Everybody’s thinking it. Can you blame them?
The Washington Commanders have hired Kliff Kingsbury as their new offensive coordinator. He is a passing-game guru who coached Caleb Williams at USC in 2023.
Williams, who is expected to be the top pick in this year’s NFL draft, was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area.
Washington holds the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft and is well-positioned to land the 22-year-old, but doing so might require a trade up into the top spot that currently belongs to the Chicago Bears.
That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, though. Here’s why it isn’t.
Caleb Williams Ryan Kang/Getty Images
There’s no exact precedent, because no team has ever traded up from No. 2 to No. 1 in the NFL draft.
This would also depend on what other teams are willing to trade away to leapfrog the Commanders for Williams. A pick is only worth what someone will pay for it, after all.
According to the draft pick trade value charta jump from No. 2 to the top slot should cost Washington a second-round draft pick. The Commanders happen to possess two selections in the top half of Round 2, as well as a pair of third-rounders. So, parting with one of those second-round picks wouldn’t necessarily be a team-wrecker.
That’s unlikely to be the price tag, though, unless the Commanders find themselves competing against nobody. Even then, Chicago would likely have to be uninterested in Williams. If you’re already loaded with draft capital (as the Bears are) and you really love the guy in front of you, are you going to give that up for an extra Day 2 pick?
For a recent example of what the QB tax looks like in primo draft pick swaps, see the San Francisco 49ers’ decision to trade away two future first-round picks as well as a third-rounder to move up from No. 12 to No. 3 for Trey Lance in 2021.
That turned out to be a horrendous deal, and the Carolina Panthers’ decision to deal a second, a future first, a future second and receiver D.J. Moore to leap from No. 9 to No. 1 for Bryce Young last year isn’t looking much better.
The jump wouldn’t be as substantial for Washington in the No. 2 spot, but there’s a good chance it will have to sacrifice multiple Day 2 picks this year and next, if not a future first-rounder, to land the No. 1 overall pick for Williams.
Drake Maye Rich by Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Trey Lance didn’t pan out for San Francisco and has been outperformed by the next quarterback drafted, Justin Fields. Bryce Young was also outplayed by second overall pick C.J. Stroud this past season.
When was the last time a team traded up for a signal-caller in a top-three spot and that quarterback panned out better than the next one selected? It certainly hasn’t been either of those guys, or Mitchell Trubisky ahead of Patrick Mahomes in 2017. Both Jared Goff and Carson Wentz were picked in the top three by teams that traded up in 2016, and nobody decent was picked in the top rounds, but Dak Prescott was a fourth-round selection that year.
The point is that the draft continues to be a crapshoot, especially with first-round quarterbacks.
Considering what 2022 seventh-rounder Brock Purdy has done, an argument can be made that dating back to 2016, the only QBs that have gone off the board before anyone else at their position and actually become the best in their draft classes are Trevor Lawrence in 2021 and Kyler Murray in 2019. Maybe Joe Burrow ahead of Tua Tagovailoa in 2020, but that’s a tough call either way right now.
Realistically, if Williams goes first and Drake Maye goes off the board soon after, there’s a good chance that the North Carolina product becomes the Stroud to Williams’ Young.
In fact, the latest big board from the Bleacher Report Scouting Department has Maye ranked above Williams.
“Maye is a supremely talented passer,” B/R scout Derrick Classes wrote. “He has the athleticism, arm talent and baseline processing skills to become a weapon at the next level.”
So classes noted that Williams has room to improve in terms of both consistency and processing.
“Maye received rave reviews in a recent conversation with an NFC quarterbacks coach who has studied his film: ‘He’s Josh Allen, Justin Herbert … and I think his arm is comparable to C.J. Stroud,” Matt Miller of ESPN said this week. “Those comparisons are high praise and would be tough for new general manager Adam Peters to ignore. Maye’s arm talent and mobility at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds perfectly fit the modern quarterback profile.”
This is far from a cut-and-dried choice.
Kliff Kingsbury Michael Miller/ISI Photos/Getty Images
There’s a chance Williams becomes a better quarterback than Maye, but even that on its own doesn’t mean he will lead Washington to success.
Since the turn of the century, only two of the 43 quarterbacks drafted in the top 10 have gone on to win Super Bowls as starters for the teams that either drafted them (Mahomes) or traded for them during the draft (Eli Manning).
With resources that have been weakened even slightly as a result of a trade-up, his task would be more difficult.
In the last 15 drafts, 19 of the 45 QBs picked in the first round were selected following trade-ups. Twelve of those were top-10 selections.
Mahomes and Josh Allen have been success stories for the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills, respectively, but the same can’t be said for Young, Lance, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Trubisky, Goff (at least with the team that drafted him), Wentz, Robert Griffin III, Blaine Gabbert and Mark Sanchez.
History is not on the side of teams that make sacrifices for quarterbacks in primo draft locations. The Commanders should take note.
2024-02-07 17:32:34
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