The Ringer NFL Show - Ranking Quarterbacks Drafted in the Top Five Since 2010 | Big Board

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

The Ringer Fantasy Football Show hosts Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly are joined by Nora Princiotti to rank the 15 quarterbacks taken in the top five of the draft since 2010. Follow ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show.’ Hosts: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Guest: Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Simmons hosts the most downloaded sports podcast of all time with a rotating crew of celebrities, athletes, media staples, and a slew of other friends and family members who always happen to be available. Check out the Bill Simmons podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. My name is Danny Hyfitz and I'm joined by my co-host, Danny Kelly. You may know us from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, which we publish every Wednesday. But now we are also coming to you every Monday and Friday here until the draft on the Ringer NFL show for the big board where we rank something related to the draft each week. And today, we are ranking the best quarterbacks drafted in the top five over the last

10 years. And we are joined by the person who basically inspired this episode, our colleague, our Taylor Swift correspondent, Nora Pinceotti. What's up, Nora? Hey, I love, love, love that title, Danny's. I love potting with you. So all around, great stuff is up. So happy to be here.

So we kind of wanted to do this episode today because there might be. four quarterbacks taken with the first four picks of the NFL draft for the first time ever. But we also, I mean, we want to look at how quarterbacks who go that high even do in recent NFL history because we just saw Sam Darnal got traded. We've already seen Matt Stafford get traded. We saw Jared Goff get traded. We've seen Carson Wentz get traded. That's four quarterbacks who are all drafted in the top three traded in the last two months, which is the most in a single year in the last 30 years. And the year is not close to over. So it's kind of like bizarre with the two ways this conversation is going.

So there's 15 quarterbacks who have been drafted in the top five in the last 10 years. We're going to rank them. And I think that we really started getting interested in this topic. When we did, we ranked the top number one picks, forget position, just all the number one picks in the last 20 years. And our conclusion at the end of that conversation was basically, wow, going one, number one sucks, right, Nora? Absolutely. I mean, I think that's what you're alluding to at the top of the pod saying that I inspired this is because I I was semi-jokingly like it really sucks to get drafted first overall,

especially now that the contract status has changed. But we came away from that kind of feeling like there was something to that. So now we're going to expand it to top five and we're just going to look at quarterback. So just some housekeeping. We're looking at the last 10 years, partially because of recency bias, partially because the game has changed in the last 10 years and partially because the CBA signed a decade ago, just kind of changed the calculus of drafting a quarterback that high. So for all that reason, we're going to limit it from 2010.

and we're grandfathering Sam Bradford because he's funny to talk about and it makes it a nice round 15. So with all that said, you want to get to ranking? Let's do it. Let's do it. All right.

So, D.K. and I made a list. We averaged our rankings. Nor can shred our rankings if you disagree. So we're starting 15th, worst top five quarterback of the last 10 years. Blake Bortles, Jaguars.

Third pick, 2014. Very important question for you, Danny Kelly. When I say Blake Bortles, what's your word association? The first thing I think of when you hear Blake Bortals. Sigs. Just Rippin Sigs.

He did an interview a while back as like, what would you be, the interviewer asked him, what would you be doing if you weren't playing football? He thought, he thought about this and he was very genuine in his response, working construction ripping Sigs. And for that reason, I respect him greatly. And I think it was a very genuine and earnest response.

So Bortles is one of those guys who it's like hard, to like him, even though he was, like, so bad for so long. You know, it's not like, he was the kind of guy you wanted him to do well. But he just, bless his heart, he just didn't. I went to Rams training camp and a guy, and I got tabletop, like a guy tried to jump on someone's back, rolled over and almost took me out at my knees and it was Blake Bortles. I was like, what the hell? What is going on?

Nora, what's your-Bortals? I know. Wait, what? Norah, when you think of, when you hear Blake Bortals, what's the first thing you think of? The first thing that I think of is, like, playoff portals, because, Dalin Ramsey when he did that GQ interview, like, kind of backhanded complimented Bortle so hard because he was like, I don't know, there's something that gets into him in the playoffs. And I think he kept calling him like playoff Blake or playoff Bortles or something. And it was so obvious that the subtext was Blake Bortle sucks. And that is the first thing that I think of when I think of Blake Bortals. I got to say, though, and we can talk about this a little bit more when you guys reveal who. averaged out to number 14 in the rankings. I don't think Blake Bortals deserves the bottom spot here.

He's not a good quarterback, but he went to an AFC championship game. He was dragged like Hector of Troy to that game. Are you kidding me? That deep, like, okay. I am not arguing that Blake Bortles was the reason for that Jags team's success. I am just saying that there are other bad quarterbacks on this list that did not win as many games or get as far in any single playoff run. I will give Blake Bortles zero credit for that playoff run.

Wins are not a quarterback stat, but they are also not irrelevant. So, okay. So on this note, let's keep rolling here. We're going to introduce here the Joe Flacco line and or the Matt Ryan line, which we're stealing something Bill Simmons said on the show a couple weeks ago. Basically, would you make this, like take the career again? Would you make this pick again is really the point here? Like, would you take Portals again here?

Can we, hold on, can we just decide if it's the Flacko? line or the Matt Ryan line because Flacco I think is arguable Matt Ryan like no one's not taking Matt Ryan's career. We're going to tweak this. We're going to tweak this. You're not getting the exact like we're going to tweak this basically did this work out.

Like would you make this pick again? Flacco like they won the Super Bowl. So it's probably. I think the Flacco line works. I think the Flacco line works. And it plays well because Ravens fans would probably take Flacco again. It's like you don't want to upset.

You don't want to upset like that timeline where they won that Super Bowl, even though everything else was pretty terrible. It's like the Patriots Sony Michelle pick. It's probably a bad pick, but it also helps them win a Super Bowl, so you kind of can't argue it. I don't think that's the same thing. As Joe Flacco had like the best playoffs ever. And Sony Michelle was like there.

He's just part of the timeline. He's not like that's not true. That's not entirely true. But I take your point as a whole. The Percy Harvin line, the Seahawks traded a first round pick. He didn't, he played in like four games for the Seahawks. but he had a touchdown return, kickoff return in the Super Bowl,

and that's really all that matters. Not going to redo the trade because that's all that matters. We're off topic here. What else is new? So can I just go ahead at the limb and say the Jaguars probably wouldn't make this pick again? We spent more time here than I anticipated.

Yes, correct. Okay, so they wouldn't. So I'm curious, nature or nurture, like, obviously Bortles failed. Do you blame it more on, like, the Jaguars or more on him? Obviously, it's a mix of both, but who gets the bulk of the blame? For me, I don't think it was necessarily a problem with the team.

It was not a nurture situation that they failed to surround him with talent or a situation with which he could succeed. I think Bortles, to me, before the Josh Allen story came along, he was sort of the living proof that you can't teach accuracy. You can't teach a guy to, like, change his throwing motion and all of a sudden he's accurate. you know, whatever. By the way, by the way, that Jalen Ramsey GQ profile was the same one where he called Josh Allen Trash. That's right.

So, so anyways, what I guess gather from the Bortles situation was I think actually they did a pretty decent job of putting talent around him. He just couldn't, he couldn't rise to the occasion. So to me it would be more like just he was not going to be a great player regardless of the situation. I go full, full nature on this one too. I agree. Remember the video training.

with Al Robinson when he overthrows him and he runs out and he's just like, throw the shit in bounds. Bro. Yeah. He throws the one off his teammate. The thing I, my actual, now that I think about it, the thing I actually always think of with Bortles other than the good place with the Bortles is the, that he throw, which if you haven't seen the good place, basically, they were like, let's make, write a character

who's the dumbest person in the world, literally. And then what's team would he root for? And they were like, oh, well, obviously, he'd be a huge Bortles fan. So that's why he's the worst pick. Bortals. Also, can we talk about for one second that Bortles seem to develop the yips later in his career? Like, he actually tried to change his throwing motion, I think, and like speed it up, make it more over the top or whatever. I don't remember exactly how it went.

But like at some point in time, when he was throwing later in his career, it looked, it was painful to watch. It was like Chuck Knoblock trying to throw it to first base. He forgot how to like throw a football. So anyways, that was the other thing that kind of like popped into my mind. Well, because he was trying to have a faster release. and I think it was like, like, put his release point a little bit higher or something, and then it was just like he was chucking things. That's super tough.

I mean, it's difficult to change the way that you throw the football for anybody. All right. So, Bortles is the worst one. 14. We got Mitchell Tribusky, Bears, 2017. He went third, sorry, second infamously. Nora, when I say to you, Mitchell Tribiskey, what is the first thing you think of? I think of his tweet, the one that was.

Say it. Which one? I can't say it. I don't want to say this on a podcast. It said, it referenced a female body part. And he said, are you talking about the kissing? It's like, I love titties with like seven. There was a famous Mitch Trubisky tweet where he said, I love kissing titties. All right? Which is like classic when your friend like seizure account on open. And we can cut this in post production if we need to. But that is what I think when I hear Mitchell

Trubesky. I have a lot of friends who went to UNC and they all call him Trubotsky. And that's what I think of. Every time. What about you, D.K.? So this is bad. Maybe this is why he should be number 15 on this list. But I literally like, it was like a blank slate.

I couldn't think of anything remarkable. The only thing I could picture and I'm pretty sure this was a manufactured memory because it just, and I'm like an amalgamation of all the. throws that he made throughout his career. It's just him missing a wide open guy. Like I don't have actually one specific instance. It was just sort of like all those together. You don't think of when his mom got upset that people were calling him Mitch and made

it very clear. Everyone made it very clear that he was to be called Mitchell. See, Patrick Mahomes' mom was smart enough to wait till after he won a Super Bowl to correct everyone. Right. All right. So Flacco line, I mean, would you make this pick again? I don't know if there's a pick anyone wishes they could undo as much as this one.

So obviously no. But nature and nurture, why did he fail? Was it the bears or was it him who gets more of the blame? Him. Him, yeah. Yeah. He would. Yeah, that's an easy way.

You know, so the, the Bordal situation for me was like the great example, the microcosm for how you can't teach a guy to be accurate. Mitchell Chavisky to me stands out as a red flag, like not starting enough games in college, not having a big enough track record. And that's like, to me, that's like what he represents, like you've had him versus say Deshaun Watson who had a ton of starts, a ton of big games. And Trubisky was a toolsy guy who had like one year of starting experience.

And teams fell in love with those tools. And I guess like it was just a perfect example of like you have to have a guy that's, that's been through the shit and seen some adversity if you're really going to take a, take a like a risk on him. So that's what he represents to me. But he has not. And I mean, it's arguable that the protection has. been that great and the defense has been better than the offense, but he's been on teams with

good rosters. Like, Bortles is such a great example of why the nature versus nurture question is essential to evaluating quarterbacks because Bortles is basically not a good quarterback who had one, okay, his year wasn't spectacular, but the team was really good and he was serviceable when everything around him was perfect. My point being that Trubisky has been on teams with defenses at least. of similar caliber to that 2017

Jags team. Would you agree with that? Either, Danny? Yeah. He had a really good defense at his back, that's for sure. All I can think about

is that Alan Robinson has played for both of these quarterbacks. I know, Alan Robinson is like the connective thread. The worst. Free Alan Robinson.

Poor guy. Oh my God. Oh, my God. 14 and 15. Poor Alan Robinson. It's even worse I thought. This whole is a little bit of film. It's unbelievable.

I'm just saying. And I didn't, I'm sort of cheating because I'm just chiming in on your guys's rankings instead of fully doing my own. But on my rankings, these two are flipped because Bortles put it together for a hot second. Maybe we can ask Alan Robinson to make the final call here. Yeah, we'll call up Alan Robinson. I love to hear what he has a friend. And we'll just ask him who he enjoyed playing with more.

Okay, 13th, we've got Sam Darnold. Jets, third pick, 2018. curious, Danny Kelly, when I say Sam Darnold, what's the first thing you think of? Out indefinitely. Oh, the meme. Just giant out indefinitely. Like where it's like a moving graphic. It was very bizarre.

Like that, to me, the whole Darnold era in New York can be defined by this social media graphic or actually, I think it was probably from the game. It wasn't even like related to the team maybe. But I mean, God, it's just, I feel bad for the guy. He got monobody. Like, I've never heard of that. Correct. Sorry.

It was ESPN's graphic. Out indefinitely with mononucleosis. That was back when Michigan sports game with a virus was like novel. That was like new. It was just like, I love that. People started calling him like Sammy Spleen boy. It was so, that was. It got so bad because basically the question was like,

the whole thing was like, we have to not kill Sam Darnold. But it was literally like. I remember. Flack Chris Ryan and Chris Ryan was like, wow, Fletcher Cox is really going to kill this kid, isn't he? Anyway, I think I've seen those when I think of Darnel. So the flackle line, would the Jets make this pick again? Absolutely not.

Nor. I mean, no, they just train him away. So we kind of just talked about this a lot on this feed this week, so we can do this briefly, but like, do we assign, like, obviously the Darnel era failed, and I mean failed, like spectacularly. Like, I think I said earlier this week, like the Jets. were given the most points against the spread during Darnold's time on the Jets and they also had the worst record against the spread,

which is amazing. But do you guys assign that more to nature and urchers? Is that Donald or is that the Jets who gets more of the blame for that? Nora? I don't mean to cheat here, but like we don't know. Sam Darnold has never had a good NFL season. And he had a collection of really pretty promising games towards the end of his rookie year.

And that is ultimately what the Panthers are banking on plus their infrastructure, their trust in their coaching staff, we just don't know. Like the cost of playing for the Jets in Sam Donald's case is that basically no one has any idea if he's a competent NFL quarterback. The question that I'm curious about for you guys, do you think that Baker Mayfield would have fared any differently in New York?

Oh, that's a good question. What do you think, D.K.? I kind of think he wouldn't have. I think he would have been terrible in New York also. So that's what makes me just like have the slightest, hope for Darnold going forward. All signs point to this idea or the fact that he's terrible, right? Like he, none of his stats have been good.

His stats are awful since he came into the league. And there's very few flashes. Honestly, there's very few flashes within like all that terribleness. So like, Akam's Razor, the most obvious thing would be that he's terrible. However, a very specific set of circumstances. was working against Arnold this whole time, and particularly it was Adam Gase, who has a long history of getting the least out of very good players,

the least possible out of very good players. It's a ridiculously long list of players that have gone to different teams other than what Adam Gase was coaching, and their career has absolutely blossomed. Will that happen with Darnold? I don't know if that's... I would lean, no, but I do have just sort of like this glimmer of hope somewhere in me that Darnold is all of a sudden going to figure it out.

He's only 23 years old. He's still young. But I think the Gase thing in particular, like, it's a very specific thing. If it was any other coach, probably, I would be like, no, we know who he is. But the Gase thing is what's really kind of holding me back. If Donald pans out in Carolina is good, does that mean that Adam Gase is still overrated? Like right now in this moment, if this happens again, do we have to reflect back to the present tense and go, oh, my God, we were still not. not getting it with that guy. We were still giving that guy too much credit because

I don't think anyone's giving him too much credit. I think as shameless plug for Fantasy Football Show, Sean came on and said as the worst quarterback play caller, any offense, anything of the last 20 years, minimum. I mean, just, it would be astonishing. So 12 here, we've got Marcus Marioata.

The Titans took him second at 2015. D.K., when you hear Marcus Mariotta, what's the first thing you think of? So the first thing that I remembered from the Marietta era was, I don't know if you guys remember this, but there was a Thursday night game against Pittsburgh, and NBC was testing out this new technology. Sky cam. Sky cam. Yes. And he threw a pick and he looked like an idiot. Highfitz is like super excited. He remembers this specifically. And while I was researching this memory that I had,

I actually ran across a tweet by Danny that said, Skycam is so beautiful. I haven't stopped crying since the game came on. So Hyfitz was very into it. I love SkyKams so much. One reach wheat, one like. Not very good, not very good interaction there, High Fits. Like, you know, that's fine. This is early. So don't need a outside affirmation.

But like if you don't remember that, basically it was the Skycam was doing, was filming live during the game. So instead of just like a replay showing kind of like what he was seeing, it was like live during the game. And he made two of the most atrocious picks I've ever seen. The first one was basically he stared down. Or I don't remember what order it was. but one of them was he stared down a receiver on the outside

and then threw a pass way late, the Steelers receiver jumped on it and easily picked it off. The second one was he like tried to go over the middle of the field and skied it over his receiver about five feet and that one got picked. And I think that was the moment that I identify where I was like, okay, I don't think Mario is good. You know what I mean?

I think that was like where I was like, this is not looking good. The reason I love Skycam is I feel. that if you're not watching, if you can't see what the quarterback sees, are you even watching the same game? And that moment was crazy because it was like the first time people really were watching Skycam live.

And then immediately, it's like football seems like it's rocket science. And then you just see what Mario is seeing. And you're like, what the fuck was he looking at? There's nothing there. You can see the coverage. You can see who's like manned up

against the receivers he's going at. Like that first one where the guy picked it on the outside easily. It was like, dude, that was the most obvious. Don't throw that. You know what I mean? But so anyways, that was my memory for Mario to era.

It was just like, this isn't going well. All right. Nor do you have a word association with Marioira or just, I don't really think of Marioita very much, to be honest. I don't either. I will say that I generally think very highly of Marcus Mariotta, like less so in a football sense, but just like he seems like a good dude.

Recently, my association with him is that weird thing that happens to quarterbacks when they get affiliated with John Gruden, where you can, where it's like either he loves them or, he hates them and you just can't figure it out. It seems like I love hate with Gruden. Okay, so the flacco line, would they make this pick again? I mean, no, obviously.

So nature and nurture, Nora, do you think who gets more blame for Mario to just not working out? The Titans are Mario. It's borderline, but I kind of think the Titans. This one's, this is, this starts to get into like, did the offense know how to use him effectively? if, I mean, also, so where does, here's a big question that I have about this category.

Health. Where does that fall? Is that nurture in the sense that it's luck of the draw, or is that nature? It's a gray area. I think with Mariotta, the completely forgotten part of his career is that he literally has an like a nerve injury in his throwing arm. Like the funny. I forgot about that, to be honest. Everyone has forgotten about it. Everyone's like, what happened to him? It's like, he has, he had issues in his throwing arm and like, there's not like necessarily a surgery for that like you just got to hope the nerves

get better like you can't he couldn't feel his hand that he's gripping yeah exactly and so right like that's not forgotten what if because he's a quiet guy but he's i don't know no one talks about him the way they talk about other quarterbacks who have been injured so i so yeah to to norah's point i was very on the fence about this one too because the titans you know they they were a very good example of like exactly what not to do with your top pick quarterback. They had five offensive coordinators cycle through. Right.

For Mario, his first four seasons. And that is like the textbook way to not, like that's a textbook way to ruin a young quarterback because they have to learn new language. I know that there's probably some overlap between each coordinator. But you have to learn language. You have to learn of the playbooks are you have to learn,

you have to get to know each other. there's probably awkwardness there. You have to learn each other's strengths and weaknesses. That's a very strong, important relationship in the game of football. You know, we've seen this time and time again. And he had five different coordinators in four seasons. However, I will say, it is tough to ignore the fact that Ryan Tannahill came in and lit it up

with Arthur Smith, whereas Mariotta was very much struggling to that point in that season. So I think I kind of fall on the, the, I kind of fall on the side where, I think that it was Marioada, but they also did not do a good job of giving him a good support system. So I lean more that it was Marioata's just not as good as we hoped he would be. But there definitely are some circumstances in there that did not help him at all. Okay. Let's keep rolling here. 11.

We got James Winston sticking in the 2015 draft. The bucks took him first ahead of Marioata. DK, when you think of James Winston, what comes to mind? The pick six that seal him into the 30-30 club, 30 picks. Oh, my God. 30 touchdowns and 30 picks in his season, which is never. ever going to be matched again. He's, he's, like, immortalized or whatever in that.

Well, it started as a joke, and then he actually did it. The crazy thing with that was I forgot after, like, when you start reading about all the stuff, that was the last pick he threw as a buck was a pick six. I forgot the first pick he threw it. The first throw he threw as a buck was also pick six. He literally bookended his Tampa Bay career with two pick sixes, which is, I mean. He came the bet. He did.

So, Flackeline, would they make this pick again? Nora, what do you think? Would the bucks make this pick again? I'm going to go with no. Mm-hmm. I don't think, I mean, he didn't work out for them on the field. He had, he has an unsavory history off the field. I don't think that you redo James Winston have given the opportunity.

I mean, yeah, the most telling thing is they let him go and then immediately won the Super Bowl. Right. That's a good point. You know, there's variables in there, but they let him go and then immediately won the Super Bowl. I will say, and I feel a little bit bad about this because I think, like, again, James has become the bit in so many different ways that I think it gets tricky because we're talking about someone who settled with a sexual assault accuser and someone who there are some really serious potential issues with him off the field. And so I think it just gets shaky when it's like, oh, James, like Lasick James. you know, 30 for 30 Club James like it gets too flippant.

I hope I can say this in a way that's appropriate and articulate enough to skirt that. I have to be honest that I'm fascinated by the idea of a quarterback getting LASIC surgery. Like I just want to know. I want to know how much it helped

because the 30 for 30 club is not a thing that you get into if you're seeing the field appropriately. And now just that is, Is that an issue that is primarily with how he goes through his reads and his processing speed or accuracy or decision making? Or was there some kernel of that where genuinely his eyes weren't great? And I think, you know, you divorce that from the less sort of fun and interesting elements of the stories that have been around him for his career. I do, I find that really, really, really interesting.

It's like the real life version of Wild Thing Vaughn for Major League. where he just pitches 100 miles an hour and then they're like, wait a minute, just get him glasses and all of a sudden he's good. Yeah, like Winston, you know, as a player, he is a good representation of, you know, the question of whether you can coach a guy's decision-making ability and so far throughout his career, you can't.

Like I think, you know, Bruce Ariens probably thought he could. And that obviously did not work out 30 interceptions in a season. And, you know, then Arians promptly gave up on him and decided to go with a much more effective and successful quarterback in Tom Brady. So, you know, we're going to find out more about Winston in terms of like whether that is something that can get coached out of a player, the poor decision making, the turnovers. He might have a chance to start this year in New Orleans. Or I guess it's looking like he's probably going to start this year in New Orleans. But I'm not optimistic that that's something that can really change, to be honest. If you combine picks and fumbles,

James has 138 combined picks and fumbles in his first five seasons. That is 30 more than the next place guy. So, you know, that's something. That's the thing that I think is really important here is that, okay, so nature versus nurture is the most interesting question when it comes to quarterbacks because it's the most important position on the field, but it's also part of a sport that is defined by just having so many variables that contribute to outcomes. So even though you have this central figure on every team,

it's really hard to figure out why they're good when they're good or why they're bad when they're bad. It can be applied to other positions and other parts of the team too, though. And when you have a team that has a good, young defense, you want to know how to put them in a bad position. It's that many turnovers, right? Like those guys, we could watch that defense and go,

these guys are really good. They have really good players. They're playing really well. They're fast. They're smart. okay, why aren't they winning more? Well, in part, it's because they're on the field all the friggin' time. So it's not just that he wasn't accomplishing enough on offense.

He was putting the best part of the team in disadvantaged situations on a really regular basis. Yeah, giving opposing offenses, short fields, all that, yeah. All right. Next up, we got Sam Bradford at 10. And just to recap the list of before, we got Bortles last, Tribusky 14th, Darnal 13th, Mario, a 12th. Mario to 12th, Winston 11th. 10th, we got Sam Bradford. The Rams took him first, 2010.

Deacon, when you think of Sam Bradford, what do you think of? So this might be something that most people don't get, but I just think of the funny, weird face he makes when he throws the football. Like, everybody makes a little bit of a weird face when they're throwing. But Bradford, when he throws a football, it looks like he's letting go to the football and then immediately realizes he's going to get, like, hit by a bus or something. He looks terrified of what's. going to happen next. And that might be like a good microcosm for how his career went. I mean,

he was, that's not fair because, you know, he actually did have a very good completion percentage and all that stuff. But he just, you know, he never turned into the guy that we all thought he was going to be. And I was a guy that was a defender of him early on his career because I thought he had incredible talent. Like he could make some incredible throw, like Aaron Rogers style throws where he whips the ball 50 yards down the field on the move or whatever. But injuries and just, you know, I don't know what it was, but he, like, lost his confidence and just turned into a checkdown machine later in his career. I don't think you can really look at this as a success. All right.

So the flackle, I nor, would the Rams make this make again? I don't think so. Just because of his injury history and the ceiling being a little bit low, I don't think you do it again. Although I do think, I don't know, maybe I just have made too many, like, seven to nine bullshit Jeff Fisher jokes. But, like, that whole... Sam Bradford wasn't terrible. He just never looks. Here's what hurts Sam Bradford.

He never looks like he's doing what he's doing on purpose. Like he never looks like he intended to be there. He always looks like sort of confused. And I don't think that helps him overall. But no, I don't think that they would make the pick again if given the opportunity. So nature and nurture there, like, I mean, this one's hard because there's so many injuries. So in a way, do we have to almost throw this out? What do you, I mean, what do you think, D.K.?

Yeah. If you, if you, if you, because you said this earlier. like it's a gray area, the injuries thing. I think the injuries is too big of a part of his story and too big of a part of his career to really like make that determination if it was the team's fault, if it was his fault. It was more just like bad luck. And it happened multiple times. Maybe like you could look at, I think didn't you have shoulder issues in college too?

Like maybe that was a bad decision by the team. He did. So that was a failure to scout or something or maybe they shouldn't have taken that risk. I don't know. But like, yeah, I think there's just so many injuries. that it wasn't really anyone's fault. It was just bad luck. It just didn't work out.

Yeah. Except for him. It worked out great for him because he made like $150 million to mostly be back out. I mean, it worked out for somebody. And because of the money being under the old CBA, old worky wage scale, and because of the draft capital expended to get him, he got a lot of chances. Like there was no, you know, the darnald trajectory was not happening with Sam Bradford. That's a good point.

Okay, number nine, we got Tua, Tungo Viloa. Dolphins took him fifth last year. I mean, I think of Ben Glickman, who's an editor here at the ringer who has been obsessed to us since he was a prospect of high school. I mean, do you guys think of anything other than Ben when I think of, when you think of Tua? Ben offered, Ben, like, offered to fight me about Tua once.

So I'm with you on that one. I'll fight you. I just, that's all I think about. All right. Flacko. this one's too soon and not too soon to make because it's like would they make this pick again? Would they pick Herbert? It seems ridiculous to talk about this after a year.

Is it D.K.? Yeah, yeah. I mean, if right now, if they could flip the script or whatever, trying to go back, they would take Herbert. But I think it's still too early to close the book on Tua. We don't know yet how he's going to turn out. To me, the first thing that I thought of with Tua is the injury. Like the feeling of like, oh, my God, is his career over because he was, you know, One of the most exciting potential NFL prospects and then in his final season at Alabama,

you know, he, or I guess it didn't have to be his final season. But in that season, he, you know, broke his hip and there was immediate comparisons to Bo Jackson and his career being over. And it was just so so depressing and sad. It was like, man, you just really feel for the guy. So I'm willing to like let that, let his underwhelming rookie year kind of slide because I think he was still getting over that injury, and we'll see what happens this year. And hopefully he'll get a little bit better supporting cast.

So you think rookie, it was more the, necessarily the injury than the supporting cast for last year? I think it was both. I mean, I think, you know, Ben talked about this on an earlier episode of the show where, you know, there was this weird tug-of-war between, like, Chan Gayley was brought in to coach Ryan Fitzpatrick. And then there was like, they kept putting Tua in. I don't know who made that decision. And then yanking him out. It was like this weird tug of war.

And it just never felt like there was a plan there. And if you're a rookie quarterback, like Ryan Fitzpatrick is the white light you see before you, you know, head into the beyond. Like, we've seen this movie before, right? The only thing that I think, I just want to go. I just want you to see a giant beard. I just want to go back for a second. Would, if you had to make this pick again right now and it. I completely agree with both of you.

It is too early to say what Tua is going to turn into, what Justin Herbert is going to turn into over the courses of their career. But can you honestly tell me that if you were making this pick again, you wouldn't do it the other way? I mean, I absolutely would. I think anyone who watches the people would. Knowing what we know now. And I just,

including Ben and Roger Sherman. Right. And this was my only point back then when Ben wanted to fight me about Tua and remains my only real point now, is that we can look down. on this list and realize this is really hard. Evaluating quarterbacks is really hard and people get wrong a lot. All the guys we've talked about so far, we're bad.

Like, like obviously this is hard. Like disappointment. Yeah. Let's keep rolling here. Okay. Next up, speaking of which, Carson Wentz, Eagles took him second overall in 2016. I'm going to give you my word association. You know what I think of when I think of Wentz?

I think about him looking at his Super Bowl ring. I want to know how he feels. I want to know what he thinks when he puts it on. I want to know, I want to know what it was like, go to work and like there is a statue outside the stadium of the backup quarterback in the coach outside the freaking stadium and like the entire city worships the guy who like replaced you and also now you're the quarterback again i just it is i don't know if there's another dynamic like that i i just i'm obsessed with thinking about it wild i also just think about his i can't even

because he just kills a lot of ducks. Yeah, that's what I... These dogs are very cute. I also think about his gender reveal was like a clay pigeons, like they threw out like a, like, pull and then they, like, shot of the shotgun. But he had like his,

his three brothers or friends, whatever. So there were four men shooting it, which again, literally, not only did the Eagles doubt his accuracy, he didn't trust that he would shoot the thing. So they needed like a squad to hit like this volleyball. they threw up. And I'm like, you're a quarterback. You should be able to freaking shoot it with a shotgun, dude.

I can't believe you needed a cavalry for that. I think of that every time. Anyway, would the Eagles make this pick again, Dora? I guess you gotta say no. Right? Because he had such a good, like that team was so good. He had everything around him. And if Carson Wentz wasn't enough to make a team that Nick Foles made succeed,

succeed in the way that they wanted him to, then I guess you just don't do it. it. Yeah, that's where I am too. I mean, I think it's, if you're taking a quarterback that high. Yeah, and exactly. We already kind of know the answer. They wouldn't have done it again. But this is also one of those situations where it's like the

do you want to change the timeline enough? Are you willing to sacrifice that Super Bowl? Right, because they wouldn't have gotten to that Super Bowl if they didn't have Carson. I don't know. I don't know. This one is borderline. I think you probably make it just because they won the Super Bowl and he was the quarterback for most of that season. I think nature nurture here.

Now that we're in this weird situation where he's back on the cults with Frank Reich, I mean, I think we all know the third down thing, but I just want to throw out the actual stat, which is the Eagles in 2017 on third and fourth down, ranked first and expected points per play. First in 2017, and then 2018, they dropped down to 17th, which is random.

Basically, they were hot. It was like Steph Curry just, you know, making 80% of a series for a game. It's like, everything was working that year. And then, yeah, and then the next year, it's like, okay, that was never sustainable. and it seems like the offense kind of fell apart after that. Well, but they also had approximately 45 wide receivers get hurt.

Well, that's the thing. I think the weird part about the Wend's tenure, obviously the injuries are a thing. He never had a mediocre supporting cast. He only had an elite, elite supporting cast, or was so injured that it was one of the worst in the league. But it was never in between. Yeah, just crumbled. Like they signed Greg Ward from the AIF, and he was like immediately like their best player. And it's like, what is going on here?

So he You know Like they would sign left tackles And then the guy He replaces the left tackle gets hurt They're a third string at both positions Like the whole offensive lines hurt So that's the reason I actually

I'm kind of in on wence with the Colts So anyway still I think here This will be a good segue to the next This will be a good segue To the next guy I think If you're taking a quarterback that high

You want him to be a player That is going to elevate the guys around him Not be a product of the players around him Does that make sense? Yes that's what you want but the history of the top of the draft is not that those guys

grow on trees. Hence the podcast we're doing Nora. We're getting there. Everyone's getting the point very slowly. Jared Goff is number seven. Rames took him first ahead of Wednesday, 2016. When I think of Goff, I think of Baby Giraff. What do you guys, D.K., what do you think of Gough? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely

a good one. I think of, I just imagine the panic that sets in when McVeigh's Mike gets cut off in his helmet. You know, like whatever is 15 seconds before the play clock ends, the mic cuts out. And then I think, oh, dear God, what do we do now? Yeah, Goff is one of those. He's a very interesting one too because, like, there was some very high highs when it came to the Rams offense.

Like you remember, you know, we, we anointed McVeigh as the new, like, guru, like, quarterback's coach slash offense play caller slash head coach. He was the man. And that offense was unstoppable. They beat the Chiefs 54 to 51 on Monday night football. I mean, Gough was throwing lasers. You have to, Gough was actually good in, in, like, when he was in that zone. But, you know, whether it was because, like, the Patriots figured out how to, like, stop that wide, run game or, you know, obviously they weren't the actual ones that figured out.

But teams started to, like, be able to chip away at McVeigh's system a little bit. And it took him a while to adapt. And then for whatever reason, Gough just fell apart. And he kind of like reverted back to the guy we saw as a rookie. And so it's, to me, it's very difficult. But at the end of the day, you know, this is kind of skipping forward to the, you know, the flaco line. I think he's the same deal. It's like skip, skip ahead all the way.

Do they make this pick again? Yeah. No, because I think McVeigh can get more out of quarterback than what he's able to get out of got off last couple years. I think what I think what we've established is. Like McVeigh's system is awesome for quarterbacks. And Goff, you know, was not elevating the guys around him. It was the opposite.

I know this isn't purely the exercise. But does not making that pick again mean that they're going to use that pick on Carson Wentz or Paxton Lynch or Christian Hakenberg? No, it doesn't mean they have to take Christian Hakenberg. No. Okay. Well, who are they taking? Like, I don't think that it would have made sense. to use that pick on anything but a quarterback.

Don't get too scientific. The point is, are they happy with this number one pick? And I think that you're right, that Goff probably stretches the exercise because it's like they almost made a Super Bowl. But to me, I think the answer is no,

because he's like just a way more talented Andy Dalton. I always think of Andy Dalton as the average guy is in to Dek his point. He's exactly as good as the people around him. Goff is way more talented. So maybe the highs are a little higher when there's talented people around him, but like, I don't think he elevates a team in any way.

I'm curious to, like, and maybe he can prove, was wrong with Detroit. I'm just not sure that a way more talented Andy Dalton is all that insulting. And they took him first. I think that's disappointing.

No one wants Eddie Dalton first in the draft. I don't believe that Jared Goff fulfilled all of their hopes and dreams. He doesn't play for them anymore. Yeah, okay, yeah. There we go.

Nora, let me ask you this, though. Do you think he's going to be good for the Lions this year? Do I think he's going to be good? Outside of McShay's system, on the Lions, bunch of football guys. You're so in draft mode, you just called Sean

they just want to bite your kneecap off. Yeah, you just did. Did I really? Yeah, you did. You're so in draft mode. You called him McShay. I love it. McVeigh, my bad.

How would you go off to in Todd McShay's offense? That would be an adventure. So I'm not going to cop out of this question. I just want to say that the lions to me are so unclear right now because I just don't know what biting kneecaps off means as it pertains to what type of team they want to be. So no, I think that he's going from a pretty good infrastructure where he was just okay to a worse one.

I don't want to devalue just the benefit of a fresh start. But no, I'm not particularly high on the chances there of success just because I think LA is ultimately a better run team. Before we move on, Nora, I wanted to go back to one point you said. Like the idea of the exercise isn't necessarily to be like, oh, okay, who would they have picked instead? they have picked Wentz. They could have picked Jalen Ramsey first.

And then they'd have like six or seven extra first round picks. Because they would have had to trade two for Jalen Ramsey. And then was it two more for Stafford? Or did they get, I can't remember what the deal was for Stafford, but they gave up a first, didn't they? Yeah. They gave up two firsts.

To get rid of golf. They didn't give up one. Not to mention they don't have first round picks for the next decade. They should have just taken Jail and Ramsey. Yeah, that's a good. Anyway, so Ramsey's the pickover, Gaff. Glad that's easy. Okay.

Next up we got Joe Burrow. It's, we don't have to spend too long here. It's like he played nine games as a rookie. Like, we don't know. Would they make the pick again? Yes, right? I mean, we, yeah, who knows? Yeah.

What do you guys think of when you think of Joe Burrow? I just think of the cigar photo. Like him smoking after the national championship game, it's iconic. I think so, too. But then the second thing I think of is the SpongeBob memes that I don't understand. Because I've never seen SpongeBob. Salty Spatoon, baby. You've never seen SpongeBob?

No. He's older. I'm too old. Okay, that's a different podcast, but we'll unpack that at some point. I also think of his high-sman speech. We listen to the fancy football show. We give him shit for it all the time.

He's a saved by the bell guy. It's older millennials versus younger millennials. It's a whole thing. We figured out the, we figured it a lot out. I think Kevin also hasn't seen SpongeBob. Yeah. Well, no, so millennials, the dividing mark.

The demarcation between older millennials and younger millennials, is SpongeBob Millennials versus Saved by the Bell millennials. What was like, what did you watch when you came up in school? It's a whole thing. We should contact whoever those demographic people are that make this stuff, make these decisions. Because we crack the code.

Neither here nor there. Joe Burrow puts a lot of SpongeBob content out there. Nora, do you believe that Burrow will be successful, Bengals, nurture nature? I guess we can look more future here because he's played nine games. But what do you think? Yeah, he was good enough last year

that it made me in a pretty bad situation. Right? Like he was getting creamed. I mean, he was throwing 40 times a game. He got sacked 32 times in 10 games. Like bangles are going to bangle. And he still, you talk about you make one of these picks, you want the guy to elevate the people around him. I think Joe Burrow passed that test pretty early on.

Now, do I think that that organization has to date done everything that they possibly could to protect him and surround him with talent? Not quite. If we were having this conversation a week. ish into free agency. I was a little bit more concerned before they started, you know, sending signals that they were going to try to address the offensive line. Obviously, if they can take someone like Sewell at five in the draft,

that's great. I think their top, top, top, top, top priority should be protecting him just because that was so egregious last year. I mean, they need pass catchers too, but that's just really essential because I don't think that you can keep playing this like 10,000 hour rule thing here where you just put him under so. much pressure and ask him to make so many different

throws where it's like either he's going to get crushed and crumble or he's going to turn into a diamond. Like I just don't think that's a gamble that you want to take. Maybe he can scramble for 10,000 hours. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, we're getting pretty close, right? But other than obviously, injury

becomes a factor, but I would make that pick again in the heartbeat. Okay. Let's roll top five here. And to recap, we have Bortles last, Mitchell Chubiskyy 14th, Donald 13th. Marcus Marrida 12th, James 11th, St. Bradford, 10th, 2 and 9th, 8th, Carson Wentz, Jared Goff, 7th, Joe Burrow 6, top 5. Top 5, 5, last 10 years.

This one is kind of squishy. I'm just because of what you guys think of when the first thing you think of Baker, D.K., when you hear Baker these days, like, what do you think of? Progressive commercials. Which one's your favorite? I don't know, I don't remember specifically, but he's like very, he's in a hurry to get, like, to cover up the seats because it's going to start raining. Yeah.

That one to me is actually pretty funny. The smoke alarm one? I love the smoke alarm one. The correct answer is book club, but these are good. Yeah, that's really good. He's like, let's cut her out. So catty. This is not a great sign, though, that these are like the reasons we think of him, though.

Isn't it, though? Because there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a Baker Mayfield potential counter narrative where it's like drama, drama, he's always pissed off at everybody. I think it's nice. You said what would happen if he was on the Jets. I mean, imagine if Baker got mono for the Jets. Like it would have been a little bit of a bigger deal. So on that note, flack a line, would the Browns take Baker first again?

Do you think, like, DeK, what do you think? Yes, I think so. I think so. It's very close. But I don't, I think they're going to give them a second contract. So yes, I think they would. Nora, what do you think? I think so, too.

I do think that the, I mean, we're never going to know, right? But the counterfactual with Baker and Darnold there is fascinating because until a few days before the draft, everybody thought that the Browns were maybe going to take Darnold. And then all of a sudden, including the Jets. And then all of a sudden it was like, no, the Browns are going to take Baker Mayfield. The Browns are going to take Baker Mayfield. The Browns are going to take Baker Mayfield. And I mean, I think Baker is right around that line where we kind of know at this point he needs to be in a good system and with a good infrastructure. but if he is, he's pretty good.

And, God, I wish, I wish we could play it out with some of these other guys, particularly Sam. But they would, if, if they extend a guy, I think that's a pretty tacit admission that, like, they're feeling good about it. So nature, nurture here, D.K, we kind of have taken for granted that the Browns went from, I mean, like, O and 16 and are now like a respectable team. They made the playoffs. they blew out the Steelers in the playoffs. They might be legit good this year too.

Even if Baker is not necessarily like elite as a quarterback or really close to it yet, do we kind of underrate that this is cliche, but whatever, the cultural leadership he brings to the team and like how that can change the vibe of a locker room? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's maybe. It's cliche city, but it's also real. Yeah, I really don't know. I mean, I think he's done a pretty good job of handling, you know,

there was some adversity early on. and, you know, he's getting called out for basically doing all these commercials. And then he wasn't backing it up necessarily with what he was doing on the field. And then I think this last year, he really kind of like turned things around. And he was impressive to me. He wasn't like an elite quarterback, but he did a good job in that system. So I think, I think the team has done a good. I think there's a little bit of both.

I think that Baker has done well to like self-actualize. And I think the team has also done a really good job of, you know, they got rid of the old administration or the old regime or whatever. the old coaching staff brought in Kevin Sfansky, I think, who's designed a system that works really well with like what his skill set is. They have beefed up that offensive line. So that's obviously very important. They have a lot of good like their run game gives him support. They have a good upcoming defense.

I think that it's been a good balance. Like it's a good situation for him. I think he's done a good job of like, you know, like sticking with things and like kind of improving throughout the years. But it's also, you know, a good situation for him team wise, schematic wise, coach-wise. all that stuff. Nora, do you think Baker would be more or less successful on a different team? On the average other team less successful. The Browns are good.

The Browns are like, I know it's really hard to understand because of Brown's history. But that is a well-run organization with good players, you know? Like, there are a lot worse places to play than Cleveland right now. So, I mean, are there other teams where? where like, okay, if you give Kyle Shanahan, Baker Mayfield, does that probably work out pretty well? Sure. But if it's a roll of the dice, stay in Cleveland, man. Like, there's worse things in the world.

All right. Well, speaking of Kyle Shanahan, four, we got Robert Griffin the third. Washington took him second in 2012. Obviously, this one's weird with the injuries. But first off, word association, I'm going to steal this one. I don't have a word that I think of when I think of RG3. I have a feeling. and it's the feeling I remember is the rookie year

that was amazing they played giants on Monday night football and it was like third and one and they ran an option and the giants were so unprepared for this option that Robert the Griffith Robert Griffin runs like untouched

40 yards sprinting downfield and I vividly remember thinking holy shit this guy is going to wreck the giants and wreck the NFCs for the rest of like my life like 10 years, this guy is going to be a problem. And I was like, I just felt defeated, not just in that game, but for the future. What about you guys? When you think of RJ3, Nora, what do you think of?

Yeah, kind of the same thing. I mean, I just think of like all of, I just, I think of that as part of a close to decade-long experience of just like weird quarterback drama in Washington and him being a part of that. What about you, D.K. I mean, yeah, the first thing that I think of is, you know, that was, I'm, hopefully I'm not remembering this incorrectly, but he, his knee bent backwards against the Seahawks in the playoffs. I'm pretty sure it was against Seahawks. And I remember in that game in particular, like, Washington was a buzzsaw early in the game. They jumped out to a lead. RG3 was looking awesome. He tweaked his knee. And then he's, and then that like slowed down what they were doing.

The Seahawks kind of like made the way back into it. And then later in the game, he really messed it up. Obviously, like, you know, bent it backwards. It was terrible. And, you know, just awful to see. And then they ended up losing. And then from there, it just seems like his career cratered mostly because of that injury. Right.

And so and also there was like shenanigans with rushing him back too quickly, like the Adidas stuff. Like there's a lot of, you know, variables that kind of went into like why he ended up. that injury ended up changing the course of his career. But I just remember thinking this guy, like exactly what you said, high fits, this guy is so good, so unstoppable. I just, it sucks because he was going to be like this next superstar. And I think he absolutely could have been. He had the talent to be great.

And it just really sucks that an injury would derail that. So like to get back onto the good side and think of something nice. The thing that I think of when I think of RG3 early in his career was just gorgeous, arching play action bombs downfield. Like his, like when he would throw deep 60 yards, just flick of the wrist. He was so good in that offense and, you know, just what they were asking him to do.

So that's why I try and think of because obviously like the injury stuff is terrible and it sucks and it's infuriating to think about. He remains the what if player, I think, in recent times. So let's go out of order here for a second because what they make of the pick again is dependent on I think the nature and nurture question.

So let's just go out of order. to your point, to you keep about getting hurt. I just want to give like a little bit of a timeline here. He hurt his knee December rookie year. Again, that Washington turf is questionable to be charitable. James Andrews, like the James Andrews, the guy who does all the surgery is like this celebrity surgeon guy, was RG3's doctor for his knee.

And before the playoff game, like the day before they played the Seahawks, said, I've been a nervous wreck letting RG3 come back as quick as he has. He's doing a lot better this week, but he's still recovering. and I'm holding my breath because of it. It's been a trying moment for me, to be honest with you. Here it is do the next day. Then the next day, hurts in the playoffs.

It's no good. And then like during the off season, they launched the Adidas, the all in for week one campaign. So it's like not only was RG3 pushing to come back earlier than he should have. Now Adidas is pushing in. It comes back gets hurt early in the season and is not the same.

It basically should not have played. So with all that said, do you, it's like, Nor, do you put more, it's kind of a mix of like RG3's ambition and then Washington's incompetence and then like the Adidas factor. So like do you look at his career as like this nature or nurture thing? Like it's hard to know how much to put one in Washington and how much on just injuries like it's random. Unknowable. Well, but okay.

So when he was in college, he, he tore an ACL, his second season and then redshirted and didn't have a ton of injuries in college other than that. didn't enter the NFL with a super, super, super significant injury history. It wasn't nothing. And I think even in 2012, we think we thought of ACL injuries a little bit differently than we do now. I think we have a little bit better information that, like, you can come back from that stuff. But usually when teams are looking at these guys, your past injury history is pretty

predictive. Like all of the sports science that they have tells those teams that if a guy was injured a lot in college. He's likely to be injured a lot in his pro career. And I don't think that RG3, if he were coming out right now, I don't think that a lot of teams, and, you know, I don't know, I'm not a physical trainer. I'm not, you know, I'm not a team doctor or whatever. But I don't think that teams would look at him and go, oh, this is a huge injury risk, especially because I think we're a little bit more receptive to quarterbacks who play in that style because teams have gotten and better at understanding how to protect them,

and that's just where the game has gone. So this, to me, is on Washington. I mean, I just think that it's pretty, like, that quote is incredibly telling. You had the literal doctor, the doctor, the surgeon who everybody goes to with this stuff, saying, I don't feel good about this. And he was not ready.

And he was an incredible talent. And I think it's pretty fair to say there's a solid chance that his career got wrecked because of this. And I don't think that it's on him. And I think that we're just never going to know what he could have been, which is really sad. Also, their field sucks. The field sucks.

The field sucks. The field sucks. The field sucks. Kind of cheap. Okay. So with that said, I think they make the pick again. And they don't have a cheap field and don't push him to come back before he's ready twice. And I think that's why we have him so high here, too, is like we're pointing out,

this guy had the potential to be a very, like a great quarterback. But it just. And we wish somebody else had made the pick or they had been, behave differently or whatever. But the difference to him being fourth and Sam Bradford, who also had a lot of injuries being 10th is that San Bradford was never like, unbelievably exciting. And like,

no one will remember San Bradford 20 years from now and be like, but I will always remember how I felt watching our D3. Okay. Third pick, we got Kyler Murray, Cardinals. He went first two years ago. I think word association.

First of what I think of when I think of Kyler, I just think about how he's like maybe the best high school, Texas quarterback ever. He went 42 at O in high school. He went 12 and two in college and there's no 13, 18, and one in the NFL. And when I think of Kyler, I think about how unbelievably difficult it must be to come

to the pros after losing basically two games in the last seven years and then get your face kicked in. It's crazy to me. So the flack or line, would they make this pick again? Nora. Yeah. Totally. For sure, right? He's good.

Yeah, yeah. He has a franchise changing talent. The fact he's even this high, though, is crazy to me. Like, because I think we have him Robert Griffin for a very simple reason that, like, he could be better because he, like, there is no injury question with Kyle or even though he hasn't been quite that player. He's still been really good. But the fact that he's already third on this list is kind of an indictment of the list. Is it not already, D.K.? Right. Exactly. I think that's the, that's the idea is when I, earlier when we were talking on Slack about the show, I was like, God, this list sucks. Like, These are top five quarterbacks the last 10 years.

Just like mostly disappointing players, you know. And so I think, yes, it is absolutely telling that Kyler Murray, who has two seasons in the league. You know, it's like one of those things where he has a ton of potential. He's not there yet. I think this year is a little bit of a pivotal season for him. I think he needs to show improvement in the passing game. He's clearly an electric runner and what he brings to the offense from that point of view as a scrambler, as a runner, all that. but I think the fact that we're still questioning whether like Cliff Kingsbury is a good coach is a little bit, you know, telling as, you know, what I think that that, that, if anything, that says like Kyler is a extreme talent and I think he's going to be very good.

If we're, if we've seen what he's done, the way he's turned around that that team, helped turn around that team. And we're still like, is Cliff, does Cliff know what he's doing? You know what I mean? There's so many in-game questionable decisions from him that I think. that tells you all you need to know about, about Kyler. He has the nature to be great. Okay. Let's roll to number two. Got

Andrew Luck for the cults. They took him first in 2012. Word association, Nora, when you think of Andrew Luck, what do you think of? I think dearest mother. I think of Captain Andrew Luck the Twitter account. Well, we have to get some justice. Andrew Luck was incredible.

But I just think of the Twitter account. First of justice to Roger Sherman, who like invented that name and that it was stolen from him. So shout out Roger. When you think of Andrew Luck, what do you think of? I think of his gross, scraggly beard, mostly, which is not great, I know. But also he has a very distinctive voice.

Who has a more distinctive voice? Andrew Luck or Patrick Mahomes? I feel like they both have very gravelly distinctive voices. It just don't sound like what you think they're going to sound like. No, in reality, though, like I just think of, I guess I just think of him as like this, you know, one of the all-time great quarterback prospects, you know, and not necessarily what he did in his career, which I feel like that's underselling him a little bit because he was a very good quarterback in the NFL.

But like, I just think of him being this great, great, you know, the second coming of Payne Manning or whatever. Andrew Luck should hope that Trevor Lawrence isn't actually that good because if Trevor Lawrence is great, then people are going to start saying this is the best quarterback prospect since Trevor Lawrence. But if Trevor Lawrence doesn't pan out, then it's still going to be since Andrew Luck. Yeah. The thing about luck that's weird, you mentioned Peyton.

So two things about luck are weird. He ended up basically playing one season like football more than Peyton did. Like they drafted him to replace Peyton and he basically retired one season after Peyton Manning retired. Crazy. Which is just blows my mind.

And then the other one is that if I think about like my, Andrew Luck is some of my favorite plays ever in football, favorite moments. Like the tackle he had against USC where he just laid out this cornerback is like amazing moment. I love when quarterback's freaking tackle.

And then also like the Chiefs come back is one of the greatest playoff games I've ever seen. Like they were down 28 nothing or something and they come back to win 45, 44. But the best play from that game is like him picking up a fumble and diving for a touchdown

like Michael Jordan and Space Gym. When I think of Andrew Luck, I can't even think of a throw he made that like it's like, oh yeah, remember that. Like you guys have one throw when you think of Andrew Luck because I can't even remember one.

It's all weird shit. There wasn't, yeah, there wasn't a signature play that stands out to me, to be honest. Well, but he loved that stuff, right? And sometimes it was a little, like, it was, it could be cringy how much he would say, like, he likes to get hit and all. And all that, but like, you guys saw the super cut of him like saying like, nice hit. Relatively to lug and getting hit, he retired. And the quote from when he retired is, I'm in pain. I'm still in pain.

It's been four years of this pain rehab cycle. It's a myriad of issues. Castrian posterior. Ankle impingement. High ankle sprain. part of my jury going forward we figuring out how to feel better. It's kind of a good reminder

that these guys are like playing football fucking hurts. Yeah. Really, really, really hurts. So the nature, obviously they would make the pick again. Nature, nurture, Nora, the, I mean,

why does this player succeed or fit? Obviously, I mean, we're going to put it on the cults, right? So you're Ryan Grigsend takes. You've been doing pods with Kevin, so I know you have Ryan Grigsend takes. Yeah. I'm going to put this squarely

on the lack of offensive line help. Although I do, I think somebody should have said to him at some point, that's great that you like getting hit. Oh, luck, yeah. Maybe stop. Like, stop trying to do that. Yeah. But yes, no, this is that one's, that one's, I think, pretty clear cut.

What do you think, D.K.? Who gets the, I mean, again, we were robbed of like an all-time great quarterback who's blamed there. Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely would put on, you know, the Colts. And in fact, Grigsson tried to try to pretty much blame luck. for some of the reasons that they weren't able to surround him with more talent, which is hilarious. The GM is like, that quarterback who's like, I lucked into this job is like that guy. Yeah, you were gifted that. Just the quote from Grigsden, the GM was, quote, explaining why the cults were bad.

He said, when you pay Andrew what we did, it's going to take some time to build on the other side of the ball, end quote. And that was basically him explaining why they had spent less draft capital on defense than any other team in the first four years of luck's career, which is like, whiff. And then Chris Ballard built a good offensive line and good defense and like Exactly Details What's details? When I look at back at Lux's career, I think the one thing that stands out a little bit is he averaged Almost 14 picks a season throughout his career.

Like if there was one thing that you that you could Like put a black mark on his career was like he threw a lot of picks. He had like a good amount of turnovers. But at the same time like everything that I was reading at during those. years was the Colts were just putting a lot on his plate as a passer. Like making, he was, you know, having to do these very difficult, um, you know, multi read situation. And so like, you know, now when you have a young quarterback in the NFL today, I feel like coaches do a very good job of not dumbing it down, but like giving

quarterbacks a lot of layups, helping them develop and just like making things as easy for them as possible. Whereas like earlier on his career, they basically expected him to be Peyton Manning. You know what I mean? And that created a lot of... Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's true. But I think that was a little bit of a failure from the organization, the coaching staffs around him. Did Peyton Manning accidentally ruin the lives of like several quarterbacks because he

helped Adam Gase get jobs and he did not wear the Colts for like what a normal... Like Peyton Manning inadvertently just like a life ruiner. I love this take. That's amazing. That's pretty good. That's pretty good, O'R. That's not bad. Thanks, Scott.

All right. So, Peyton Manning, just destroying Sim, Donut of Life. That makes sense. Okay. Number one pick. Number one top five pick

of the last 10 years. Cam Newton. Panthers took him first in 2011. So when I think of Cam, I think of, I mean, him not diving for that ball in the Super Bowl. That's not fair.

And, like, he gets a bad rap for that. Yeah. But it is what I think of. I'm sorry. to say it. I also think about how he gives everybody on his team's a nickname. It doesn't call people by their name. What do you think of Deacon?

You think he can. Ready. I'm not good at doing his cadence, but basically, like he's got a very distinctive cadence. In fact, I was looking it up, I'm not even 100% sure he's saying ready. There's some people that were saying he's saying white 80.

But I don't know, whatever. Regardless, his cadence is very distinctive before the snap. So that's the first thing I think of just like him. like surveying the defense doing that that very distinctive call and then also just generally speaking him trucking the shit out of people as a runner he's just like this six foot six 200 and whatever he was 50 plus pounds like guy who's an elite athlete um and i think of him being the greatest red zone player of all time it really is like his ability to throw his ability to be a fullback in that offense just truck

people. You're not tackling that guy when he's around the, when he's around the end zone. So, um, I think he, he was just such a revolutionary style of player. Um, and I don't know, I like he's just one of the most fun players to watch in NFL history. So that's, that's certainly why he got the nod on my, on this list for me being the number one players, like his style, um, the way he plays, obviously, going 15 and one that year and winning the MVP is a, is a huge, huge boost in my mind. Um, So, yeah, I don't know.

I love Cam. Nora, what do you think of when you think of Cam? I think of him, like, inside the 20, rolling out, rumbling towards the end zone, just like flicking away some defensive back. I'm scoring a touchdown. That's what I see with Cam. The other thing, though, is just the font. Like, oh, my God, the font he uses on Instagram.

The font? Oh, God. He's really stuck hard. Cam's wingdings. Cam's wingdings. I also like to be his outfits and he would just delete. his Instagram, which is always upsetting because like he's at the outfits to that, the press conferences

where he just looks like a Batman villain are just, I mean, amazing. It was like him and Russell Westbrook, we're in a passive aggressive one-up-spinship game. So here's what's, so would they make this pick again? Obviously, it's a yes. But like, nature, nurture. Usually the other players were like,

this player's good, like, watch, we haven't talked a lot about these players being good or like they could have been good or like, they're bad, like, why are they bad? did the Panthers succeed? First of all, was his Panthers' tenure success? But was it because of the stuff around him or like completely despite the stuff around him, Nora?

I think he got an okay. Injuries, again, this is, injuries make this complicated. Because, okay, you start to think through like maybe he would have had more consistency with who was coaching him, who the coordinators were, if there hadn't been some seasons

that got derailed because he was hurt. but overall he had decent coaching. Like, it's a little borderline because I think we all believe that Cam Newton could have had more seasons like that 15 and 1, maybe not quite as good, but that he didn't quite reach his ceiling. But I don't know that, like, some of these guys get really tough breaks. I don't know that he got, got like totally short-strod, but this is one that's definitely in the murky middle of that. I mean, I just want to throw out some names here. These are the top guys. This are the most catches on the 2015 team

where he won MVP in the league and then made the Super Bowl. Greg Olson, tight end. And then the receivers were Ted Ginn, Jericho Cottier, Cottery, Corey Brown, Devin Funchess. Yeah, it's not good. That was Kim's,

Kim took those guys to the Super Bowl. Like, DK, what could Cam have done with like a better supporting cast? Right. That is like the question for me because when I think about it, in a way,

the Panthers were sort of like the original Ravens who, you know, when they took Lamar Jackson, they changed their offense around to suit his skill set and basically be like, hey, we're going to do what you did in college and we're going to kick some ass with it. And so I definitely think that the Panthers, they didn't try and like change the type of quarterback he was necessarily. You know, they embrace what he was and we're going to like, you know, make it very difficult for a defense because of that. So I, on one hand, I definitely credit, credit the Panthers for doing that. But out of the other hand, like you said, this was like,

during the Gettelman era, right? If it's like, you know Gettelman as a GM. It seemed like they were trying to get these massive, like the ENs. Like they were trying to get these really tall, big receivers. Calvin Benjamin. Hog Mollies. Oh, for the receivers. Benfunches.

Yeah. And on one hand, I get it because, you know, Cam's accuracy was never like the elite strength of his. And so get a guy with a big catch radius. But like he's also, they were just never getting anybody who could get open. You know what the biggest catch radius is? Someone who's freaking wide open. Right.

The 5'10 guy who has nobody around him is bigger than a 6 foot 5 guy who's just covered. Yeah. So I think they botched. I think they botched it a little bit, putting the support system around him for a good chunk of his career. However, like I said, I do give them credit for changing their system and making it like the Cam Newton system. And that was, I mean, they continued to do that, right? Like 2018 or whatever, whatever that season was when he was really good at the beginning of the year. and then was hurt.

But like, they stuck with it. I think, again, I agree with you. I don't think that they did everything that they could. And I think most of that had to do with this scouting and general manager and player acquisition piece of it. But he wasn't, he was had above average coaching, I think. Yeah. So let's zoom out for a second.

We just ranked the top 15 quarterbacks of the last 10 years who were drafted in the top five. That list from worst to first is. Blake Bortles, Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Marcus Marriota, James Winston, Sam Bradford, Tua, Carson Wentz, Jared Gough, Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, RG3, Kyler Murray, Andrew Luck, and the number one is Cam Newton. Doesn't that list suck? These are the top five quarterbacks.

Every single one from the last decade, there are like three. on here. Two that are like unambiguously good Andrew Luck and Cam Newton. The rest have zillions of question marks each. Like, DK, you're the draft expert here. You watch hundreds of, you watch hundreds of players on tape put together a draft guide.

What is what what is going on? Why are almost all of these guys disappointing? Yeah. I think well, so number one it's extremely difficult to scout quarterback. You know, that's the number one thing. And we've seen this year in, year out for forever basically. It's like it's a very difficult

position to scout. It's one of the most difficult positions to play. And when you get into the NFL, everything is moving faster. Guys are bigger and stronger. And, you know, they're more, it's more complex. So it's, it's very hard to project a guy from one level to the next. So that's the first part. Is it difficult to scout or difficult

to develop? Like, were all of these guys magically bad? Or like, did they just go to shitty teams? That's, and that's the other, like, huge part of the, like, process. The huge variable is landing spot. This is someone we talked about when we ranked just top picks in general a couple of weeks ago is if you get drafted outside the top five, you're going to a better team. So it's almost like a selection bias here or whatever.

I keep saying that word and I don't know if I really understand what it is, but it's a situation where you're looking at a bunch of bad teams drafting quarterbacks because they're in the top five. Yes. And those bad teams, generally speaking, are bad landing spots because they're bad. you know, or they have new coaching stats or whatever. And they get stuck in these cycles of being bad. So that certainly doesn't help their chances. I just read the quarterbacks. Let me read the teams these quarterbacks went to.

Jaguars, bears, jets, Titans, Buccaneers, Rams, rankings, bengals, Browns, Washington, Arizona, Carolina, Indianapolis. Not great. Nora, we brought you on because, I mean, you're the one who made the point a few weeks ago. Going number one sucks. Is it fair to say just going top five sucks? Well, okay, I don't know if it's fair to say going top five sucks as a blanket. Okay, yeah, you get a lot of money.

You're famous and rich and no one will ever feel bad for you. Just say it, Nora. This is the paradox of being an NFL quarterback. It is the most important position arguably in all of sports. It is also something that is defined by the number of variables necessary or that contribute to success or failure. It is an individually important position that is in, inseparable from the context within which it succeeds or fails.

So all of these guys, unless a good team trades up into the top five, they are going to be subject to that to some degree. But even if you look on down the list with some of these guys, like, okay, we talked about Kyler. And we all said that the Cardinals would make that pick again, which I think is really not a hard one. There are much harder ones to pick on this list. another reason why I think that's absolutely true, and this is where we take this out of being sort of an academic exercise and into reality, the other quarterbacks drafted that year,

Daniel Jones, Dwayne Haskins, Drew Law, Will Greer, Brian Finley, Jared Stidham. It is not as though everyone who's not these guys is thriving. So I think there's two takeaways from that. One, it's just really hard to evaluate and draft these guys. because of the nature of the position. And also just because of the nature

of going from college to the NFL and how important it is, right? Because the benefit of getting it right is so high that you should take swings if you have a top five pick on quarterback, I believe. Even if it is harder to project than other positions.

The other part of that, though, is that I don't think, like, think of the number of times that we've said someone kind of got the yips in this discussion. I don't think that we talk about that enough with quarterbacks. Like a lot of these guys get really freaked out, get actively worse when they go through these really, really, really bad seasons. I mean, I think that's what's a little bit like I'm white knuckling the Joe Burroughs situation because he, I mean, he didn't get out of last year unscathed. He got hurt.

But he was when he, even when he was facing all that pressure, he was still playing pretty well. I don't think he can do that for several years. I don't think anybody really can. I think it screws these guys up. at a certain point. So we think of them as these finished products, and they're just not. And we think of the development purely

as like, how do you get better? You can get worse, too. It's not linear. So with that said, we went through this exercise because this draft, we expect the first three picks to be quarterbacks, maybe the first four picks to be quarterbacks. So within the lens of everything we just talked about.

F5, very easily in the top 10. Yeah, DK. What is like a reasonable expectation for Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Mack Jones, and whoever goes forth? I mean, if you're looking at the history of the position and just like overall the draft, it's like you have to expect a couple of them are going to be busts. One of them might be great. And then probably one of them is going to be all right.

You know, like I'm going into it thinking all these guys are very good players. I really like honestly, I like all of the top five guys at varying. degrees, but I like all of them. I think they all have very, you know, promising skill sets and talents. But if you look at the history, maybe this will be the outlier of classes and they're all going to be good. Maybe. We don't know that. But more likely, much more likely, you're going to have like one good guy, one really good player, and then maybe like one okay guy and then a couple like massive busts. That's the thing. If you look at this list, it's crazy to think about. These 15 quarterbacks, the only ones that were really not, I would say, generally speaking,

considered good prospect. Bordels and Trubisky, who we have last, almost everyone else on this list, there weren't a ton of questions when they were drafted of like, well, this person suck. Like, that was not a question. And so I guess I'm just fascinated. Like, even Trevor Lawrence, I guess we can almost put him to the side here for a second because he's so good as a prospect, which who knows what that even means. But like, Zach Wilson on the Jets. Tray Lance to the Falcons or to wherever he ends up. Mack Jones on the Niners,

I look at this, and we're all surprised Mac Jones is going third. I look at this as I feel like I'm most confident in Mac Jones because the Niners are the best plays for a quarterback. Is that like fair? Is it weird to, I'm kind of like,

whoever the Niners take, I feel like we'll have the best career just looking at this list. Yeah. So I agree with that. I agree with that. I still, and I'm ready to be wrong

because really well-connected people are all saying that that's pretty likely to happen. I'm still holding out hope that this is a smokescreen because I just believe that if you have that infrastructure, you should take a quarterback with more upside. But I agree that we think of, we tend to think prospect first and not situation. And if we had to pick one, I would pick situation first when we project out. And speaking of situation, I don't mean to beat this point over that D.K's head, because we've talked about this a lot of the last few weeks. But again, the quarterback's outside the top five who generally succeeded. Patrick Mahomes, the

she spent 12 and 4 before they drafted him. Dak Prescott maybe walked into the best roster in the NFL. Josh Allen, they made the playoffs before they took him. Russell Wilson got drafted to the best defense in the last 20 years, maybe one of the best defenses of all time. Like, it's unbelievable.

Like the quarterbacks who are not on this list who are great, all walked into like playoff teams. And these guys did not. So to button this up, DK, like how has this, like does any of this change how you approach your evaluations for this draft and how maybe people should change how they think about quarterbacks as we talk about what will be the most quarterback dominated narrative draft in quite some time? I don't know how we can apply.

I don't know how we can really apply this to, you know, the draft or like doing scouting and projecting because I don't know where these guys are going to land. I don't know what situations are going to be. I don't know what the coaching staff is going to be. So all I can do, all any person that's doing evaluation of the draft can do is just say, look at the scouting. skill, look at the talents, try to determine as much as you can from the outside looking in, like if he has the mental, you know, acuity to do the job. But this is why it's so hard. This is why so many guys miss and so many teams miss, just because I think it's like one of the most difficult positions to scout and evaluate. Beautiful. All right. That was the big board.

Nora, thank you for coming on. Thank you, D.K. Thank you to Blake Bortles for all the content over the year. We hope you're doing well. And maybe ripping Sigs. Who knows? Ripin Sigs. Just ripping Sigs and doing construction. That's what we're, that's what we're going to do our whole weekend, really. Okay. Thank you to everyone listening.

Nora, when are you going to be on NFL show with Kevin? Wednesday? Wednesday. Wednesday. And then Dika and I will have a fun episode for everyone on Monday. So I hope everyone is a good weekend. Thank you for listening. And we'll see you guys next week.

Thank you, Danny's.