire or ability to win over a locker room.

They saw a kid who did nothing but win games and didn't weigh heavily the fact his coaches simplified a spread offense for him and the fact he struggled mightily on a television interview to identify NFL verbiage.

Yes, it was funny. But more than anything, Newton hearing former coach and now analyst Jon Gruden refer to a basic play sequence and appear as though he was asked to translate it in Mandarin should have set off more alarms than every school across Charlotte offers daily for recess.

Gruden: "Flip right, double X, jet 36, counter, naked waggle, 7-x quarter."

It was at this point Newton looked as if he would rather be setting up tent directly outside the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. I swear if he was made to draw the play on the chalkboard, it might have been in stick figures.

I don't have a clue about most of what Gruden spouted, either, but I'm also not a No. 1 draft pick who will demand a contract worth tens and tens of millions and be the hope of an entire franchise and its fan base to produce a title.

And still, Carolina took the risk.

It bit from the fruit some consider forbidden.

So did two other teams in the top 10 picks of the first round.

The good news is that NFL teams, losers twice in court this week as labor strife continues, have told players they can resume voluntary workouts and receive playbooks.

This means Newton and Locker and Gabbert won't be delayed in one of the most important parts of their early transition from college to pro. This is definitely good for the draft's first pick.

"For a long time," Newton said after being selected, "I would go asleep with questions like, 'Where am I going?' "

He knows now. He is going to Carolina to learn what flip right, double X, jet 36 and all the rest of it means, and to try to prove he isn't just another worm in the bushel.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.