Who's the Best QB in the 2017 NFL Draft? It All Depends on Your Belief System

A typical quarterback draft class would have sorted itself out by now. 

Two prospects typically emerge as the top picks in the draft: Safe Guy and Risky Upside Guy. Then the rest fall into line. There's the Buzzy First-Round Riser, the Small-School Wonder, the Draftnik Darling who kept showing up in the first rounds of mock drafts in March but gets picked late in the fifth round and so forth.

But this draft class is not typical. The quarterbacks aren't that spectacular, for starters. And there is no clear-cut order among the consensus top four or five prospects. Nearly everyone expects Notre Dame's DeShone Kizer, Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes, North Carolina's Mitchell Trubisky, Clemson's Deshaun Watson and Cal's Davis Webb to be the first five quarterbacks selected. But no one is sure if they will all be gone in the first round or if some will slide as far as Saturday. The only order anyone can agree upon is alphabetical, and that assumes Trubisky doesn't change his name again.

Even analysts who rank the quarterbacks in one order concede individual teams probably rank them in differently. If Hue Jackson really loves Trubisky enough to select him first overall, it doesn't matter what anyone else's scouting report says.

The problem is that different quarterback rankings reflect different philosophies, predispositions and biases. Every personnel expert, from general managers to television draftniks to Twitter GIF-mongers, has different criteria for what makes an outstanding quarterback prospect.

Those criteria can be organized into five schools of thought, each of which results in a different set of prospect rankings. Your own personal draft rankings may reflect a hybrid of many schools of thought. But chances are, the guy you are watching on television or the one who will hand the card to the commissioner adheres to a philosophy that results in one of the following draft orders:

The Mike Mayock Tall-Guy-With-Big-Arm QB Draft Order

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History tells us that tall quarterbacks who throw hard never fail in the NFL, which is why Brock Osweiler won the MVP award last year.

But seriously, some evaluators cannot help but drool at the sight of a 6'5" dude firing lasers on deep out routes, and not all of them work for NFL Network.

This type of evaluator waxes rhapsodic about being on the field during a pro day to "see how the ball leaves the quarterback's hand" as if he is describing meeting the woman of his dreams. Those dozens of interceptions, errant throws and awful decisions on the game film? They can all easily be corrected, because what is height besides intelligence stacked atop work ethic and leadership?

The tall quarterbacks with big arms don't need to be as immobile as cellphone towers, but it helps. Read-option guys give Height Lovers the heebie-jeebies.

The Rankings

1. DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame

2. Davis Webb, Cal

3. Brad Kaaya, Miami

4. Alek Torgersen, Penn

5. Chad Kelly, Ole Miss

The Reasons

Kizer (6'4"!) is a dead ringer for the young Ben Roethlisberger if you watch just the right collection of highlights and ignore all of the ill-timed sacks, long slumps and most of the fourth quarters.

Webb (6'5"!) draws comparisons to Joe Flacco from people who could not find a single flaw in Jared Goff's game when he was playing for the exact same program in 2015. That means Webb is more likely to be the next Nick Foles.

Eric Risberg/Associated Press

The height-and-arm obsessives don't hate the Mahomes-Trubisky-Watson crowd, but 6'2" quarterbacks all look like risky projects to them, not the bronzed colossuses astride the altar of arm talent they are seeking. So they skip down to 6'4" Kayaa, who looks like a Hall of Famer in an empty practice facility and Mike Glennon when actual opponents are on the field. (Keep in mind that looking like Mike Glennon is a good thing for Height Lovers; see the Bears budget for evidence.)

Subscribers to this school of scouting enjoy beating the bushes in search of precious tallness. Torgersen (6'3" but looks taller next to Ivy Leaguers), like Flacco and Carson Wentz before him, is a big kid who throws hard and arrives without any "couldn't beat Navy" baggage because no one saw him lose to Lehigh.

Chad Kelly is just 6'2", but famous uncles add two inches, and arm lovers enjoy countering every argument with "but he can spin it." The kid's injuries have injuries. But he can spin it. He has the personality of a walking airline scandal video. But he can spin it.

The Afraid of Getting Fired QB Draft Order

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NFL executives talk a good game about making bold Super Bowl-or-bust decisions. Most of them then make the most conservative, predictable personnel decisions they can think of because failing through conventional wisdom guarantees endless second chances, while true outside-the-box gamblers wind up standing next to Chip Kelly at service academy spring practices explaining why their tactics were just too cutting edge for the NFL.

The NFL is full of general managers and coaches who just want to survive another year. They covet justifiable quarterback selection over potentially great ones. Give them an Andy Dalton type, and they can spend half a decade asking for one more year because they were just a play here and a play there from the Super Bowl. (Marvin Lewis is an L. Ron Hubbard-like sage to these executives.)

The Rankings

1. Deshaun Watson, Clemson

2. Mitchell Trubisky, North Carolina

3. Davis Webb, Cal

4. Nathan Peterman, Pitt

5. C.J. Beathard, Iowa

The Reasons

Watson is not just a fine prospect, he's the quarterback equivalent of applying to a safe school with affordable tuition that's close enough to let you come home with laundry on weekends. Neither the owner nor the fanbase will blink at the selection of a decorated national champion, and at worst, Watson will putter around for years as a weak tea Ryan Tannehill, which is better than potentially leaving a JaMarcus Russell-shaped crater in the middle of the organization.

After Watson come the sturdy white quarterbacks because nothing screams "playin' it safe" like a bunch of sturdy white quarterbacks. (The polite scouting euphemism is quarterbacks that look the part.)

Trubisky is less experienced and more gunslingerish than the ideal Don't-Get-Me-Fired quarterback, but he can easily be sold this year as a Matt Ryan-Derek Carr type. (Local sports talk host nods approvingly at the reasoning.) Webb is a central-casting safe-choice quarterback.

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Peterman and Beathard, like Webb, spent a week at the Senior Bowl looking scouts straight in the eye and shaking hands firmly. They also threw practice passes without hitting themselves in the face and barked play calls in deep, booming voices. The Don't-Get-Me-Fired crowd loves Senior Bowl quarterbacks: second-tier prospects who specialize in showing up, working hard and not doing anything terrible.

As an added bonus, Beathard is the grandson of personnel legend Bobby Beathard, which means he has football wisdom encoded in his DNA or something.

Anyone afraid of losing his job would rather eat a dead mouse than draft Patrick Mahomes.

The Jon Gruden Brainy Game Manager QB Draft Order

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the size-and-arm slobberers are the evaluators so obsessed with intangibles that they almost consider a solid frame and a lively fastball to be bad things. Give these old-school West Coast offense disciples a crafty distributor of six-yard slants over Mister Howitzer Arm any day, even if the savvy field marshal is 5'11" or gets balls blown back in his face by a stiff wind.

The Rankings

1. Deshaun Watson, Clemson

2. Mitchell Trubisky, North Carolina

3. Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech

4. Joshua Dobbs, Tennessee

5. Cooper Rush, Central Michigan

The Reasons

Watson and Trubisky are big-but-not-huge, mobile-but-not-Michael Vick, strong-armed-but-non-threatening prospects. Both tossed a lot of short passes to All-Conference talent in space and let their backs and receivers rack up the YAC. That's the hallmark of the ideal brainy-pesky type—the perfect checkdown.

Mahomes is much more of a freewheeler than Watson and Trubisky. But occasionally, he decides not to throw a 40-yard pass into quintuple coverage and instead suddenly fires the ball to a forgotten receiver loitering in the flat who runs for a big gain. You can almost hear Mike Holmgren sigh with satisfaction when it happens.

The beefy, fastball-pitching Kizer-Webb crowd holds no appeal for the Gruden gang. Joshua Dobbs, on the other hand, provides off-the-chart intangibles (if you could chart intangibles, they would be tangible) plus mobility. Accuracy? He can accurately recite the 25-word playbook terminology for "curls and flats." That's what really matters.

Jackson Laizure/Getty Images

For Gruden acolytes who prefer as little athleticism as possible from their quarterbacks, there's Rush, who can understand the offense like a 50-year-old coordinator and execute it like a man almost 10 years younger.

The Ultimate Raw-Material-Seeking Quarterback Draft Order

The NFL is full of quarterback guru coaches who believe they just require a lump of clay with a muscular arm jutting forth from it to create a Super Bowl-caliber masterpiece.

Different gurus work in different mediums. Bruce Arians likes giant thoroughbreds. Hue Jackson and Kyle Shanahan prefer prospects with a wide array of tools. Bill O'Brien appears to want exactly what he hasn't got at any given moment. But there's one constant: These Archmages of quarterback alchemy believe they can correct any shortcoming.

We may see a quarterback locking on to his first read and throwing off his back foot into a crowd of defenders. The guru sees a fun two-to-seven year fixer-upper. Once the prospect spends minicamp carrying Coach around the practice facility like Yoda through the Dagobah swamp, deep quarterbacking wisdom will seep into his soul and melt away all flaws.

The Rankings

1. Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech

2. DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame

3. Mitchell Trubisky, North Carolina

4. Davis Webb, Cal

5. Joshua Dobbs, Tennessee

The Reasons

Mahomes and Kizer are ideal proteges for the guru looking to mold a masterpiece. Imagine if Mahomes stopped throwing sidearm across his body into the middle of the field after scrambling! Imagine if Kizer's second read wasn't a pump fake to his first read! All they need is an adjustment here, a tweak there and probably a massive overhaul that will take up their entire rookie years.

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

Trubisky's relative inexperience as a one-year starter is a bonus for many gurus. He's an empty vessel into which their One True Offensive System can be poured. Webb is almost literally a hunk of shiny marble.

Dobbs is the perfect quarterback for stashing on the bench, force-feeding the offense and bulking up a few pounds. Then, after fixing his footwork and targeting system, he can be launched on an unsuspecting league as the ultimate franchise quarterback in a few years. If that sounds like a plausible solution to an immediate quarterback problem, then you are thinking like a true guru!

Watson doesn't appear on this draft board. If a prospect already has some polish and huge wins under his belt, how can the guru take complete credit for his success?

The Textbook Mechanics Technician's Quarterback Draft Order

The footwork is perfect. The spiral is tight. He holds the ball just beneath his chin the way Bill Walsh and the Good Lord intended. He actually took snaps and drops from center rather than playing in the devil's shotgun spread offense. Have you seen the way he opens up his hips when he throws to the field side? Swoon.

The Textbook Mechanics crowd is all about the nuts and bolts of throwing a football. They might like a strong arm, but they'll trade a few miles per hour of velocity for a perfect motion-capture video of John Elway's 1997 delivery any day.

Throwing mechanics matter for any quarterback prospect, of course. But the Textbook Mechanics group takes things too far. Show them a 15-yard strike to a secondary receiver on 3rd-and-14 in the fourth quarter of a bowl game, and they'll gripe that the quarterback didn't reset his feet properly before throwing. Show them tape of the quarterback losing a 42-14 blowout, and they'll rave about the precision of his release point on seven-yard passes against a prevent defense of backup freshmen.

The Rankings

1. Mitchell Trubisky, North Carolina

2. Davis Webb, Cal

3. Deshaun Watson, Clemson

4. Brad Kaaya, Miami

5. C.J. Beathard, Iowa; or Chad Kelly, Ole Miss

The Reasons

Trubisky played exclusively from shotgun, but Textbook Mechanics types have developed coping strategies for that. He has the quick release and smooth feel to make a technical junkie forget that he has little experience and a bad habit of lingering in his end zone while waiting for the opportunity to deliver one of his picture-perfect throws.

Webb's NFL.com scouting report praises his "release point," "compact delivery" and "platform." Those are words Textbook Mechanics specialists whisper in the heat of passion.

Watson's throwing motion is not ideal, but there's a shortage of fundamentally beautiful quarterbacks in this class. Watson holds the ball just right, which is like a secret handshake for the Textbook crowd.

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

Kaaya does everything just right when the pocket is clean, and, of course, all Textbook evaluators can guarantee 100 percent clean pockets once the prospect reaches the NFL.         

The final spot is a wild card. Kelly is mechanically gorgeous, but, of course, he is injured and a little unpredictable. Beathard is supermethodical, like he is teaching the proper fundamentals of passing at a youth camp (even when the defense is bearing down on him). Neither has great quarterback-of-the-future bona fides for opposite reasons. But my, those spirals during third-team seven-on-seven drills will sure have plenty of rotation.

Ordering the Draft Orders

All wisecracks aside, every one of the prospects listed above has something to offer the NFL. I think this draft class will ultimately play out like the 2011 one. There may be a Cam Newton and perhaps a Colin Kaepernick, Andy Dalton or lurking late-round Tyrod Taylor. But there will be Jake Lockers, Christian Ponders and Blaine Gabberts as well, and we won't know who is who until the players get matched up with coaches/franchises/situations.

At press time, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the Browns were considering Trubisky for the first overall pick, and theJets had a hankering for Mahomes. And according to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee, the 49ers were hosting Webb for a workout (possibly as a second- or third-round pick). Watson was making the rounds as the mature and ready alternative. Kizer was busy addressing Brian Kelly's comments, but no news isn't necessarily bad news in these days of smoke screens and disinformation.      

There's no one right order for this year's prospects because no one evaluator is charged with selecting all of them.

Some evaluators will even tell you that next year's draft class is where all the action is.

Come to think of it, those same evaluators say that every year. Maybe they deserve their own draft order. Josh Allen, J.T. Barrett…on second thought, let's let this year's class sort itself out first.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.