Because the football-following world turns into increasingly excited concerning the NFL prospects of quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels and Bo Combine and Drake Maye and J.J. McCarthy and Michael Penix, Jr., right here’s a counter to the notion that the 2024 draft is loaded with can’t-miss prospects.
In 2021, a lot of the 5 quarterbacks taken within the prime 15 alternatives have missed.
Final yr, the third general choose — 49ers quarterback Trey Lance — was jettisoned to the Cowboys for a fourth-round choose. Final week, the fifteenth choice, Mac Jones of the Patriots, was dumped to the Jaguars for a sixth-round choose. Now, Justin Fields (who was the eleventh general choose that yr) has been despatched to the Steelers for a sixth-round choose, in 2025.
Three of these quarterbacks had been picked earlier than Micah Parsons. (D’oh.)
In the meantime, the Jets may need to give a sixth-round choose to get somebody to take quarterback Zach Wilson’s $5.4 million assured compensation package deal off their fingers. (He was the consensus second general choose that yr.)
That’s 4 of the 5, both traded for a lot lower than their draft standing or, up to now, not even tradable. The one exception, Trevor Lawrence, was dancing on the sting of changing into a franchise quarterback till the Jaguars collapsed down the stretch final yr. Now, a fourth season is likely to be wanted to determine whether or not he has lived as much as his standing as the primary general choose within the draft.
Truly, all the class has been, effectively, not good by way of three years. Others drafted in 2021 had been Kyle Trask, Kellen Mond, Davis Mills, Ian E book, and Sam Ehlinger. (The undrafted class comprises no Tony Romos or Kurt Warners, both.)
This yr, it appears as if a number of groups are ready to pin their hopes on a rookie quarterback. And whereas this yr’s class may very well be a bumper crop, the 2021 harvest has been a catastrophe for each group that took a quarterback, apart from Jacksonville. Because the Draft Industrial Advanced approaches the annual late April crescendo of proclamations that each choose is a winner, it is smart to keep in mind that it’s nonetheless a crapshoot, and at greatest a coin flip.
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