What were the expectations and/or hype behind Charlie Batch when he was drafted?

That’s more or less when I started following the team diligently. Was there any hype behind him, or was he just a project behind Scott “The Man” Mitchell? Were fans excited about Charlie’s potential, or just hoping he’d somehow supplant Mitchell?

Any stories related to that time period would be appreciated, really. Feel free.

I never had any expectations of him. I was surprised he did as well as he did.

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That draft was all about Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. Who’ll be better? It’s a coin flip!
And then after those two, the 3rd best qb in that draft was Batch. He’s only two spots behind Peyton Manning! And he’s from Michigan.
A new hope.

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Much like Stafford, I’ll never doubt his toughness.

But even as a punkass kid, I was underwhelmed by Batch. I was hoping I was wrong here, since I didn’t know any better at that time – if I know any better now LOL.

The biggest problem was when Booby Ross signed him to a contract extension for seven-years, $31 million, which included a $10 million signing bonus, when Batch hadn’t even led the Lions to a playoff appearance and was making more money than Super Bowl QB Kurt Warner.

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OOF. Now this I didn’t know about.

It wasn’t too long after that I started helping Nate with some articles, from my memory.

I was living in northern MN at the time and didn’t even have television.
My brother-in-law came up and said the Lions had drafted a new QB and he was supposed to be really good. It was Charlie Batch.
Next time I saw him he was not a Batch fan, and back to disillusionment.
He was up one time during the 0-16 season and his truck was light blue had a large lion decal on the side. He said he was walking out of a gas station and some guys asks, “Is that your truck?” BL says it is. The guys just shook his head and said, “Must be rough” LOL
The Bastard!

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First of all, thank you so much for your insight @lifetimelion!

Secondly, welcome to the board bro!

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Thanks .
I mostly lurk. Most anything I can think of get said eventually.
But I love reading some of the great posters on here. I learn a lot.
Been watching since the late 60’s. Minus a few years with no tv.

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I really didn’t any expectations of Batch. I probably only had hope that he’d be good because I knew he was Bobby Ross’ hand-picked guy

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I expected him to suck and not win anything. He didn’t let me down.

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I had no expectations. I was pleasantly surprised that he was really good.

  • When healthy
    ** Which never lasted very long
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I had no expectations. But after he had those 2 streaks with no interceptions as a rookie, I was on his side. I liked his toughness.

Yeah, they say he was “brittle” but I don’t know who takes those kinds of hits (illegal ones, too) and gets back up to fight. It was like a Rocky movie.

He was also an overachiever. I’ll take an overachiever any day over an underachiever, even if more talented.

To be an overachiever you have to actually achieve something right? Or am I mistaken?

Not if the bar is so low that being average is above what people thought you could achieve…

No. You’re mistaken. To “overachieve” you have to outperform reasonable expectations. See Tom Brady. Not many predicted him to be the GOAT when he was drafted, did they?

Think Rudy…

Thought he was overdrafted to begin with, so expectations were low. Over time, Charlie Batch proved to be a warrior. Played in a Thanksgiving Day game with broken ribs (footnote: it was Tom Brady’s professional rather forgettable debut as a backup QB— 1 of 3 for 6 yards).

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My expectations were low and I think most Lions fans had low expectations. Many were upset we traded up to get him. (I was) We had a history of picking the wrong QB and I recall most fans wanted Griese. Most were in disbelief we would trade up and take a QB from Eastern Michigan over staying put and drafting Griese from UofM.

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Thaaaaaaat’s right. Now a lot of it is sort of coming back to me – at least what the board was feeling at the time.

Second round pick. No excitement. Meh.