CMV: You should never draft a QB on day 2

[paul-mac]

I feel like if a QB is genuinely viewed as being likely to be a quality NFL starter, he probably does in round 1. Very often we see day 2 QBs come in and within a year or two the same team has taken a QB in the first round and the day 2 guy just gets discarded and the pick is a complete waste.

2023 jury still out although Levis admittedly had some decent rookie tape.

 

2022 had Ridder, Willis and Corral. All three have already been replaced and only one of them was even given a real chance to start for the team that drafted him.

2021 has Trask, Mond and Mills. Mills has played a bit but his team took a first round QB in 2023. The other two look like outright busts.

 

2020 had a rare hit in Jalen Hurts, but 2019 had two backup quality guys in Drew Lock and Will Grier.

 

Mason Rudolph, DeShone Kizer, Davis Webb, CJ Beathard, Christian Hackenberg, Jacoby Brisset, Cody Kessler, Garrett Grayson, Sean Mannion. The day 2 picks from 2015-2018 is a list of some career backups and some outright busts.

 

Basically I think if you believe a guy is a good starter in the NFL he should be a first round pick and if you just want a backup you can just wait until day 3.

[Tugboat]

I don't entirely disagree, but i have a few significant addendums that i'd make that somewhat differ from the way you're looking at it here.

 

1) If we just browse through the league as a whole, i count ~6 "Day2" Picks who are the presumptive starters out of camp for their teams.  That's not very many.  But the reality is, getting a Starting QB is rare, no matter where you pick them, and it just gets more rare the later you go.  The vast majority of Starters are 1st round Picks.  Even fewer Day3 Picks ever become real Starting QBs of any kind, even in a stopgap or bridge sense.  Especially relative to the proportion of them drafted.  Teams toss out Day3 picks on developmental QBs like Candy.  There are rafts of them drafted in rounds 4-7 every year and signed as UDFAs.  The odds of finding a quality Starting QB there are astronomical.  People will point to the outliers there, but ignore the mountainous trash heap of guys who never even stuck through their rookie contract.  You're lucky to get a quality backup (where an awful lot of those are busted 1st rounders or Day 2 picks themselves).  So if you're looking for a starting QB and you don't have the right options with your 1st round pick, you're still better off gambling in Day2 rather than Day3.  Even if you're betting extremely uphill against the odds.

 

2) There's a major distortion in the market when it comes to QBs.  Where a lot of guys who would otherwise be "Day2 Picks" get pushed up into the 1st round instead.  So the exact sort of thinking you're talking about starts to become a bit of a "self fulfilling prophecy".  Teams convince themselves of what you're suggesting, and talk themselves into, "well if we think he's got Starter Potential we might as well draft him in the 1st round".  Then sometimes even let it get even more out of hand from there.  It's somewhat fair in that if you actually "hit" on a quality Starting QB...there's very little ceiling on what pick "investment" is "worth it".  But when you bust on a "1st round QB" you talked yourself into, it's just flushing critical draft capital and as a GM you're basically invested "all in" on the guy anyway. 

That's where we tend to get this noticeable separation.  Teams either like a guy enough to take them Top-10/15...or they're a Day2 or Day3 flyer guy.  There's usually a pretty big void there.  Very few real examples of Late 1st QB picks.  Just weirdly happens that some of the few most recent examples we see have turned into studs.

 

Since 2010 we've had effectively:

Love and Lamar who panned out (or appear to be panning out). +++

But other than that we've had:

• Pickett - Overdrafted bust.
• Paxton Lynch - Bust and was the epitome of the "late 1st" QB happening.
• Bridgewater never really panned out.
• Johnny "CFL Football" Manziel was a hysterically large bust. 
• Weeden the 40 Year Old Rookie - predictably didn't work out. 
• Timothy Tebow was a fun little footnote but ultimately a complete waste of time.

 

That's pretty much the list.  Which leads to my final point, which is probably pertinent to this particular 2024 draft...

 

3) Don't draft late 1st Round QBs.  There's an extremely narrow sort of profile of where that works out.  It's a sample of two incredibly talented and athletic, but extremely raw prospects who were younger and given significant 1st round hype from the jump.  Given time in the right situations and happened to work out.  In more than a decade worth of drafts.  The rest of the swings there are just various degrees of whiff to completely hilarious air ball.

Again...to Pt#2 above, if you really like a QB you should be willing to take them Top-10 or 15ish at least.  That leads to a whole different can of worms and big mistakes (your EJ Manuels, Christian Ponders, et al), but that's the way it tends to work.  Otherwise...you're effectively just drafting a "Day2 QB" in the 1st round, at a premium price.  🤷‍♀️

Neither of Nix or Penix fit the bill for what tends to "pan out" with Late 1st QBs.  They're both insanely old "college successful" guys, and neither is anything like a raw but ultra talented/athletically gifted project.  And at the end of the day...just making them a "1st round pick" instead of the Day2 Pick they probably should be...doesn't inherently change what they are.

 

I'm of the expectation that the league is going to be somewhat sensible and stick to the more common trends with this.  Rather than making Nix/Penix 1st round QBs.  But i also never underestimate the potential for teams to make goofy choices at QB in particular.  I just look at the situation and the prospects and i don't love the outlook.  😆

[jebrick]

But for the "late 1st" QBs, if they go to a good team, can have success.  IF they are allowed to sit a year and fix their mechanics they can have success.  Love and Lamarr are good examples.  Aaron Rodgers fell ( due to his own issues) to a good team.  While not a late round QB, the Chiefs, a playoff team, traded up to get Mahomes.

Caleb Williams will go to a better situation than the #2 QB.  If the Vikings move up to get someone, they will be in a better situation than a QB drafted by NE ( and forced to start).  I think NE may be in a decent situation due to having Brissett they can plug in and let whomever they draft sit and learn and work fora. season.

[Danger]

I looked into it a number of years ago (before LaMar Jackson was drafted) and generally speaking what I found was drafting QBs outside the top 12 was generally not a path to success. Obviously there will always be exceptions to whatever rules we put into place.