NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- This week’s podcast discussed a scenario where the Titans see Cam Ward as a quarterback who can elevate their team.
If they see him that way, they should take him.
You don’t wait to have a team built up around a QB like that, or even one a notch below. Of course, he needs protection and weapons and a defense. But good quarterbacks get drafted by bad teams. That’s the challenge of the whole thing.
If you’re a bad team and you can find that quarterback, you aim to improve his game and the team around him simultaneously.
Now I don’t know that they see him that way. If not, if they can find a good trade down to gather picks, they probably find a veteran in free agency and move forward with team building, awaiting a young QB in the next draft, when they
may need to trade their way forward to get him, maybe with a team that takes Ward or Shedeur Sanders this time around.
More likely they need to elevate him, and a guy like that doesn't scream to be drafted first overall.
Let’s look at the rare form of quarterback who’s come into the league and elevated his team in the last five years.
Since 2018, 19 teams have picked 21 quarterbacks in the first and second rounds. The teams that drafted them had an average record of 6.3-10. Heading into the pick, seven of them had winning records, and five had made the playoffs.
Only two of the teams with a winning record the year before drafting a quarterback high improved the following season.
🏈 Trey Lance (1-1 as a starter) had very little to do with the 49ers jump from 10-7 to 13-4.
🏈 The Ravens were 6-1 when Lamar Jackson started and 10-6 overall, a game better than the year prior.
And for getting worse…
🏈 The Steelers got a half-game worse with Kenny Pickett (9-8).
🏈 The Buccaneers dropped five games to 8-9 but Tom Brady remained the starting QB as Kyle Trask appeared in just one game
🏈 The Bills dipped three games in Josh Allen’s rookie year (6-10)
🏈 The Eagles went from 9-7 and the playoffs to 4-11-1 but Jalen Hurts started only four games.
The Packers were 13-3 both before and after Jordan Love, who had nothing to do with the record his rookie season.
Immediately following those 21 picks, 11 teams got better the following season.
- 49ers as cited above
- Ravens as cited above
- Jaguars with Trevor Lawrence from 1-15 to 3-14 in 2021
- Jets with Zach Wilson from 2-14 to 4-13 in 2021
- Patriots with Mac Jones from 4-13 to 9-7-1 and playoffs in 2021
- Bengals with Joe Burrow from 2-14 to 4-11-1 in 2020
- Dolphins with Tua Tagovailoa from 5-11 to 10-6
- Chargers with Justin Herbert from 5-11 to 7-9
- Cardinals with Kyler Murray from 3-13 to 5-10-1
- Broncos with Drew Lock from 6-10 to 7-9
- Browns with Baker Mayfield from 0-16 to 7-8-1
It wasn't hard to get better from where a lot of those teams started.
By their second years, those 21 quarterbacks had mostly sifted out:
Burrow, Jackson, Allen, Hurts and Jones guided their teams to the playoffs. Only Jones isn't heading up a regularly winning team now.
Herbert and Tagovailoa led their teams to winning records. Herbert was Offensive Rookie of the Year; Tagovailoa threw 25 touchdowns in his third year.
Murray got a typically bad team to .500. (The Cardinals traded Rosen after just one season to make room for him.)
Love got the Packers' long-term QB plan and was the heir apparent to Aaron Rodgers with just one start and 10 appearances through his first two years. He topped 4,000 yards in his first year as a starter and third year in the NFL.
Twelve others were already on paths where they were not going to be long-term solutions for their teams. In some instances, their team’s dysfunction was a major piece of it.
Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold have resurfaced to have success with new teams. Zach Wilson and Daniel Jones may have had better chances outside of New York and may have better chapters ahead.
But new teams don’t seem to have done much for Pickett (stuck behind Hurts) or Lance (third string in Dallas) who were both traded before their third seasons.
Allen and Burrow are the two biggest examples of guys who didn't need to be drafted into good teams to be good. But their teams were hardly great in their rookie seasons as they started to rev up and things were put in place around them. In Year Two, both of their teams won 10 and went to the playoffs.