I want to push back against what I see as artificial constraints that are limiting our QB conversation. For example, the following reasons have been given as to why the Pats must draft a QB at #3:
- The Pats will not have a chance to draft a top QB prospect in the near future.
- Top QB prosects have the highest hit rates, particularly those considered top 3/5 prospects overall.
- The Pats can't trade back and pick a QB because he might get drafted by another team.
- Next year's crop of QB prospects are trash.
However, we can't say 1, 3 or 4 are definitively true. They might be true, or truer than not, but they shouldn't be taken as a given. And yet they're presented as if they're mic-drop points in an argument.
As for 2, this makes intuitive sense, but is it true? Someone must have offered the following list, but as I can't find it, here's where PFF's top 15 QBs from last season were drafted:
- Allen, 7 (3rd QB drafted)
- Mahomes, 10 (2nd)
- Lamar, 32 (5th)
- Dak, 135 (8th)
- Stafford, 1 (1st)
- Purdy, 262 (9th)
- Tua, 5 (2nd)
- Hurts, 53 (5th)
- Cousins, 102 (8th)
- Goff, 1 (1st)
- Herbert, 6 (3rd)
- Love, 26 (4th)
- Stroud, 2 (2nd)
- Geno, 39 (2nd)
- Lawrence, 1 (1st)
Over the last 10 years, 4 of these QBs have been drafted 1-5 and 4 were drafted 6-32. Overall, over the last 10 years, 17 QBs have been drafted 1-5 and 15 were drafted 6-32. The hit rate is nearly identical.
I'm not suggesting this is hard science. Probably the numbers would change if I looked at other measures of QB effectiveness or other seasons, but I have a job.
Anyway, it's worth considering why so many top 5 drafted QBs don't pan out. I'm sure it's been said, but I'll repeat: they're being drafted into shitty situations. And the Pats, right now, unfortunately, are the poster child for a shitty situation.
I guess the issue with this is the chicken and the egg right - if the Pats are truly the "poster child for a shitty situation" - is a year led by Jacoby Brissett followed by ???? going to make that any better for whoever the incoming QB is? I am presuming the argument would be to pursue something like a Jalen Hurts / Jordan Love / Lamar Jackson path - grab a toolsy QB in R2 or late in R1 who you can sit behind Brissett as you build a strong team around him and his skillset, and then usher him in., but is the team escalating up to a "good" situation in the amount of time having a rookie salaried starting QB would be most hugely beneficial? Or is it just a QB one year later in their deal walking into a bad situation?
And if they're not a poster child for a shitty situation, how much longer will those conditions preventing that (which is basically a legitimately good defense) hold out?
And I will say the descriptor above still involves using a first - I know the argument was "the Pats will get another chance" and at some point they may, but successfully doing that may be a different story. Below are the years and pick locations of any QBwho is at least a likely mid to high end NFL starter in 2024 as well as the total number of pick spent on QBs
2022: Pick 262 (Purdy) - 9 Total QBs chosen
2021: Pick 1 (Lawrence) - 10 Total QBs chosen (including 5 first rounders, jeez)
2020: Picks 1 (Burrow), 5 (Tua), 6 (Herbert), 26 (Love), and 53 (Hurts) - 13 Total QBs chosen
2019: Pick 1 (Murray)- 11 QBs chosen
2018: Pick 1 (Mayfield), Pick 7 (Allen), Pick 32 (Jackson) - 13 QBs chosen including 5 first dounders
2017: Pick 10 (Mahomes), Pick 12 (Watson) - 10 QBs chosen including 2nd overall pick
2016: Pick 1 (Goff), Pick 145 (Prescott) - 15 QBs chosen
2015: None (7 QBs chosen, including 1st and 2nd overall pick)
2014: None (13 QBs chosen, Pick 3 and four others in R1 and R2 - you could argue Derek Carr on Pick 36)
2013: Pick 39 (G. Smith) - 11 QBs chosen but only 1 in R1, 1 inR2
So to me, it really does still look very top loaded with a lot of those QBs outside of QBs going into great situations, super long developments, or hitting that massive shot in the dark (Prescott, Purdy) needing a high value pick. In the last 10 judgable drafts, that's 114 QBs chosen, of which only sixteen or so represent guys you'd want QBing your team in any reasonable fashion - and of those sixteen, nine of them were Top 10 picks?
There's always going to be misses and a lot of what I saw were teams doing exactly what you're warning against - they felt compelled to pick a QB despite the warts and it went nowhere. So I am of the mind that if the Pats talent reviewers genuinely think whoever left at three isn't the answer...then trade is ok. But I think they need to be pretty sure on that as that hit rate in the back half of the first onwards gets really ugly, and we can see there can be droughts spanning years on the position.