Picking a quarterback in the first round is the biggest gamble in the draft. It\u2019s rare, especially at the top of the draft, to be accused of the dreaded \u201creach\u201d as the best prospects are usually part of a consensus. So you take the perceived best cornerback instead of the best defensive end. Nobody cares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But outside of the top guy, quarterbacks are rarely in that \u201cbest available player\u201d conversation. This year we have two dudes, Joe Burrow from LSU and Tua Tagovailoa from Alabama who actually could be. Nobody, even teams thinking of taking Oregon\u2019s\u00a0Justin Herbert or Utah State\u2019s Jordan Love would dare make that argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if they pay off, on draft day, they\u2019re a reach and thusly a fall comes that much harder. The examples I could roll out here are plentiful. From Blaine Gabbert to Christian Ponder to Brandon Weeden to E.J. Manuel. In fact, if you look at the 30 quarterbacks taken in the first round in the past decade, it\u2019s a dumpster fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of those 30, only 11 are currently NFL starters and one of those guys, Mitchell Trubisky, might not be for much longer. Another, Cam Newton, is out of a job but will certainly get one and become a starter. The rest are back ups or are out of the league entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dice rolls on QBs become less important later in the draft. And while you can count the guys that have paid off as starting quarterbacks outside the first round by barely using more than one hand, it\u2019s a mutant extra-fingered hand that\u2019s full of Super Bowl rings (Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins, Jimmy Garoppolo, Derek Carr).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brees, Garoppolo and Carr were all second rounders. The rest were all taken third on and, even if you\u2019re down on Jimmy G. and Carr, you can hardly call them a wasted pick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brady, Wilson and Prescott were downright steals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So who has the potential in this year\u2019s draft to be the guy that rises off the bench and save a franchise from its stupid, wasted draft picks of the past?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. ANTHONY GORDON, WASHINGTON STATE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2019: 71.6 completion percentage, 5,579 yards, 48 touchdowns, 16 interceptions, 6-3, 210 pounds<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Earliest round he\u2019ll likely be picked: <\/strong>5<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teams that should pick him:<\/strong> Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Rams or Philadelphia Eagles<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can tell you this. No quarterback in this draft makes me as excited as Gordon. It\u2019s not because he\u2019s a better prospect than Burrow or Tagovailoa, it\u2019s because his potential is through the roof and he can be grabbed off the board for nothing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You want the guy with the Patrick Mahomes highlight reel, Gordon\u2019s it. He reminds me of a cross between Mahomes and Kurt Warner and yes, I just wrote that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said he could go as early as the fifth, but if I\u2019m a scout worth his paycheck, I\u2019m in my GM\u2019s ear right now talking about turning in a card in the fourth. He reads defenses lightning quick, he fires the ball out fast and varies his arm movement and release point based on the passing windows. The balls are so accurate it\u2019s like he\u2019s handing them to a guy. If this tape was put up against ACC or SEC competition, I would not hesitate to put him right with Burrow and Tua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s also only got one year as a starter in NCAA Division I. He played at a JuCo before transferring and tore that place up too, but, again, we factor in the level of competition here in sane QB draft analysis world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worst you get if you draft Gordon with a four or later? Gardner Minshew. A spot starter and solid back up. But if the guy on that tape can do anything close to that in the NFL, you have a franchise quarterback for the next 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I\u2019m the Colts, I make this happen. They have Philip Rivers under contract for a year so there\u2019s no concern there. If I\u2019m the Rams or Eagles, I look at my young quarterbacks and their huge contracts and I think maybe I want some insurance if Carson Wentz keeps getting injured or Jared Goff doesn\u2019t bounce back from a down 2019. For the cost of a fifth round pick? Are you kidding?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We talk about or next two guys in Part 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter account<\/a> for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE Picking a quarterback in the first round is the biggest gamble in the draft. It\u2019s rare, especially…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":10417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10419,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions\/10419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}