So a franchise QB has to do mostly with the team's commitment and investment. Ryan Tannehill is a franchise QB; not because of how he has played but because the team has made the commitment to him as their QB. If the Texans make the same commitment to whatever QB is in this draft, then his is a franchise QB. They might decide to go with Paxton Lynch, make him one of the faces of their franchise, and ride or die with him for a few seasons. That would make him a franchise QB.
No - it's not about investment. I didn't list Tannehill or Stafford or Cutler because, while they are paid a lot, the teams aren't necessarily sure they are the guys going forward. Simpler way to ask the question (ignoring age-related issues): is the team certain they want this QB starting for them in 3 or 4 years? If so, they probably feel they have a franchise QB. If there are still questions, they don't have a franchise QB yet, though they might have a potential one.
Tannehill's contract meets your 3 or 4 year criteria. All the guys you listed have a significant investment, a high draft pick or huge contract. RGIII was a franchise QB until the franchise gave up on him. Same with Stafford to a lesser degree.
But by your definition, a guy can go from a franchise QB to a weakness/liability in just one season (and vice versa). Kapernick, Schaub, Cutler, RG3, Bradford, and Stafford all fit your definition at some point.... and now they don't (well before age was a factor). It also works the other way... Palmer, Romo, Dalton, Eli were all being close to left for dead... now they're "franchise" guys again. I guess your "soft" definition is why its lacking as a definition... most people will associate a franchise QB as somebody who ends up not having question marks till age/natural wear-and-tear set in (much like Brees and Peyton have shown). They're the car that doesn't spontaneously break down on you and question why you spent so much money on it. I agree that defining a person to be a franchise QB requires you to see the player actually perform and play over a good enough stretch to make that determination (instead of people arbitrarily saying a guy is being drafted is a "franchise" QB).
Absolutely - I think that's true of all players. If a player goes from great to terrible (or vice-versa), things change. There are no guarantees in sports - all you can know is what someone looks like today. And it's not even about being good today - it's whether you think a guy will be good down the line. Take a guy like Tyrod Taylor or Brian Hoyer (!). They are having great seasons - better than some of the franchise guys. But at this point, I'm not sure anyone believes they'll be a great QB 5 years from now, and I doubt their teams view them as the future of the franchise. On the flipside, Andrew Luck was a franchise QB after his rookie year. And a bad year now doesn't really change that. Totally agree with all of this. While there's no universal definition, I think if you picked a name of a QB out of a hat, you'd have pretty solid consensus as to whether they are a franchise QB or not. The exceptions would be the young players where we don't have enough history or data to really know. And there are always your exceptions like RG3 who pretty universally looked like a franchise QB and then fell apart.
Goff looked pretty bad against Oregon. I was surprised by how inaccurate he was, esp. on short passes. And Oregon's given up a lot of big passing games to so-so QBs this year.
2nd quote kind of sounds like what happened to David Carr, except at the college level. Carr was never able to recover from playing behind a really bad O-Line. It makes me skeptical that Hackenberg will be able to recover either.
Carr had terrible work ethic on top of prioritizing things other than football. He was set for failure regardless of his O Line.
