NFL Draft could see historic beginning

The NFL Draft is less than a month away, and we still have no idea who is going to go with the first overall pick. Last year, everybody knew that the Cleveland Browns would select Myles Garrett of Texas A&M, but with little more than three weeks until Cleveland is once more on the clock, the mystery continues.

However, there’s no mystery to the bevy of quarterbacks waiting to be selected early on. The chatter all offseason has centered around where Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Josh Allen, Baker mayfield and Lamar Jackson will end up. While Jackson seems like a good bet to go in the second round (maybe a team sneaks into the late first and snags him), the other four may very well end up going in the top dozen picks.

In relation to Rosen, Darnold and Allen, it would be a borderline shocker if any of them get out fo the top five selections. The Browns need a quarterback, along with the New York Jets and Denver Broncos. The New York Giants could also take a signal-caller to replace the 37-year-old Eli Manning, although the team has given no indication that’s the plan. Should the Giants truly feel that way, they could trade out, presumably to the Buffalo Bills. Buffalo is desperate for its first franchise quarterback since Jim Kelly, and has multiple picks in each of the first three rounds.

So when was the last time we saw four quarterbacks go in the top dozen overall picks? You have to go back to the 2011 draft, when Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert and Christian Ponder were all nabbed quickly. Newton has made a success of his career, earning MVP honors in 2015 and reaching the Super Bowl with the Carolina Panthers. The other three ended up being gigantic busts, with Locker’s career already over.

If you want to find the most-recent instance of three quarterbacks going in the top five choices, the year is 1999. Tim Couch went first to the Browns, followed by Donovan McNabb and Akili Smith to the Philadelphia Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals, respectively. The Browns and Bengals are still trying to recover.

In a few weeks, names will be read off draft cards and teams will be forced to live with their choices over the years. While most everybody thinks that Darnold, Mayfield, Allen and Rosen will have success in the NFL, the strong odds say that maybe one or two will actually live up to their considerable expectations.

Still, the intrigue is there, and come April 26, the fun begins.