From Michael (@MBison705):
Michael, I have two thoughts. And the first is that, yes, I think it’s fair to say that the 2022 class was probably at least a little underrated, and that’s probably a reaction to recent history. It’s no secret that quarterback, always the NFL’s most important position, has become even more important in recent years with changes to schemes, the rules and the sport in general. And that’s led to a lot of quarterbacks being overdrafted—so in years when there weren’t enough first-round passers to go around, the NFL would simply manufacture them.
That’s how Christian Ponder and EJ Manuel and even Daniel Jones (even if that one’s turned out O.K. in the long run) wind up going as high as they did, and how a lot of mistakes were made. The correction was always coming, and I think it came in a big way in 2022, when teams were hesitant on good-not-great prospects, with the thinking being it’d be better to tread water than go all in on a quarterback who’d never be enough to compete with guys such as Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen.
Interestingly enough, I think that dynamic—the desire to just tread water rather than gamble on a guy you’re not all the way sold on—is part of how the Commanders’ Sam Howell and Falcons’ Desmond Ridder became starters in their individual circumstances.
My second thought? A guy drafted later in the first round (Kenny Pickett) or the third (Ridder), fifth (Howell) or seventh round (Brock Purdy) has a better chance of having a good team around him, and is probably not going to have the world asked of him right off the bat. That gives the quarterback in question a better chance at incremental growth.
Tom Brady is probably the best example of that you can find. No one was calling for him to play as a rookie. And when he came in for Drew Bledsoe, the Patriots didn’t put too much on his plate. By the time he was in the 2001 playoffs, he was two years removed from his final college game, and had a redshirt year and a year of starts under his belt.
Everything happened naturally, and gradually, and that allowed the player and team to keep growing over time (Aaron Rodgers is another good example).
And I say that as a guy that picked Purdy to lead his team to the Super Bowl, and Ridder and Howell to get their teams to the playoffs. Interestingly enough, their class, with just one first-rounder, has more guys starting now than the ballyhooed class of 2021, and its five first-rounders. Which, again, I think, reflects more than just the quality of the players involved, even if the ’22 class was misjudged by a lot of folks (myself included).
