General managers and football owners know how a single NFL recruitment can prepare teams for success or failure for a decade. It’s doubly true if the guy they chose in the first round is a defender. Carson Wentz just reminded everyone that following the QB route proved to be a bad idea for a long time.
Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert can change the narrative. But a surprising statistic about the 2009-16 quarterbacks shows how risky it is to get calls in the first round of the NFL draft.
Carson Wentz was the last QB of the 2016 NFL draft
The Philadelphia Eagles ‘decision to switch from Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts last week closed the quarterbacks’ accounts for the first round of the 2016 NFL draft. Paxton Lynch lasted two seasons with the Denver Broncos, and the Los Angeles Rans ruled out choice # 1 Jared Goff at the Detroit Lions this month to acquire Matthew Stafford.
Catching Lynch was a mistake the Broncos admitted after four games. Wentz and Goff are more complicated to assess because they were both successful before something went wrong. The other common denominator is that their original teams signed new big contracts before 2020, which would have been the year they played with fifth-year options that the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Rams could have exercised in early 2019.
The fact that they fell out of favor soon after signing lucrative deals is a warning to NFL teams. The Kansas City Chiefs gave 2017 first-round player Patrick Mahomes the Godzilla of all contracts in early 2020, rather than just exercising his fifth year option. The Houston Texans offered Deshaun Watson a good deal, too, in similar circumstances.
The Chiefs have no complaints yet, but the number of teams that can absorb Watson’s future salary cap now that he wants to leave Houston is limited. Texans can still count on a large number of choices from someone, but they may also have to take an odorous contract out of their trading partner’s hands to close a deal for Watson.
Meanwhile, Buffalo Bills faces a decision next month about how much money it will spend on Josh Allen, its rising star defender from the 2018 NFL draft.
A wild statistic from the NFL draft about defenders
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After the Philadelphia Eagles left Carson Wentz for the Indianapolis Colts, there was not a single quarterback defeated in the first round of a 2009-16 NFL draft remaining with his original team. The first twenty-two injured are out of the league or with a different team. They disappeared as money invested in Gamestop or AMC shares last month.
Part of the reason they became so easily disposable is that some of them were horrible. Yes, Tim Tebow, Brandon Weeden and Johnny Manziel, we are looking for you. Others, like Robert Griffin III and Teddy Bridgewater, were victims of serious injuries that forced their teams to move on.
But the big lesson is that the salary cap and collective bargaining agreements with the union are saving NFL owners and GMs from themselves.
With the NFL’s draft choices embedded in a salary structure for their rookie contracts, rather than the freedom to negotiate immediate deals with the pinball machine, teams have a minimum of three years to assess quarterbacks. It certainly wasn’t long enough to get a definitive solution on Sam Darnold or Mitch Trubisky, but he eliminated Christian Ponder and EJ Manuel.
When teams find a quarterback worth keeping, the result is that Russell Wilson and Matt Ryan earn tens of millions a year. But the wage cap forces GMs to think seriously about committing so much money at the risk of saving elsewhere. The Miami Dolphins did not want to move on with Ryan Tannehill, but the Tennessee Titans decided that he fit in perfectly with $ 118 million in four years.
The complete list of players from the first round of 2009-16 who are gone and sometimes forgotten
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According to Pro Football Talk, these are the 22 defenders won in the first round of the 2009-16 NFL draft. None remains with the teams that selected them:
2009: Matthew Stafford, Lions; Mark Sanchez, Jets; Josh Freeman, Buccaneers.
2010: Sam Bradford, Rams; Tim Tebow, Broncos.
2011: Cam Newton, Panthers; Jake Locker, Titans; Blaine Gabbert, Jaguars; Christian Ponder, Vikings.
2012: Andrew Luck, Colts; Robert Griffin III, Washington; Ryan Tannehill, Dolphins; Brandon Weeden, Browns.
2013: EJ Manuel, Bills.
2014: Blake Bortles, Jaguars; Johnny Manziel, Browns; Teddy Bridgewater, Vikings.
2015: Jameis Winston, Buccaneers; Marcus Mariota, Titans.
2016: Jared Goff, Rams; Carson Wentz, Eagles; Paxton Lynch, Broncos.
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