The NFL’s QB premium and other takeaways from the NFL Draft
The 2017 NFL Draft had everything—from mind-boggling trades to teams reshaping their future for the better. Here are a few takeaways now that the dust has settled.
There’s a premium on Quarterbacks
Two picks into the draft, the premium teams are putting on sub-standard quarterbacks is evident. Think your prototypical hard working English football (soccer) player and his international equivalent, and the extra cash an English team would have to part with to afford the player — this is the NFL right now with quarterbacks, such is the desperate market to fulfill the need at the position. There are 32 teams in the NFL, only just over half of which are set at the position, while most of those would take a shiny new better quarterback if the opportunity arose. There are a whole lot of bad quarterbacks playing in the NFL, which means unproven and polarizing college quarterbacks are appearing more attractive than ever despite what the experts say.
The Chicago Bears made a move for Mike Glennon, a perfectly fine sub-standard quarterback, back in free agency. Glennon was once sub-standard for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, until they drafted the less sub-standard Jameis Winston two years ago. Not happy with his level of sub-standardness, the Bears traded up in the draft to the #2 position to pick a guy called Mitch Trubisky. I don’t know much about Mitch, just that he was at North Carolina in college and wasn’t massively loved by draft experts, but the reaction from Bears fans say it all. Mitch is a perfectly fine QB, with plenty of scope to improve as the months and seasons go on, but he’s not move up to #2 to take him. Especially when Chicago WERE PICKING AT #3 ANYWAY.
The Kansas City Chiefs have an excellent roster but a pretty average QB, so they moved all the way up to #10 to take a guy called Patrick Mahomes. Buffalo traded their first-round selection (#10) to Kansas City in exchange for Kansas City’s first and third-round selections (#27 and #91), as well as their first-round selection in 2018. That’s a lot to give up for a whole lot of uncertainty. He’s another fine development guy, but far from a guarantee to make the grade in the NFL.
The thing is, these two dudes were taken way before a whole bunch of players that you could put your hat on to have a very good NFL career. Teams want QBs — and are willing to take a wild swing in the hope they find someone, anyone, that’s good enough.
Good players, bad dudes
The NFL is a funny place. There’s no tolerance for bad dudes, dudes that have beaten up their girlfriends or smoked a lot of weed or allegedly raped someone, but it does leave some room for redemption — especially if you’re just coming out of college and can be picked reasonably late in the draft, maximising the value you’d get had they not beaten their women, smoked a lot of weed or allegedly raped a girl.
Every year there’s someone; this year’s pre-draft narrative was all over a guy called Joe Mixon. Now on the field, Joe is clearly a really good running back and would be a fine option for a whole bunch of NFL teams. The thing is, he punched his girlfriend… on camera. The crazy NFL thing is if the incident hadn’t been recorded and distributed, his draft position would have suffered less damage than it actually did. If Ray Rice hadn’t have punched his fiancée in an elevator with a camera he probably would’ve gotten a job again, but instead he’s been blacklisted by every single NFL team. Mr Mixon got selected #48 overall, the fourth of his position, before over two dozen other running backs. The Cincinnati Bengals are clearly comfortable with his position, and will roll out all the PR spin — he’ll help out in the community, partake in counselling and whatever else that will help appease the fans base and NFL media.
More recently, it was alleged that top cornerback Gareon Conley had sexually assaulted a girl. This was potentially much more damaging as it was reported just as about the draft talk was going into hyperdrive, and this would be fresh in the memory. Despite the ongoing investigations into him possibly raping somebody, Conley was selected 24th overall by the Oakland Raiders. They claim they did more than enough due diligence to feel comfortable with this pick, and Conley even did a lie detector test to help clear his name. He passed and is now off to the NFL with a great team, picked before hundreds of really nice guys who didn’t have to deal with such legal obstacles.
49ers General Manager John Lynch is no joke
Let’s get team specific now, and look at San Francisco. In the draft, the general manager — not the head coach — makes most of the personnel decisions including guiding his team through the draft, what players to pick, if to trade down or not, and so on. This was San Francisco 49ers’ John Lynch’s first ever draft as a GM. He was hired pretty much out of the blue and there was a lot of skepticism if he was in any way qualified for the job. John turned around and knocked the draft out of the park. He managed to get two of arguably the top five players in the draft in the first round, without even moving up. In fact, the 49ers were the team that traded down to allow the Chicago Bears to get a QB at #2.
So with studs like Solomon Thomas and Reuben Foster, two instant starters in perhaps the worst roster in the league, they also found themselves guys to fill needs at cornerback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, defensive tackle and defensive end. All in all they made nine picks. People are questioning their decision to pick a QB called CJ Beathard in the third round, but any QB picks would’ve gone through their QB-guru head coach Kyle Shanahan, so Mr Lynch may not be entirely at fault if that pick bombs out. And anyway — refer back to point one in this article.
With Lynch establishing himself as no fool at GM, and the most coveted head coach appointment in years in Shanahan, the 49ers are in good hands again after a few down years.
The Browns are turning a corner
The much maligned Cleveland Browns, the butt of everyone’s football jokes and this year’s worst team in the NFL, may be finally turning a corner with the organisation — starting with this excellent first round draft.
The Browns were picking first overall and had the easy move to make Myles Garrett, an inhuman defensive end from Texas A&M, the #1 player in the draft. They used their second first round pick to bring in Jabril Peppers — a guy with more question marks than answers but who is a supreme athlete, a jack of all trades that also brings a hell of a lot of leadership and motivation to the defensive side of the ball. Something the Browns have lacked for years.
Finally, they traded back into the first round to select tight end David Njoku of Miami. This kid was many people’s favourite tight end in the draft — a super athletic specimen and an instant target for whoever will be throwing the ball for Cleveland next season. That question got a little more muddled in the second round, when at #52 the Browns took QB DeShone Kizer out of Notre Dame. This presented a little bit of value for Cleveland, finding potentially their QB of the future without taking too huge a risk — they had already taken three really good players in round one.
I don’t know, looking at that roster take shape I would be very surprised if they’re picking #1 overall again next year.
