There is a quote from Citizen Kane, the movie that holds the
record for most great quotes in one movie: “If the headline is big enough, it
makes the news big enough.” That line
seems to sum up the attitude of NFL teams when it comes to the draft; if you
pick a player #1 (or #2) in the draft, that will make the player worthy of
being that high of a pick.
That certainly seemed to be the attitude of the Rams last
year, who picked Jared Goff as the #1 overall pick when nobody really thought
he’d live up to that sort of hype. He
was a first-round level talent, but the number one overall pick? But the Rams needed a quarterback, and with
no honest-to-goodness number-one-pick caliber talents available, the Rams took
a flyer on Goff. Now, a year later, one
source jokes that next year the
Rams will be drafting his replacement.
This year’s quarterback class was even worse. All the major QB prospects had significant
downsides, and one talking head on ESPN said that after so much debate between
Mitchell Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson and Deshone Kizer (the top
four QB prospects) his takeaway was that they were interchangeable and that if
you wanted one but didn’t get him, just take the next name on your list.
But that’s not the way the draft played out. With such a poor class at QB it was thought
that most of the top picks would be defensive players, but Trubisky, Mahomes
and Watson all went in the top 12. All
three teams traded up to acquire a new quarterback, with the Bears giving up a
ton of draft picks to move up ONE SPOT to get Trubisky (after apparently being
psyched by the 49ers, who only feinted interest in Trubisky to get trade
bait).
This is the logic used by the Bears, the Chiefs, and the
Texans: we need a quarterback, but there are no sure thing QBs in the draft,
but there are even fewer QBs available via trade, so we will draft a QB way
earlier than he deserves and hope we get the next Dak Prescott or Tom Brady. For how many years will NFL teams take an
absurd risk on an unproven QB hoping to find the next Tom Brady in the 6th
round?
The problem is, highly touted top picks often flame
out. I’m sure there must be a Wikipedia page
for “Highly drafted quarterbacks that failed.”
Oh wait, it's
at Sports Illustrated. So drafting a
QB who started 13 games at a mediocre football school in a bad conference, and
led them to a mediocre record, is not encouraging for the number two overall
pick. Trubisky may work out, but nothing
in his record says, “Winner.” Having
physical gifts is not enough; the Raiders thought Jamarcus Russell was the most
physically gifted QB ever, but that didn’t work out so well.
At least Watson led his team to a National Championship,
beating Nick Saban. But a guy named
Tebow won a Heisman and a couple of National Championships, and right now he’s
hoping to move up to the Mets AA team (seriously who names their A franchise
the Fireflys? Joss Whedon?). Yet two QBs were drafted ahead of Watson,
which may provide him with some incentive.
All those years ago a guy named Aaron Rodgers was expected to be drafted
possibly number 1, but he fell, fell, fell, and he has had a chip on his
shoulder ever since.
So, good luck all you aspiring NFL quarterbacks. The good news is that Watson is going to the
Texans and Mahomes to the Chiefs, good teams where they can grow. Trubisky is going to the terrible, awful, not
very good Bears. Prey for Mitchell
Trubisky.
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