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Top-5 quarterbacks

Goff, Wentz continuing disturbing recent trend

It's been a rough offseason for former top draft pick quarterbacks. Jared Goff was traded in what was primarily a salary dump, and Carson Wentz apparently will be. That's continuing a recent trend in which quarterbacks taken at the top of drafts are kicked to the curb a few years later. And it's not only recently that most of those guys have disappointed.

A year ago, of course, another pair of quarterbacks recently drafted 1-2 were dumped by their teams. Jameis Winston was replaced in Tampa Bay, and Marcus Mariota dumped by Tennessee. Going back even further, we're looking at close to 30 years of quarterbacks selected with top-5 picks generally failing to live up to expectations.

The table below shows all quarterbacks selected in the top 5 of the NFL Draft since 1990. There have been 38 such players. Leaving out the five most recent selections, who it's too early to safely judge, more than half (18) of the 33 can fairly be called disappointments -- either out-and-out busts, or guys their teams moved on from fairly quickly, who didn't do much. I'm putting Goff and Wentz in that group, but it's not too late for them to have successful careers.

Of the other 15, I originally termed five of them journeymen -- a word with negative connotations, but in this case I was considering them players who started for 3 or more teams and had some degree of success at at least one of those stops. Jeff George, Kerry Collins and Carson Palmer, for example. But the term drew some criticism, so I'm going to broadly call all of them "good." There's degrees of good -- Palmer was a lot better than Collins. But Collins had his moments, including taking the Giants to a Super Bowl, so I'll go with good for the previous "journeymen."

Of the remaining 10, there's one Hall of Famer, the recently selected Peyton Manning, and nine more who can safely be called good or great quarterbacks. Steve McNair certainly, and also guys like Donovan McNabb and Matthew Stafford. I went with simply good to reduce debate over borderline good/great players.

QUARTERBACKS SELECTED IN THE TOP 5, 1990-2020
YearPkPlayerCareerSB winsBest FFRk
20201Joe Burrow?025th
20205Tua Tagovailoa?034th
20191Kyler Murray?02nd
20181Baker Mayfield?016th
20183Sam Darnold?024th
20172Mitchell TrubiskyDisappointment015th
20161Jared GoffDisappointment06th
20162Carson WentzDisappointment08th
20151Jameis WinstonDisappointment02nd
20152Marcus MariotaDisappointment014th
20143Blake BortlesDisappointment03rd
20121Andrew LuckGood quarterback01st
20122Robert Griffin IIIDisappointment010th
20111Cam NewtonGood quarterback01st
20101Sam BradfordDisappointment017th
20091Matthew StaffordGood quarterback04th
20095Mark SanchezDisappointment010th
20083Matt RyanGood quarterback03rd
20071JaMarcus RussellDisappointment024th
20063Vince YoungDisappointment012th
20051Alex SmithGood quarterback06th
20041Eli ManningGood quarterback24th
20044Philip RiversGood quarterback04th
20031Carson PalmerGood quarterback01st
20021David CarrDisappointment014th
20023Joey HarringtonDisappointment017th
20011Michael VickGood quarterback04th
19991Tim CouchDisappointment017th
19992Donovan McNabbGood quarterback03rd
19993Akili SmithDisappointment038th
19981Peyton ManningHall of Fame21st
19982Ryan LeafDisappointment028th
19953Steve McNairGood quarterback05th
19955Kerry CollinsGood quarterback010th
19943Heath ShulerDisappointment025th
19931Drew BledsoeGood quarterback04th
19932Rick MirerDisappointment09th
19901Jeff GeorgeGood quarterback03rd

However you want to slice it, more than half of the guys selected with top 5 picks -- presumed franchise quarterbacks -- have been disappointments. And it's a little shocking to see that only two of those quarterbacks, in 30 years, have won Super Bowls. Winning Super Bowls hasn't been so easy the last two decades, with a former 6th-round pick accounting for a third of them. But you'd expect more than 4 total rings from top-5 picks in a 30-year period.

In fantasy terms, results haven't been quite that bad. Of the 38 quarterbacks selected in the top 5 since 1990, 23 of them have had at least one season where they ranked among the top 10 at their position. So most of them have produced good numbers at one point or another. (That includes Blake Bortles, so fantasy success doesn't always equate to NFL excellence.) About a quarter of them (9) have taken teams to Super Bowls, even though the Mannings were the only ones to win them.

But it's easy to see why Super Bowl hopefuls might trade for capable veterans or pursue them in free agency. Selecting them atop the draft and developing them? More misses than hits.

--Andy Richardson

Fantasy Index