Money aside, the team situation matters more in the long run
Thursday evening’s first round of the NFL Draft can’t get here soon enough. Just about everything that can be said about the top quarterback prospects has already been said, unless photos surface of one of them in a gas mask bong or having an accident driving an ATV this week.
What hasn’t been talked about very much, though, is these quarterbacks’ chances for success in the NFL depending on the team that selects them. At this point in 2023, Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud were considered QBs 1a and 1b in some order, with no clear preference for either in most analysts’ opinions aside from Young’s small stature. Their rookie seasons couldn’t have been more different, though, with Young playing poorly and Stroud wowing the league.
Are these quarterbacks really that different in quality? Did the experts miss that badly in their evaluations? Or did the team situations they were drafted into have more to do with their performance?
Young joined a Carolina team with an unstable head coaching situation, a first-time offensive coordinator whose experience had been mostly coaching running backs, the sixth worst pass blocking in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus, and only one pass receiver of note (Adam Thielen). Stroud played for a Houston team flush with draft picks the past couple of years after trading Deshaun Watson. Houston hired a much sought-after head coach, DeMeco Ryans, from San Francisco. Ryans brought with him offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, who had been the 49ers’ passing game coordinator under Kyle Shanahan. The Texans had a mid-ranked offensive line and a talented group of wide receivers led by Nico Collins, rookie Tank Dell, and veteran Robert Woods.
Hmmm…
Few will argue that Patrick Mahomes isn’t the best quarterback in the NFL today. He needed work coming out of college, though. He was fortunate to be drafted by a team coached by Andy Reid, with Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill to throw to, and with a year on the bench for Reid to coach the rough edges out of his game. Jalen Hurts got most of a season to sit and be developed by Doug Pederson and then to play with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith behind the league’s best OL when he was ready. Jordan Love got three years to sit and be worked on by Matt LaFleur, and when he did start he had two promising young wide receivers, Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, to throw to behind a top-five offensive line.
Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, and Zach Wilson, to name a few, didn’t get those advantages. Questionable coaching, unimpressive OLs, and WRs, probably thrown into action too soon for all of them. Maybe they would have failed anyway, but all were mishandled. With the just-announced trade of Wilson to Denver, we’ll get an interesting test of how much the environment matters. The Giants didn’t do Daniel Jones any favors either by firing his quarterback-friendly head coach, Pat Shurmur, after one year, never getting him a top receiver, and putting the NFL’s worst OL in front of him.
This year we have no fewer than four top-tier quarterback prospects expected to go in the top 10, with two others perhaps also being drafted in Round 1. Of the QB-needy teams, which offer the best and worst situations that might influence a quarterback’s success? Let’s rank them in order from worst to best. For this exercise, I’ll lean on Derrik Klassen’s rankings of offensive coordinators from The Thirty-Third Team, Pro Football Focus rankings of team pass blocking, Ourlads depth charts for wide receivers, and some subjective opinions on their receiver groups.
New England Patriots
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Jerod Mayo/Alex Van Pelt
Pass blocking rank: 29
Receivers: 28
Mayo was a linebacker, so Van Pelt will be in charge of the offense. He spent the past four years as OC under Kevin Stefanski, but Stefanski ran the show there on offense. At the moment, the Patriots’ starting receivers are K.J. Osborn, Kendrick Bourne, and DeMario Douglas, with Hunter Henry as the primary receiving tight end. The Patriots were close to the bottom of the league in pass protection in 2023. As things stand, this is a very difficult situation for a rookie QB to step into, reminiscent of what Bryce Young found in Carolina last year. That said, assuming New England goes QB with pick No. 3, they still have high picks in the other rounds to add a playmaking wide receiver and beef up the OL, so there is hope. They also signed free agent Jacoby Brissett in the off-season and still have Bailey Zappe, so expect a draftee to sit for a while before seeing action.
Washington Commanders
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Dan Quinn/Kliff Kingsbury
Pass blocking rank: 15
Receivers: 26
It’s difficult to know what to make of Washington’s turnover at the top. Dan Quinn is a defensive coach, so former Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury will run the offense. Kingsbury is a talented playcaller but a tough evaluation. In college, at various times he coached Johnny Manziel, Baker Mayfield, Davis Webb, and Patrick Mahomes. In Arizona, he had Kyler Murray but could never do better than a single one-and-done playoff appearance. Klassen suggests that his weakness is sequencing multiple plays to create effective scoring drives. The Commanders’ OL is solid inside but extremely porous at both tackle positions. At receiver, they have the elite Terry McLaurin, but Jahan Dotson has not lived up to his draft position. The Commanders are in a great position to add offensive talent with five picks in the first three rounds, and new GM Adam Peters was highly thought of with the 49ers. Will Jayden Daniels look past his Top Golf 30 visit and thrive there? Washington signed Marcus Mariota in the off-season, so Daniels will have time to cool off and learn Kingsbury’s offense to start the year.
New York Giants
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Brian Daboll/Mike Kafka
Pass blocking rank: 32
Receivers: 32
It’s a foregone conclusion that if the Giants’ OL is as bad as it was in 2023, there will be no hope for whoever starts at QB. The Giants were fairly aggressive in free agency, signing a competent guard in Jon Runyan, a competent, maybe even good, guard/tackle in Jermaine Eluemenor, adding depth with guard Aaron Stinnie and center Austin Schlottman, and most importantly, replacing OL coach Bobby Johnson with Carmen Bricillo. It may be a dangerous assumption given the past decade, but the baseline projection is that the Giants will have no worse than an average OL this coming season. Klassen ranks the Daboll/Kafka tandem No. 16 but admits they should be higher based on the work Daboll did with Josh Allen and what the two of them did with Daniel Jones in 2022. He resists that temptation because of the 2023 disaster and suggests they need to prove they can repeat what they did their first year together. With the signing of Drew Lock and the potential return of Jones from his ACL, a draftee will surely sit for a while. The questions are whether the Giants can and will significantly upgrade the wide receiver room in the draft if they go QB at No. 6 and whether Darren Waller decides to play or retire.
Chicago Bears
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Matt Eberflus/Shane Waldron
Pass blocking rank: 23
Receivers: 18
Few teams are more interesting than the Bears. They are all but certain to draft Caleb Williams, the consensus best QB in the draft, at No. 1, and they have the No. 9 pick as well (although after that they only have two more draft picks, in Rounds 3 and 4). They added elite WR D.J. Moore in the big trade with Carolina the previous year and acquired Keenan Allen from the Chargers this off-season. You can’t say they didn’t give their new QB weapons. Unfortunately, their offensive line is at best a work in progress. That may suit Williams just fine since he is used to running for his life from his time at USC and is better playing off-platform than in the pocket anyway. The real question is what offense will be created for him. Eberflus is a defensive coach so OC Shane Waldron, brought over from Seattle, will design the offense. Poor Justin Fields wishes he’d had Waldron instead of Luke Getsy, who didn’t know how to utilize him. The thing is, Seattle’s offense was less than imposing under Waldron last year despite having DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and for part of the season, rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Klassen ranks Waldron No. 20 among OCs.
Denver Broncos
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Sean Payton/Joe Lombardi
Pass blocking rank: 5
Receivers: 23
Joe Lombardi was roundly criticized during his time as OC for the Chargers for his conservative offense that did not optimize the talents of Justin Herbert. Now in Denver, it won’t matter, because Sean Payton, No. 6 on Klassen’s list, is running the show. If Payton manages to get a QB in this draft (I’m assuming he’s not riding with Zach Wilson), it will be one he thinks is smart enough to learn his offense under the tutelage of ex-Giants QB Davis Webb. The Broncos have quietly put together a good OL over the past couple of years. They have only Jarrett Stidham for all intents and purposes to start the season at QB, so if a draftee hopes to start as a rookie, this is the place to be. The challenges will be learning Payton’s scheme and figuring out who to throw to because Jerry Jeudy is gone and only Courtland Sutton remains among prime receiving options, although Denver did add Josh Reynolds in the off-season. The Broncos have no second-round pick, and if they trade up for a quarterback they may have even less draft capital with which to augment the receiving corps.
Minnesota Vikings
Head coach/offensive coordinator: Kevin O’Connell/Wes Phillips
Pass blocking: 3
Receivers: 8
Kevin O’Connell runs the Minnesota offense, and in two seasons he has done it well. Klassen ranks him the No. 7 offensive coordinator in the NFL. With the Nos. 11 and 23 draft picks, the Vikings are in a position to either trade up for one of the top four QBs or stay put and take one of the next two with one or the other of those picks. Any draftee will have a good chance to see the field sooner rather than later, with the incumbents being Sam Darnold, Nick Mullens, and Jared Hall. The Vikings had one of the best pass-blocking offensive lines in the NFL in 2023, and with a receiving corps that (at the moment) includes Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and tight end T.J. Hockenson, there is probably no better place for a rookie QB to step in and have immediate success.
The bottom line
If I am one of the top quarterback prospects in this draft, I’m hoping that New England trades down. That is a situation that looks set up for a young quarterback to struggle out of the gate. Ask Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe. Granted, the coaching staff is new, but it will probably take several drafts for a new QB to be in a position to succeed.
The flip side is Minnesota. That team already has the offensive line and the receivers in place, it has a smart, offensively-minded head coach, and it is set up for a rookie to be this year’s version of C.J. Stroud. The downsides are salary and ego. The No. 1 pick will make $7.2M this year according to Over The Cap, while the No. 11 pick will “only” get $3.7M. There’s also the slow torture and implied insult of watching other QBs come off the board while you wait. Come playoff time, though, the quarterback selected by Minnesota may be the one smiling.
The Giants are somewhere in the middle of all this. If I am a QB prospect, I’m seeing a muddled situation, with the Day 1 starter simultaneously locked in yet uncertain because he is recovering from injury. I’m seeing an OL that was a career killer last year but with some promise to be better this year. I’m seeing a receiver room that looks mediocre but which might be looking up one day after I’m selected. Most of all, though, I’m looking at the head coach who helped make Josh Allen the QB he is today and an offensive coordinator who at least took part in the development of Patrick Mahomes. Overall the Giants are a fairly attractive destination for a rookie QB, but one that may simultaneously cause the draftee to hold his breath while he tries to decide whether 2024 will be like 2022 or a 2023 redux.
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