More than
Winning Selections...
Money Management Tools
to Turn Picks into Profits.

My wife tells me that my columns have too many statistics.

Seems she gets bored with numbers, but loves the human interest stuff when I talk about people interactions. So, to appease her desires, and not to abandon my forte, numbers, I will forego listing the stats for what I’m about to say. At the same time, I request you trust that numbers bear out my positions while I forgo them in favor of the story around it.

My best friend started out as a client.

Five years my senior, my buddy hunts alligators at night in Florida waters and considers it a win when he wrestles one into his boat.

I’m just not into selling myself. Particularly in this business.

When I abandoned a career in the National Football League to open Qoxhi Picks, people thought I was nuts. Gambling was an evil. The 1919 Chicago Black Sox. Gamblers in movies were commonly linked to the mob. Anyone using my service for gain in 1977 had to break the law unless they were wagering legally in Nevada.

Jeff Hostetler led the New York Giants to a Super Bowl win to complete the 1990 National Football League season.

No, that’s not right.

More accurately, Hostetler followed the Giants to the title that year.

From a quarterback position it was Phil Simms’ team, but he was hurt on a Saturday afternoon in December, and second on the New York Giants depth chart was their 1984 third round draft choice, Jeff Hostetler. He began his college career at Penn State, but transferred to West Virginia before being drafted. Despite being saddled with a long time backup quarterback, Giants Head Coach Bill Parcells was able to bend this team into World Champions (they used to call it that). When Super Bowl winning quarterbacks are ranked, it would be hard to argue that Hostetler wasn’t the worst quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl as the starter. His talent would never be favorably judged against other signal callers that actually did key their team’s success on their way to winning a ring.

The quarterback almost always dictates the success of an offense. A team with Russell Wilson or Patrick Mahomes directing their attack is always in the hunt, just as previous championship teams directed by John Elway and Joe Montana resulted in Super Bowl wins.

Hostetler was the most unlikely man to raise a Super Bowl trophy with him in charge of the winning offense.

The San Francisco 49ers are in the most interesting of situations entering Tonight’s National Football League draft. Deebo Samuel is perhaps the best young talent in the entire league, offering versatility from multiple positions with bankable skills at every level.

The 49ers would not have advanced to the NFC Championship Game last January against the eventual Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams without his season-long contributions. His third season was his career best, and he avoided serious injury while sparking San Francisco’s offense.

No player in the National Football League plays a season injury-free. In 1994, I appeared on the San Francisco 49ers weekly highlight show with runningback Ricky Watters. Sometimes, the 49ers offensive star would wear shorts to the set and his legs were often swelled in spots where he had recently taken a hit.

“Ain’t nottin’,” Ricky would say with a smile.

Samuel is entering the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, and looks to be in a position to get his big pay day. His contributions during the first three years of his professional career are certainly beyond what his rookie contract bargained for. He delivered more than he was paid, and now he wants to cash his worth.

It is a great time for Deebo to flex his muscle, but the 49ers are faced with a whole different equation. While Samuel is coming off his best season, it is worth noting that the average career length for an NFL running back is 5.3 years. Granted, Samuel may blow those standard statistics and contribute for a decade or more at a top level pace. But, is this not the time for San Francisco to cash their chips on their star player?

It was a horrible year for quarterbacks.

The first quarterback chosen from the 2000 crop of college talent was taken by the New York Jets, they selected Chad Pennington with the 18th pick in the first round. It was two rounds and 47 selections later before the next quarterback was chosen that year. Giovanni Carmazzi was the 49ers third round choice, and the Ravens picked later in the third round to add Chris Redman to their roster.

Tee Martin was the Pittsburgh Steelers fifth round pick, and five quarterbacks were taken in the sixth round. Marc Bulger was chosen by the New Orleans Saints with the 168th pick and Spergon Wynn went to the Browns 15 picks later. The Final three sixth round picks included Todd Husak and Ja’Juan Seider who were picked by the Redskins and Cardinals respectively. Before those two selections, the New England Patriots utilized their second sixth round choice for a quarterback after taking Antwan Harris with the 187th pick. New England used the 199th pick in the 2000 draft to select Michigan Quarterback Tom Brady.

It has to be considered, without serious objection, to be the best draft pick ever. How could it not be? It acquired the best quarterback ever, maybe the best player ever, and the winningest of all time. And it came in the sixth round … with a team using their second pick in that round to select the GOAT.

Should we acknowledge the brilliance of the Patriots in picking Brady, or should we more cast doubt on the football world knowing what the heck they are doing when it comes to picking a man to lead their team from the all-important quarterback position? John Madden considered the offensive line to be the most important on the field, and Al Davis debated good-heartedly his contention that the corner was the most important position to fill on the roster.

Both agreed nothing mattered unless you had a quarterback capable of winning the Super Bowl.