Was a little bored today, and was looking back at some older NFL draft analysis to see how guys were talked about and stumbled across a Peter King article regarding Manning vs. Leaf.
A few nuggets:
--Bill Walsh said he wouldn't take either guy first, would take someone else and draft Griese in the 2nd.
See, this is my issue with the "trade back and draft a QB later" idea. It's easy to look at these guys as 'prospects' and not actual people. Trading back to take a slightly worse QB prospect while gaining picks makes sense in a vacuum, but how often do these second tier prospects actually work out relative to the top crop of QBs in a draft?
Whats interesting (maybe just to me) is that this specific use case - a team trading down in the 1st round, and then drafting a QB later in the draft - happens about once a year. Of those trades, only one - Baltimore traded #16 (Edmonds) and drafted Jackson at #32 - has a team traded back, drafted a QB, and had the QB become a valuable player.
More specific to the Patriots, teams trading out of a 1st round spot that is used on a QB haven't drafted a QB in that same draft since 2017. I assume people are traumatized by the 2017 results (see below).
Over the last decade, here are the trades where a team trades down in the first and drafts a QB in the same draft:
2022
Washington trades #11 (Olave) and drafted Howell in the 4th.
2021
Minnesota trades #14 (Vera Tucker) and drafted Kellen Mond in the 2nd.
2019
Denver trades #10 (Drew Bush) and drafted Drew Lock in the 2nd.
2018
Baltimore drafts Jackson
2017
San Fran traded the #2 pick (Trubisky) and drafted CJ Beathard in the 3rd.
Buffalo traded the #10 pick (Mahomes) and drafted Peterman in the 5th.
Cleveland traded the #12 pick (Watson) and drafted Deshone Kizer in the 2nd.
2016
Cleveland trades #2 (Wentz) and drafted Kessler in the 3rd.
2014
Cleveland trades #4 (Watkins) and drafted Manziel with the 22nd pick.
Arizona trades #20 (Brandin Cooks) and drafted Logan Thomas in the 4th.
So, if a team needs a QB, they almost always tend to keep the pick and swing for the fences. If they do opt to trade the pick, the QB (with the exception of Jackson) ends up being of little value to the team. I guess this means if the Patriots do trade back, hope it's for the WR and T we need, not the QB who will most likely not be on the roster by the end of his contract.