One of the Draft's Top QBs Will Slide, and Josh Allen Is the Top Candidate
As many as four quarterbacks could be selected early in the first round of next month's draft, but it's unlikely that all four—Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen—are chosen high.
With the New York Giants bringing back Eli Manning and the Denver Broncos spending big on Case Keenum, only two teams picking in the top 10 (the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets) have a clear need for a quarterback. And it wouldn't even be surprising if the Browns passed on a player at that position, considering their March acquisition of veteran Tyrod Taylor.
It's possible the Miami Dolphins (11th), Buffalo Bills (12th) or Arizona Cardinals (15th) trade up to draft a signal-caller. However, it's far-fetched to expect multiple teams to do so, especially considering that if the Browns take a quarterback first overall, nobody picking between No. 4 and No. 10 (Cleveland, Denver, the Indianapolis Colts, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders) is expected to be interested in one.
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The Dolphins appear to be sticking with starter Ryan Tannehill after restructuring his contract earlier this offseason, and the Cardinals gave Sam Bradford a one-year, $20 million deal earlier this month. And while neither development excludes those teams from the first-round-quarterback sweepstakes, they do make it less likely that either will move into the top 10 for a so-called blue-chip QB.
Four or more quarterbacks have been taken in the first round in only seven drafts in modern NFL history, and there's never been a draft in which four quarterbacks were taken in the top 10. Three quarterbacks were taken in the top 10 in 2012, 2011, 1999 and 1971, but here's a list of those 12 quarterbacks, sorted by career wins:
1. Donovan McNabb (98)
2. Jim Plunkett (72)
3. Cam Newton (62)
4. Dan Pastorini (56)
5. Andrew Luck (43)
6. Ryan Tannehill (37)
7. Archie Manning (35)
8. Tim Couch (22)
9. Robert Griffin III (15)
10. Blaine Gabbert (11)
11. Jake Locker (9)
12. Akili Smith (3)
Zero Hall of Famers, and only three or four success stories. No more than one clear-cut success story per draft. Only one (Plunkett) with a Super Bowl win as a starter. At least a handful of busts.
So this draft would be an absolute aberration if three quarterbacks were selected in the top 10 and went on to have successful careers, let alone four. And you know that all 32 teams are well aware of that, which is why most will ultimately shy away from positioning themselves to select one on the night of April 26 in Arlington, Texas.
This was also an exceptional year in terms of quarterback availability on the free-agent market, making it even less likely that multiple teams would be willing to sell the farm for a quarterback prospect coming from a deep but flawed class.
A lot of mock drafts are overvaluing the big four passers as a result of the hype they're receiving just because they're quarterbacks, but teams won't fall into the same trap this year. Somebody is going to slide. The question is, who might that somebody be?
Watch out for Josh Allen, simply because he's the riskiest, most mysterious of the four "elite" quarterback prospects.
Yes, the Wyoming product is bigger, stronger and generally more physically appealing than Darnold, Rosen and Mayfield—but the fact is he's a Wyoming product. Nobody from that school has thrown a pass in an NFL game. He didn't earn his reputation in the Pac-12 like Darnold and Rosen or the Big 12 like Mayfield.
And even against weaker opponents in the Mountain West Conference, Allen's numbers were mediocre. The 21-year-old managed to complete just 56.2 percent of his passes over the course of his two-year starting tenure in a second-rate conference. He threw 15 interceptions in 14 games in 2016, and when he decreased that total to six over an 11-game sample in 2017, his yards-per-attempt average plummeted from 8.6 to 6.7.
SB Nation's Morgan Moriarty compared Allen's statistics from his final season at Wyoming to those posted by quarterbacks drafted in the first round in the last 10 years. Only Locker had a lower completion percentage, and only Locker, Gabbert and Matt Ryan had lower passer ratings.
Darnold was turnover-prone in college, but so were a lot of top-notch quarterback prospects, from Dan Fouts to Dan Marino to Deshaun Watson. Darnold still has the tangible and intangible qualities required to become a franchise quarterback and is a natural leader coming off a two-year stretch at USC in which he completed 65 percent of his passes and averaged 8.5 yards per attempt.
Rosen dealt with several injuries in college, but he still missed only eight starts in three years. He's a polished 6'4" passer with few technical issues coming off three strong seasons at UCLA.
Mayfield is shorter (6'1") than most NFL quarterbacks, but so are Drew Brees (6'0") and Russell Wilson (5'11"). The Oklahoma product is a deadly accurate improviser who completed 68.5 percent of his passes and posted a 131-to-30 touchdown-to-interception ratio in four seasons as a Big 12 starter.
Coming from a somewhat obscure program doesn't mean a quarterback won't succeed. But struggling statistically within that program is problematic when you're jockeying for position with prospects who did bigger things at higher levels.
Allen is not Carson Wentz, who was picked second overall and in 2017 was an MVP candidate just two years removed from his time at North Dakota State; Wentz at least put up superb rate-based numbers in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Quarterback is a cerebral, nuanced position. You don't excel under center in the NFL just because you can throw a football 90 yards, or just because you can run a 4.75-second 40-yard dash at 6'5", 237 pounds. None of that matters if you can't consistently make big throws against NFL defenses while avoiding big mistakes.
We don't have much evidence of that with Allen, and it remains fair to be concerned about his accuracy, ball security, decision-making and inconsistent mechanics. He has the raw ability, but he's a long-term project entering a league that has run out of patience for such things, as well as a major risk in a draft that won't likely force quarterback-starved teams to take risks.
That's why he's likely to be the odd man out among the top four signal-callers in this year's draft class.
Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.
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