Content available exclusively for subscribers
The position is so freakin hard
As you all know by now, the Cleveland Browns traded quarterback Baker Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers on Wednesday.
So he will compete with former Jets QB Sam Darnold for the starting job with the Panthers. The Jets traded Darnold to the Panthers last year for a package that included a second-round pick.
Jets GM Joe Douglas did an impressive job getting a second-round pick included in the deal for Darnold, considering he was lowest-rated NFL QB over the previous three seasons before the trade in the 2021 off-season.
Now you have the first-overall pick in the 2018 draft (Mayfield) and the third-overall pick in that draft (Darnold), competing for a starting job on a team that didn’t draft either. Think about it – both players are entering their fifth seasons, and neither is with the team that picked them in the top three, at the most important position.
Because the position is so incredibly hard, it just doesn’t work out ideally for the team, or the highly-picked QB, in too many cases.
In the 2015 draft, QB Jameis Winston was picked first overall by Tampa Bay. He’s not longer with that team. He’s with New Orleans. The second pick overall in that same draft, QB Marcus Mariota, selected by Tennessee, is now on his third team, Atlanta. In the 2016 draft, the Las Angeles Rams picked QB Jared Goff first overall. He’s no longer with the Rams. He was traded to Detroit last year. The second overall pick of that draft, QB Carson Wentz, by the Philadelphia Eagles, is now on his third team, Washington.
When you pick quarterbacks this high, you expect them to be your long-term answer at QB.
But more times than not it doesn’t work out.
Because you can’t really tell if a college QB can be a successful NFL QB, until he takes the field in NFL games. There is no way to simulate whether a guy can read NFL defenses, until he reads NFL defenses in a game. College defenses are much easier to diagnose, so a lot of these guys light up college defenses, but then that doesn’t translate to the NFL.
I’m not saying that Zach Wilson is going to fall into the category of all the high first round picks I mentioned above. We don’t know that yet. Let’s see how he does in Year Two.
But he’s certainly a guy who we saw feast on college secondaries his last year at BYU, secondaries from schools like Troy and North Alabama, schools that don’t send a lot of defensive backs to the NFL.
Wilson has worked very hard this 0ff-season to take his game to the next level after an up-and-down rookie year. We will see if all that hard work manifests itself with a breakthrough season for Wilson.
Just saying the fact that Mayfield and Darnold, two top three picks in the 2018 draft, are now competing for a starting job in Carolina, a team that didn’t pick either in the draft, wow, is that a eye-opener about how hard it can be finding answers at the QB position the draft, even high in the first round.
July 7, 2022
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Friday.