So it was posted in thread about Rick Mirer's son that Jim Harbaugh was the first Michigan QB to throw an NFL TD pass in decades, and this little factoid is what kept Mirer from being a Michigan commit. I wanted to see 1) was this true, and 2) how bad did it get? Did Harbaugh kick off the period of Michigan's success in getting QBs to the NFL, or was he a blip? Exactly how much water is Tom Brady carrying for us in the League?

I tried to organize this around when these guys were Michigan's starters, but there's some fuzziness to that due to injury, transfers, and decisions like "let's turn Devin Gardner into a wide receiver then ask him to start at QB after we forgot to have any other reasonable backup" and "let's bench Devin Gardner for Shane Morris to motivate him."

Let's start with the Bo years:

So...yeah, Jim Harbaugh can say that he was the one successful NFL QB that Bo produced.

Next up are the all-too-short Moeller years:

That's solid success, even if two data points isn't a track record. Both Grbac and Collins had long, long careers, and coupled with Harbaugh, who was still in the League at the time, you can see why the Michigan QB started to be someone you paid attention to. You can also argue that Carr rode Moeller's coattails from a recruiting perspective, but that would be a bit of a disservice to the teams that Carr put together in the late 90s.

So, the Carr years:

Here's a mind-bender: when Chad Henne entered the NFL, Scott Dreisbach was just retiring from the AFL. Carr sent EVERYONE to the NFL, even if all they got was a cup of coffee, or, if you're Drew Henson, a sad dose of reality. I included Matt Gutierrez and Ryan Mallett, because why not - I don't think Michigan 'owns' their NFL success or lack thereof, but they were part of the program...even if I was rooting for Manningham to punch Mallett on the sideline during that one Wisconsin game where he kept completing passes to the WRs' feet.

At one point during this era, here were the Michigan QBs playing some form of pro football all at once: Harbaugh, Grbac, Collins, Dreisbach, Griese, Brady.

Ok, grab your ice cream and turn on The Notebook, because we're about to eat our feelings. Here's the Dark Times:

Ok, so RichRod got a bit of a bum start, with the Feagin fiasco, then trying to make Threet/Sheridan workable. Sheridan's Wisconsin game was the sole bright spot of the season. Threet found some success at Arizona State after transferring, but decided to retire after a LOT of concussions.

Tate Forcier was Johnny Manziel before there was Johnny Manziel. Also without the success. But given that he was the only one on the roster who could even vaguely quarterback, he did really well. Probably was never going to be a pro success. Also, he had to deal with the Michigan fanbase going, "wait a second, weren't you named Jason last year?"

If we're being honest, Denard probably wasn't ever going to be a pro QB either, but damned if Hoke and Borges didn't snuff that little flame of hope even so. Between the stories of Hoke being more interested about Gardner's status, then refusing to acknowledge obvious injuries, then refusing to put together a competent offense aside from RichRod's holdovers, Denard still managed to be the most exciting player in football his whole career. By the end of it, he couldn't throw a pass.

I can't even say Gardner's name without feeling sorry for the guy. There's actually an error here: he wasn't drafted, he was signed as a free agent. [I'm not going to edit the spreadsheet and take save a new jpeg, sorry.] Usually when people get drafted/signed by the Patriots it means they're going to get a decent shot at a job, but...not with QBs. It probably would have been better if he'd gone to a slightly more...in-flux...team, but if there's anyone who fought against a coaching staff determined to break their spirit, it's Gardner.

Morris, as much as Gardner, is an indictment on the Hoke Era, because 1) Hoke & Borges staked the team's entire future on the assumption that he'd work out, 2) he got starts over Gardner for non-injury reasons, 3) as far as I can tell nobody bothered to coach him - he threw only a risky fastball when he got here and only threw a risky fastball when he played, and, of course 4) the Shane Morris Fiasco (tm). He spent his year under Harbaugh in a weird and ineffective WR package.

I have to move on for my own sanity. HARBAUGH:

There isn't much to base any kind of narrative around here. This isn't like the Carr transition, where Moeller clearly started something special, left the cupboard STOCKED, and the rest is history. If Harbaugh gets credit for developing Rudock, he also gets the blame for whatever John O'Korn did while he was here. Speight was on an upward trajectory before injury, and we need to remember that Brandon Peters also had his head taken off a couple times. QBs can be broken. Everyone else gets an incomplete, except for Patterson, whose window for professional football is, by his own hand, closed.

We're also in an era of unprecedented mobility: top QBs who lose competitions are more likely to transfer. The pressure is there for QBs to excel on Day 1 or not at all, meaning development time is compressed and the question of who "owns" a QB's NFL success, or lack thereof, will become even more murky than it already is.

So where does that leave us? Brady and Henne are still in the NFL, as is Rudock albeit on a practice squad. That's three careers which probably won't last much longer, and then we're back to "it's been XX years since a Michigan QB has thrown an NFL touchdown pass."