The Draw Play

Last year’s QB class was one of the most hyped I can remember for a long time. The league seemed to agree. The first 3 picks were QBs. Five in the first 15 picks. Eight in the first 3 rounds. Only two more got picked after that, but one has had playing time. So let us look at how this much-hyped group of studs is panning out. Keep in mind, this is obviously early and many of these players could still pan out, so don’t judge me too harshly, guy reading this in 2026 after Justin Fields won MVP or something.

Rd. 1 Pick 1: TREVOR LAWRENCE
Pre-draft: Trevor was pretty much considered the god of the draft from two years before he even got drafted. A can’t miss generational prospect who owned the NCAA while he was there. The Jaguars and Jets fanbases were cheering their own team’s failures the season before because they’d win the Tank for Trevor sweepstakes, with the Jaguars “winning” out. So how’s it going?
Now: Trevor has not been very good. His first season was given a mulligan thanks to the horrific tenure of the worst head coaching hire of all time in Urban Meyer. He had the second-most rookie yardage behind Jones but threw 17 picks and while you could see the talent was obviously there it would require a year under an actual coach to come out. So far in 2022, it hasn’t. Trevor has not been good in 2022. His decision-making has been alarming. Fans are starting to worry. There is plenty of time for Trevor to improve and the roster is in rebuild mode (They just traded for Calvin Ridley, who should help in 2023), but if Trevor doesn’t pick it up by the end of the season we might start to have bust talk on our hands.

Rd 1 Pick 2: ZACH WILSON
Pre-Draft: Wilson was a rising star in 2021 at BYU and probably the 2021 version of “the guy who nobody knows about and then suddenly is discussed as the top pick” that every draft features. Blake Bortles knows what I’m talking about. Wilson was electric at BYU and wow’d everyone with fantastic scrambling out-of-pocket bombs. There was genuine discussion on whether Wilson was a better prospect than Lawrence for a bit, but it was largely just draft writers trying to come up with filler articles after they’d exhausted everything to say about Lawrence. There was more to be skeptical about Wilson though. He wasn’t very tall, he played weak competition, and he was really only good running around. Still, he had the tools, and we all know how Josh Allen surprised us.
Now: Wilson has more or less been a bust to this point. He has reminded a lot of people of his immediate predecessor, Sam Darnold. Wilson scrambles around, makes poor decisions, and gets in trouble. Like Lawrence his first year was on a floundering team with a horrid roster trying to start over, but unlike Lawrence, the Jets have actually drafted and accumulated a fair bit of talent…outside picking Wilson. Out of the Jets hot start, Joe Flacco actually owns one of those wins, and Breece Hall and the defense deserve more credit for the others. The past two weeks have shown Wilson at his worst, but they were against two solid defenses, so Wilson might save his own ass yet. Hope isn’t high at the moment though. A+ meme boy though, the milf story is a classic.

Rd 1 Pick 3: TREY LANCE
Pre-Draft: Lance, even more than Wilson, was the big flashing neon “potential” sign. Lance was not seen as a top 3 prospect in most circles, in fact a lot of places had him fairly low in the first due to his severe lack of passing experience. But he was a big dude who could run, had a fresh arm, and he came from the same place as Wentz, could run like Lamar, and had the ceiling of Allen. Coaches love their moldable physical prospects and the 49ers are a well-run organization with a good environment for a QB to thrive, so this actually looked like a solid spot.
Now: Lance has basically done nothing at all. We spent last year waiting the entire time for Shanahan to actually use him, especially when Jimmy would struggle. During the offseason, the 49ers didn’t trade Jimmy as expected, and we all started wondering if maybe Trey Lance just…sucks. The 9ers committed to him though, and then he lasted a couple quarters before tearing apart his knee to be lost for the season. Poor kid. I guess the verdict is still out and the best-case scenario is a Mahomes-type story where he sits for a year (now 2) and learns the game off the field before going back in and lighting it up. Lance however didn’t have the college career Mahomes had, so we just have to wait and see.

Rd 1 Pick 10: JUSTIN FIELDS
Pre-Draft: Fields was pretty much considered the de-facto #2 prospect, even occasionally #1, right up there with Trevor Lawrence. Then he became the patented “falls for no reason” guy that each draft also features. Justin was a great prospect. He had excellent accuracy, a strong arm, running skills, it seemed silly he could have possibly fell as far as 10 and the Bears fans were estatic to grab him.
Now: I write this after two weeks of solid QB play out of Fields for the first time pretty much since he was drafted. Two decent weeks against good defenses is reason to be hopeful, but looking at his entire body of work to this point, it feels like Ohio State has once again fleeced an NFL team into taking a bust QB. It hasn’t all been his fault though. Like Lawrence, Fields spent his first year under a dead regime (Matt Nagy) that likely held back any chance at growth. But the Bears appeared to blunder the offseason, hiring a defensive coach and not getting Fields much help. Until the very recent games, the Bears seemed to be setting Fields up to fail as much as Fields was failing himself. Bad play design, poor play calling, asking Fields to do things he’s clearly not good at yet. The Bears just traded for Chase Claypool, so that’s a positive, and as Emperor Palpatine once told Anakin, I will watch your career with great interest.

Rd 1 Pick 15: MAC JONES
Pre-Draft: Jones was the most divisive QB going into the draft. He had some pedigree: he played for Alabama at the highest level, against the best competition college ball has to offer, and he held his own. But he also wasn’t as incredible as Tua or Hurts were, and many thought that Jones himself didn’t actually contribute much except just keep the ship steered while the rest of the stacked Bama team did the work. He seemed like a safe game manager type pick, which made his sudden rise to top 5 potential pick status (the 49ers were the rumor) surprising. Ultimately, he probably went around the range he deserved to go, maybe a bit higher overall.
Now: Jones has pretty much been the safe game manager he was billed as. He started off having the best career of the crop. He wasn’t lighting it on fire last year, but the Patriots were winning games with him and he was doing everything they asked of him. The Patriots may not have had a new Tom Brady, but it felt like they knew exactly how they could foster Mac’s talent as best they could. This year things have gone south. They lost Josh McDaniels, installed Matt Patricia, and Mac spent most of the first several weeks out with injury, only to watch the team do pretty much exactly as good without him as with, using a QB they drafted a year after him. Mac came back for the Bears game and got pulled again. Luckily, the Patriots seemed to realize their mistake and kept Mac for the Jets game, where he outdid Zach Wilson. Mac looks limited and reminds me of a future journeyman type.

Rd 2 Pick 64: KYLE TRASK
Pre-Draft: I guess he was okay or whatever. He had good numbers but nobody saw him as first-round material.
Now: Trask going to the Bucs in the second was intriguing because you know, Tom Brady. Would he be the successor? Well, maybe one day we’ll find out. Tom has to go eat shit first, but now Tom is divorced, so he’ll likely play until he’s 57.

Rd 3 Pick 66: KELLEN MOND
Pre-draft: Mond was alright or whatever. Nothing to write home about.
Now: Mond didn’t even last two years on his original team, the Vikings. He’s currently a Brown. He couldn’t even threaten the starting job once Watson was suspended. I think we can safely forget about Kellen Mond.

Rd 3 Pick 67: DAVIS MILLS
Pre-draft: Taken one pick after Mond, Mills was a guy. He went to Stanford, so maybe he’s smart, I guess? He had a long neck.
Now: Mills has honestly gotten extremely lucky in some ways. Drafted before any of us knew the Watson story, Mills was probably never going to actually see the field but was thrust into the starting position after Watson first sat out the season and then got traded for being a sex pest. This has given the third-rounder without much fanfare a ton of time to get out there and play some damn ball. Mills has indeed played some damn ball. Is he good? No. He’s not. But he tries his best on a shitstain of a team with no direction at all. These are going to be development years for our new king of the giraffes, and I suspect Mills might actually turn into a serviceable QB down the road, on a new team, after he’s been left behind by the Texans once they start rebuilding again after this current crew dies. We’re all expecting the Lovie Smith/Nick Caserio team to die, right? I sure am.

Rd 4 Pick 133: IAN BOOK
Pre-draft: Who? Oh, I guess he played at Notre Dame and got beat up by Alabama once.
Now: Book actually started a game for the Saints in 2021 thanks to Covid. He played like butt. He’s now on the Eagles. We can safely forget about Ian Book.

Rd 6 Pick 218: SAM EHLINGER
Pre-Draft: Fucking who?
Now: I GUESS WE ALL HAVE TO LEARN ABOUT THIS GUY NOW. Ehlinger, a 6th round nobody (who appeared to have a good Texas career, for his merit) is now the starting QB of the Indianapolis Colts. In the one game we saw, he looked like a 6th round guy in his first game. The Colts didn’t look very good, Ehlinger didn’t do anything special, and the Colts lost a tight one to a Commanders team. I couldn’t help but watch that game thinking “Matt Ryan sucks now but he could have still won this”. Ehlinger is getting the Davis Mills lucky break. He doesn’t really deserve to be out there, but due to weird circumstances, he is, and now he can get some experience before everyone gets fired at season’s end.

Out of everyone here, my favorite QB is Davis Mills, because you can’t believe how happy I am to have another QB I can draw with a snake neck. Glennon was a top 3 favorite player to draw for me and I hated that he was basically irrelevant. Now we got a replacement snake neck boy and I am so happy about it.