By BILL WOLVERTON
Rockford (Ill.) Register Star

This, most likely, is the year NFL teams send a loud message to all promising college quarterbacks and their agents: "Get over yourselves."

In the past 16 years, eight quarterbacks have been taken with the first overall pick in the draft as opposed to three in the previous 16. Of those eight, one has won a Super Bowl-Troy Aikman.

"You're seeing more and more success with quarterbacks who failed at one place and move on to another," Chicago Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said.

If most general managers feel the same way, that's bad news for the Carson Palmers and Byron Leftwichs of this draft.

Since the Bears most likely won't draft a quarterback at No. 4, and No. 3 Houston and No. 2 Detroit have no use for another young quarterback, that leaves the Cincinnati Bengals standing between a quarterback going first or as low as fifth, when Dallas picks.

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis lobbed out the positions of need for his team at the NFL Combine in February: "Receiver, defensive line, secondary, offensive line and a quarterback for the future."

But Lewis added that he's a best-athlete-available kind of guy.

"If you get locked into a position, I'm telling you, you get your feelings hurt somewhere down the line," Lewis said.

Even Palmer, expected to be the first quarterback chosen, can see why teams are starting to shy away from the position.

"It's the hardest position to analyze," he said. "It's also the position that gets the most money."

Southern California's Palmer has the size - 6-foot-5 and 232 pounds - that seems ideal for the position. And he has the arm strength to make any throw in an NFL offense.

The knock on Palmer is that he had three average seasons and six strong games at the end of last season. But he threw 45 interceptions against 48 touchdowns in his first 46 games for the Trojans, and four picks and 23 TDs in his last six.

"I wish we could have had a couple of more games because our offense got it, and I finally got it," Palmer said. "It was just getting so easy."

Marshall's Leftwich seems to be the only player who could possibly unseat Palmer from the top rung of the quarterback ladder. Like most of the top quarterbacks, he didn't work out at the combine, resting an ankle he severely sprained in early November.

"All of the sudden, I have leg problems," Leftwich said. "I caught the Chicken Pox twice, too."

Leftwich played five games on that ankle, staying mostly in the shotgun so he wouldn't have to drop back. Marshall won all five games."

"I had to go out there," he said. "For the last two or three years those guys were used to me being in the huddle. I had to go out there for them."

After a 38-15 win over Louisville in the Gator Bowl in which Leftwich threw for 249 yards and four touchdowns, teammates carried him off the field.

"For them to lift me down the field shows what kind of people they are because I'm not a light guy," said Leftwich, who weighed in at 241 at the NFL Combine in February.

The rest of the quarterback field is led by California's Kyle Boller, who left scouts at his pro day cheering after he threw a ball from his knees 60 yards through the goalposts.

"I always had a gun," Boller said. "We'd have baseball tryouts in high school and I'd be in center field and just chuck it over the catcher's head."

The fastest of the quarterbacks behind Iowa's Seneca Wallace, Boller ran a 4.59 in the 40-yard dash at the combine and had the second-best vertical jump at 35 inches.

Rex Grossman (Florida), Dave Ragone (Louisville) and Chris Simms (Texas) are in the next grouping.

Grossman is the runt of the litter at 6-1, and the knock on him has little to do with his height. The NFL has learned its lesson on drafting Steve Spurrier quarterbacks (see Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews), and Grossman sputtered when Spurrier left for the NFL.

What intrigues scouts is Grossman's risk-taking attitude.

"I've been compared a lot to Brett Favre," Grossman said. "We play a lot alike. We both like to take chances."

Ragone, while not on Boller's athletic level, impressed scouts at the combine with his arm strength. He's another big guy, 6-4 and 249 pounds, and is known for throwing a good deep ball.

"There really haven't been any mobility questions," Ragone said. "It's more of a hitting the holes and accuracy that they're worried abut."

Former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms' son Chris has everything teams look for in terms of size (6-4) and smarts.

"Simms has some genes that are very intriguing," Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden said.

Another thing he has is the knock of not being able to win the big game. In games against Top 10 teams, he has thrown no touchdowns and 14 interceptions.

In the most hyped game of the Big 12 last season, both teams were 5-0, Simms threw three interceptions in a loss to Oklahoma.

"I know everyone will focus on the Oklahoma game," Simms said. "For some reason it seems to get lost that I led the Big 12 in passing the last three years."

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