When an NFL team has the No. 2 overall pick (and didn’t have to trade for it), the expectation is that they will be looking hard at taking a quarterback.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The primary one is that teams with franchise quarterbacks generally don’t finish at the bottom of the league in standings. The other side of that coin is that there are seldom faster ways to turn around a team than adding an elite signal caller.
In addition, there’s a massive cost savings. NFL draft picks have highly restrictive salaries. For example, 2024 No. 1 overall choice Caleb Williams signed a contract that averages slightly under $10 million a year. Meanwhile, Bills quarterback Josh Allen recently re-upped for more than 5.5 times that. So, if an NFL team can grab an elite quarterback in the first round, they can create $40 million or more in salary cap value for those five years. Done right, that is 2-3 elite players at other positions, which gives those teams a significant edge.
NEED DOES NOT CREATE PRODUCT
However, this is not a case where need creates product. Last season, the NFL saw a whopping six quarterbacks taken in the top 12 picks of the draft. Four of those players opened the season as NFL starters, and barring injury, all six will in 2025. There are 32 teams in the NFL, and seeing one draft create six starters coming out in one draft should have created the expectation that the quarterback cupboard would be barer in the next.
For most of the college season, it did.
But then the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns landed at the top two picks of the 2025 NFL Draft, largely because their starting quarterbacks were subpar. In the case of the Browns, their starter, Deshaun Watson, looks like he’s going to go down as the answer to “What is the worst trade in NFL history,” after a 2024 where he regressed so badly that he’d have a hard time getting a semipro team to give him a starting job in 2026 when he recovers from an Achilles tendon he tore twice last year. (More on why the Browns have failed at picking quarterbacks in a later post).
ABSOLUTES ARE THE ANTITHESIS OF WINNING
So, naturally, their respective fan bases have lit up social media, demanding that the teams draft quarterbacks, oftentimes “no matter what.”
This, my friends, is why fans should not run NFL drafts. Building an NFL team is not like winning your fantasy football league, despite how fantasy and social media have given rise to a whole generation of pundits who don’t have any practical experience but are great at shouting.
But let’s humor these guys for a moment. If Tennessee takes a signal caller at No. 1, that will likely be Cam Ward from Miami. Ward is currently ranked No. 10 on ESPN’s Big Board. He’s been given an overall grade of 91, which would rank him No. 5 among last year’s quarterbacks. Assuming he’s the right fit for Brian Callahan’s offense in Tennessee – and that’s a big if – he’d be something of a reach at No. 1 overall. But not out of range.
The 2025 NFL Draft is acknowledged to have two generational-type athletes at the top of everyone’s boards: Edge rusher Adbul Carter and two-way sensation Travis Hunter. The next tier of athletes are closely rated but, for whatever reason, are not quite as dominant as the aforementioned two. In addition, they come at positions that aren’t as highly valued: DT, TE, and RB.
BUT… WHAT ABOUT NO. 2 OVERALL?
So Ward at No. 1 makes certain sense, even if it’s a bit of a reach. However, if that comes to pass, the next available quarterback on the board is Shedeur Sanders, all the way down at No. 35, with an 88 overall grade. With pre-draft hype in full swing, Sanders is likely to be taken in the Top 10, and perhaps as high up as No. 2 to Cleveland.
You can feel my criticism of this coming, right? So, let’s not bother with that paragraph, and just assume that we all understand why taking the 35th best player in the draft second overall makes little sense. I can hear my critics in the back of my mind now, “But Jack, the Denver Broncos reached for Bo Nix last year at No. 12, and he was almost rookie of the year?”
Yes, that is absolutely true. But the reason why the Denver Broncos reached for Nix – who also had an 88 overall grade and a second-round projection – at No. 12 is because head coach Sean Payton was absolutely convinced that Nix was the perfect fit for his system. Payton has a solid track record with that – while his last handpicked quarterback, Drew Brees, is now a Hall of Famer, the jury was WAY out on that when he signed with the Saints way back in 2006. Payton and the Broncos also know the quarterback hype machine of which I speak, so given these two things, reaching for Nix at No. 12 made sense. Plus, the Top 5 non-quarterbacks were off the board already.
No. 12 is not No. 2, and therein lies the difference. The Cleveland Browns have a chance to lock down a generational athlete at perhaps the most important defensive position (edge rusher) or one who is so talented and intelligent that he plays both receiver and cornerback with fluid ease.
ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES
I’ll close this with a story from my scouting days.
When I worked in the Arena Football League, I visited around a dozen NFL training camps every summer, looking at the 40 or so players that those teams cut every year. One place I went every year was Latrobe, PA, to see the Steelers. Though the shine is very much off the Steelers in the last few years, at the time, Pittsburgh perhaps had the best-run front office in the league.
I had lunch with their GM and scouts one day, and they made one thing abundantly clear: You do not reach with a high draft pick. You evaluate the players, and when your pick comes, you take the highest-ranked player on your board with the least number of red flags.
That’s how you build a consistent winner and why no team should be reaching to draft any player with a top-two pick. If Cleveland looks at the board and sees Sanders as their No. 2 overall player, wonderful. Have at it. But if they see 30-something players ahead of him and take him anyway… well, blowing a No. 2 overall pick is how bad teams stay bad.
