An NFL team is far more likely to make a mistake when drafting a quarterback than they are to make the right pick.
And often enough, teams make an equally bad mistake when passing on a quarterback, letting him fall and be taken by rivals that then dominate the teams that passed on him for many seasons to come.
The last eight drafts have featured an annual frenzy of these mistakes, costing general managers their jobs and many passionate fans their sleep.
These mistakes are among the most consequential moments that have shaped the current NFL hierarchy.
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The seeds of the NFL’s current and preeminent dynasty, the Kansas City Chiefs, were planted in 2017 when 10 teams passed on Patrick Mahomes.
The Browns, Bears, 49ers, Jaguars, Titans, Jets, Chargers, Panthers and Bengals all decided Mahomes wasn’t worth their first-round pick, before he fell to the Bills at 10.
The Bills also made the decision not to take Mahomes, but to make things worse for themselves for the next eight years, they agreed to trade their pick to the Chiefs. The Bills would get their franchise quarterback a year later, but sending Mahomes to Kansas City set up the Chiefs to beat the Bills in four straight playoff games since then.
But at least the Bills got something out of it in the trade. The Bears were the only other team bold enough to take a quarterback in the top 10 but used their pick on Mitchell Trubisky, who was out of Chicago after just four seasons.
Meanwhile, none of the other eight teams that passed on Mahomes currently have a quarterback with a single MVP award or Super Bowl ring, let alone anything comparable to Mahomes’ two MVPs and three championship rings.
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The current generation of great NFL quarterbacks began to take shape in 2018, when Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson joined Mahomes in the NFL.
But before either of those two MVPs were taken, a string of franchise-soiling mistakes had to happen first.
The Browns used the No. 1 pick that year on Baker Mayfield, which came as a surprise to many. Mayfield didn’t end up being the biggest mistake of that draft, leading Cleveland to its first playoff win. But in hindsight, passing on Allen and Jackson left the Browns with plenty of second-guessing since then, especially now with Mayfield gone and their quarterback situation uncertain.
The Jets may have gotten even less out of their decision to pass on Allen and Jackson with the decision to take Sam Darnold. Darnold never came close to sniffing the playoffs in just three seasons with the Jets, and he was more remembered for infamously “seeing ghosts” in a poor performance in 2019.
On top of that, letting Allen wind up in Buffalo gave the Jets their next big bully as soon as they were coming to the end of having to deal with Tom Brady in New England.
But the team with the biggest quarterback blunder from 2018 was the Arizona Cardinals, who made the decision to trade up to the No. 10 pick to take Josh Rosen. Allen was already gone at that point after the Bills traded up to No. 7 to get him, but the Cardinal’s decision to concede for Rosen yielded one of the lowliest returns of any trade-up for a quarterback in recent history.
Rosen lasted one season in Arizona, going 3-10 as a starter before he was ousted and had to settle for backup and practice squad roles up until 2022.
Meanwhile, plenty of other teams made the mistake of not taking Jackson after that, and he fell all the way to the final pick of the first round before the Ravens traded back into the round to secure their future MVP.
The Cardinals were rewarded for the Josh Rosen blunder with the worst record in the NFL in 2018 and the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft.
They took Kyler Murray, and they truly couldn’t have done any better in terms of quarterbacks for that year’s draft. Still, Murray hasn’t come close to being the type of quarterback that Jackson is, had they picked Jackson over Rosen a year earlier.
With Murray off the board, the other teams were left picking from the leftovers of a very poor draft class for QBs, as history has shown.
The Giants took Daniel Jones at No. 6. In 2018, the Giants were one of the many teams to make the mistake of passing on Allen and Jackson, for the sake of building around Eli Manning for at least one more year.
By the 2019 draft, they had to abandon that vision and scrambled to find a replacement. So they ended up with Jones. And, to be fair, the Giants couldn’t have done much better in that year’s class.
Many critics initially believed the Giants had made the mistake of that year’s QB picks by taking Jones over the late Dwayne Haskins.
But the Redskins’ selection of Haskins proved to be an even smaller gain as the Ohio State star lasted only two seasons in Washington. Haskins died in April 2022 after getting hit by a vehicle on the road.
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Jones lasted five and a half seasons in New York, winning a playoff game and signing a second contract. But his often-losing and injured tendencies, and lack of a Pro Bowl, weren’t enough to cut it much further than that. His stint with the Giants ended halfway through the 2024 season when he and the team mutually agreed to part ways.
Simply put, both Washington and the Giants may have been better off not taking a quarterback at all in 2019.
One of the rarer drafts in recent times when the top quarterback taken can be acknowledged as the best pick came in 2020.
The Bengals took Joe Burrow after one of the most decorated college careers of all time. And after an injury-plagued rookie year, Burrow joined the company of this generation’s premier quarterbacks right away.
But the real second-best quarterback of that draft is still up for debate.
The Chargers’ pick of Justin Herbert and the Dolphins’ pick of Tua Tagovailoa gave each franchise their current star quarterbacks, and both have made the playoffs.
But those teams also have the distinction of passing on Jalen Hurts, who has won a Super Bowl and played in another with the Eagles, while Herbert and Tagovailoa have yet to win a single playoff game.
However, both Tagovailoa and especially Herbert have better average passing numbers than Hurts and generally have a larger role on offense.
Thus, the Chargers’ and Dolphins’ decision to pass on Herbert may be considered questionable rather than a full-blown mistake.
Still, the Eagles won the value battle by getting Hurts in the second round. Philadelphia has managed its resources to build a core that has outperformed any other team that picked a quarterback in 2020, even Burrow’s Bengals.
Like 2020, the 2021 draft is also one where the top quarterback taken can be considered the best. But in 2021, the standard for that title was much, much lower.
And like in 2019, all those teams that picked quarterbacks after No. 1 overall would likely have been better off just taking a position player instead.
After the Jaguars took Trevor Lawrence, who has panned out to be a decent franchise quarterback but short of the generational luster experts promised, there are no QB picks that can be considered successful starters.
Zach Wilson didn’t even achieve average quality play with the Jets and somehow provided more as a backup to Aaron Rodgers than a full-time starter.
Trey Lance barely played for the 49ers at all. In fact, the 49ers’ pick of Lance may have had the biggest impact on recent NFL history of any quarterback in 2021 because it cost them a chance to draft a player who may have changed the outcome of their deep playoff runs in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Bears gave up an eventual top-10 pick to trade up to No. 11 and take Justin Fields, but Fields’ tenure in Chicago ended after just three seasons when they suddenly got the chance to get a better prospect.
The Patriots’ selection of Mac Jones at No. 15 was at least a higher-value pick, getting a Pro Bowl nod and a playoff berth out of it. But his days as a starter ended after less than three seasons as well.
The only quarterback worth mentioning to come out of the 2022 draft class was the final pick, Brock Purdy.
After whiffing with Lance a year earlier, the 49ers took a low-risk chance on Purdy with the No. 262 pick. And after a series of injuries to Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, Purdy emerged as the main man on a 49ers team with realistic Super Bowl aspirations and then a Super Bowl appearance in 2023.
The comparisons to Tom Brady began immediately. Still, no one seems to talk about the agony of passing on Brock Purdy quite the same way they do about Brady … at least not yet.
Scouts said Bryce Young may have been too small coming out of college. And Young proved them right throughout the first year and a half of his NFL career.
Young played so poorly for the Panthers as a rookie that the first-round pick they traded to move up to No. 1 and get him ended up being the No. 1 pick the following year for the Bears.
The Bears then used that pick to take a much more highly coveted prospect in Caleb Williams.
It was an aggressive trade that the Panthers had the chance to make pay off, but they decided to pass on C.J. Stroud for Young.
Panthers fans had to watch Stroud excel as a rookie of the year all while their own losing would simply all be to the benefit of the Bears.
To be fair, Young turned things around a bit at the end of his second season. But until further notice, the Panthers’ decision is on track to potentially be one of the bigger QB draft blunders in league history.
Williams showed flashes of his generational luster as a rookie in 2024 but ultimately paled in comparison to the quarterback who was taken two picks after him in Jaden Daniels.
After Daniels led Washington all the way to the NFC title game as a rookie of the year, Williams has a lot to live up to in order to justify being taken ahead of him.
Now, Washington is poised to potentially be one of the most transcendent teams in 2025, and Daniels could soon make his own mark on NFL history the way Mahomes, Allen, Jackson, Burrow and Hurts have.
And if another year like 2024 goes by for Washington and Chicago, the conversation around Williams and Daniels could soon be very similar to the one that has been had about Young and Stroud.
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