Mailbag Part 2: Projecting Things is Hard

This edition of Mailbag starts with deep questions about roster construction and ends with me babbling about my favorite foods and stuff.

For those wondering what’s next at the Too Deep Zone: the All-Time Top 5 QBs series CONCLUDES next week with the Seahawks! There will then be a coda feature looking back on all the friends we made along the All-Time Top 5 QB way.

Settle this Mike: do successful clubs draft for talent or need? – Jack M.

Successful teams draft to create competition among the most talented players available so they can fill needs.

Bad teams are rarely in a position to create competition for jobs, so the first-round pick is usually an automatic starter, as is that free agent they pay a little too much for. Talent itself is usually such a team’s need! Over time, however, a team should become successful enough to not plug draft picks directly into the lineup very often.

Commanders’ first-round pick Josh Conerly will compete for a starting job with Brandon Coleman and may eventually challenge Laremy Tunsil. Buccaneers first-round pick Emeka Egbuka will compete with Jalen McMillan and others for the right to replace Mike Evans or Chris Godwin. The Bills drafted a bunch of guys on their defensive front to make sure none of the veterans can rest on their salaries/reputations. A team that has an All Pro at a given position should still be creating competition for the backup spots or complementary roles.

The system sometimes breaks down, as it did for the Chiefs at offensive tackle in 2024. But note that the Chiefs drafted Wanya Morris and Kingsley Suamataia in recent years to create competition; it just did not work out. And newcomers Jaylon Moore and Josh Simmons will compete for the left tackle role this year; neither was signed/drafted and handed a job.

Mel Kiper famously ripped the NFL for its inability to evaluate quarterbacks. Yet there’s a decent chance that 29 of the 32 teams will open the season with quarterbacks who were drafted in the first round.

1) What is your opinion on QB evaluation?

2) Given those overwhelming numbers, wouldn’t NFL teams be smarter if they drafted every quarterback in the first round, regardless of grade, just to give them a better chance to succeed? – Sheepnado

1. I am in favor of it!

2. It would also be smarter to build the whole plane out of the black box!

Scott Keeney chimed in:

That 29 figure can’t be right… just quickly: Dak, Purdy, Hurts, Geno… although if it’s 28 that’s hardly worth me replying here. Someone help a brother out. I’m supposed to be working right now. – Scott Keeney

I counted 26 former first-round picks who are likely to be opening day starters, with three second-rounders in Jalen Hurts, Geno Smith, and Tyler “What The” Shough. (Derek Carr would also have been a second-rounder.) That leaves Dak Prescott, Brock Purdy and the Steelers starter as non-first rounders, though Aaron Rodgers could impact the count.

Another reply:

Best thing I've heard about NFL QB evaluation is this podcast by Matt Waldman from back in January of 2019, specifically some comments at about 6:30 and other comments starting at about 9:20. Lots of QB evaluation is driven by a cover-your-ass approach on the part of GMs & front-office people – JimZipCode

Waldman is a friend of the Zone. I hear his voice on the podcast and I picture him sitting across from me at Saucy-Q (RIP) between Senior Bowl practice sessions, holding forth about this or that quarterback. A rental car agency at Mobile airport once goofed and gave me a giant overcompensation truck instead of the compact car I requested. Driving an Abrams tank to and from practice terrified me, and I once asked Matt to back the truck out of a parking space behind Ladd-Peebles Stadium for me.

Anyway, quarterbacks are chosen by committee – coach, scouts, GM, coordinator, owner – so groupthink and CYA reasoning should not surprise anyone. It may be more surprising how often teams hit (in the broad sense) rather than miss. After all, there are only 32 quarterback jobs, and only the top 20 or so come with a modicum of security. A team that selects the 30th-best quarterback on earth in a draft class has failed.

To cite a “failure:” Mitch Trubisky was not the best quarterback in the 2017 class and should not have been selected second overall. But he WAS the third-best quarterback in that class, right? Only Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were better. DeShone Kizer, Davis Webb, Nathan Peterman, Chad Kelly and the others were all worse.