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There is no more waiting around for a QB in the NFL Draft
Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and Sam Darnold are among the top quarterbacks in the 2018 NFL Draft. Joe Robbins/Getty Images

There is no more waiting around for a QB during the NFL Draft

The Jets already signed two quarterbacks this offseason and currently have five on the roster. That sort of glut would seem prohibitive for getting another quarterback, and yet there were the Jets over the weekend swinging a trade with the Colts to move up to the third overall pick.

Even after retaining Josh McCown and bringing on Teddy Bridgewater, it’s hardly surprising that the Jets are moving in on a franchise quarterback of the future. They were one of the teams throughout all of last season that was said to be targeting a long-term answer at quarterback in 2018. When their bid to land Kirk Cousins in free agency fell short, the franchise knew it had to make a move to ensure it’d be in position to land one of the stronger members of the bumper crop of incoming quarterbacks.

Even with a QB class that likely contains five passers in the first round, the sixth pick isn’t sufficient to stand pat and have a good shot at most of the field. In fact, in recent years, teams have been nothing but aggressive in their pursuit of first-round quarterbacks. Only once in the last five years has there not been a trade involving a team moving up in the first round to take a quarterback, and that was 2015 when Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota went to two teams unwilling to budge from the top two spots in the draft.

The last two years, all three quarterbacks drafted in the first round landed with their current teams via trade. The Browns acquired Tyrod Taylor, a quality starter who deserves a team to commit to him, in a trade, but it’s hard to imagine that the Browns won’t go quarterback with one of their two picks in the top four. That could be an increasingly rare exception.

The Colts are said to not be done dealing, even following their trade with the Jets. Presumably, they’re feeling better about Andrew Luck’s long-term prospects. Perhaps it might be a stretch to have the five quarterbacks going in the first six or even 10 slots. They’re almost certainly going to be gone by the halfway point of the first round, though.

That makes a curious case for a team like Arizona. By giving $20 million to Sam Bradford on a one-year deal, the Cardinals are saying loud and clear that they’re biding time until an answer surfaces at quarterback. With disappointments the last two seasons and players like Larry Fitzgerald on the verge of moving on, it would be odd for this to be something of a lost season. With just Bradford, Arizona will have little to show for the 2018 season beyond a middle-of-the-pack record at best. Drafting a rookie QB won’t necessarily make the team better right away, but it means getting a year jump on developing that quarterback. That way the Cards could be thinking about how good they could be in 2019. Certainly Arizona is another prospect for trading up.

Quarterbacks are the most important commodity in the sport. That has as much to do with their significance within the game as it does with the market for them. How many truly good QBs are there in the NFL? The answer may vary somewhat depending on whom you ask, but it’s unlikely you’ll get an answer of more than 10.

The way tanking is increasingly being subtly accepted within the NFL, it stands to reason that teams would be aggressive getting their quarterbacks. A team spends years positioning itself by accumulating middle- and lower-round picks and by finishing in a relatively high position. Of course, there’s more imperative to make those years worth it with the one player who best stands a chance to turn around a team’s fortunes.

This isn’t to say no quarterback will ever fall again. There are bound to be behavior issues, as we saw with Johnny Manziel when he came out, that may cause a QB to slip some. By and large, however, the passers considered to be of a first-round grade will go early, with teams jockeying to get in position. With a month to go until the draft, it’s reasonable to expect another deal, though knowing years past it may not come until teams are on the clock.

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