If the gamblers have access to accurate info, Shedeur Sanders will be sliding on Thursday night. He’ll be available for the Saints at No. 9, the betting money says, but they won’t take him.
The current odds suggest the Steelers are now the team most likely to select Sanders.
Why this is, I’m not sure. He’s not as big or mobile as teams would like, and he took a lot of sacks at Colorado. Or maybe teams are leery of headaches that might come with Deion Sanders then being connected with their teams. We’ll see.
But if Sanders is going 15th or 25th, that changes somewhat how we might view him. In general, when teams collectively don’t like a prospect, the hit rate for those guys isn’t good. That is, a lot more really good players get picked in the top 5 of the draft rather than outside the top 20.
There are exceptions, of course. Aaron Rodgers slipped to 24th, and he’ll wind up in the Hall of Fame. Lamar Jackson was the final pick of the first round the year he came out, and he’s got a couple of MVP awards. But in general, lots of misses when quarterbacks are picked later in the first round.
Below see the list of the 20 quarterbacks in the 32-team era who were picked in the first round but weren’t picked in the top 10.dozen. Only three of these 20 quarterbacks (15 percent) ever had a season where they averaged top-10 numbers.
By “numbers”, I’m using standard fantasy scoring. And I’m talking per-game production, with the quarterback having to have started at least half of the season to have qualified. (In our 20-player data set, there are three who never started half of a team’s games in a season – Johnny Manziel, Paxton Lynch and the late Dwayne Haskins.)
Joe Flacco, it should be pointed out, has never averaged top-15 stats in a season, but he was a Super Bowl MVP, making him a successful pick at No. 18 overall.
But lots of misses. So even if one was a big fan of Shedeur Sanders and his game (should he slip outside the top 15) would have to concede that it would be a bold claim to say with confidence that he’d be sure to have at least a few seasons averaging top-15 numbers among quarterbacks. It’s not easy to do.
The chart below is a little weird, so a walk-through is in order. The five numbers to the right of each player’s name shows his per-game ranks in his five best fantasy seasons. In each year, there are about 32 quarterbacks who start at least half of the season. (In Lamar Jackson’s five best seasons, as an example, he’s ranked 1st, 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th among quarterbacks using per-game scoring.)
I used per-game rather than cumulative scoring because I think it’s more meaningful. Any modest quarterback who starts the full season (Flacco, perhaps), might sneak into the top dozen statistically. But a quarterback who starts only 10 games and averages top-5 numbers while he’s out there is far more valuable for our purposes.
| FIRST-ROUND QB PICKED OUTSIDE TOP 10 (5 best seasons) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Pk | Player | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 |
| 2002 | Was. | 32 | Patrick Ramsey | 18 | • | • | • | • |
| 2003 | Balt. | 19 | Kyle Boller | 19 | 22 | 31 | 31 | • |
| 2003 | Chi. | 22 | Rex Grossman | 19 | 19 | • | • | • |
| 2004 | Buff. | 22 | J.P. Losman | 21 | 30 | • | • | • |
| 2005 | G.B. | 24 | Aaron Rodgers | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 2005 | Was. | 25 | Jason Campbell | 16 | 17 | 22 | 23 | 26 |
| 2007 | Clev. | 22 | Brady Quinn | 30 | 32 | • | • | • |
| 2008 | Balt. | 18 | Joe Flacco | 17 | 18 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 2009 | T.B. | 17 | Josh Freeman | 14 | 15 | 16 | 23 | • |
| 2010 | Den. | 25 | Tim Tebow | 12 | • | • | • | • |
| 2012 | Clev. | 22 | Brandon Weeden | 27 | • | • | • | • |
| 2013 | Buff. | 16 | EJ Manuel | 25 | • | • | • | • |
| 2014 | Clev. | 22 | Johnny Manziel | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2014 | Minn. | 32 | Teddy Bridgewater | 21 | 21 | 24 | 30 | • |
| 2016 | Den. | 26 | Paxton Lynch | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2018 | Balt. | 32 | Lamar Jackson | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| 2019 | Was. | 15 | Dwayne Haskins | • | • | • | • | • |
| 2020 | G.B. | 26 | Jordan Love | 5 | 18 | • | • | • |
| 2021 | N.E. | 15 | Mac Jones | 26 | 27 | 28 | • | ? |
| 2022 | Pitt. | 20 | Kenny Pickett | 29 | 30 | • | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan