When the Washington Commanders, holding the 11th-overall selection in the upcoming draft, decided to trade a pair of draft picks for Carson Wentz — taking on his entire contract in the process — it told us one thing about the upcoming draft class of passers.
The league has some questions.
This is not to say that this is a “bad class,” per se. Rather it illustrates the point that teams who needed a quarterback to start in the season opener believe that mid-level veterans are better options than the incoming rookies.
Ultimately, the question is this: Of this group, who are the players who can develop into starters in the NFL?
That is always a difficult question to answer, and one that frankly is never answered until the draft is in the rear-view mirror and we know landing spots, scheme fits, and have a better idea of the situation around these passers. Everything until that point is projection.
Or guesswork, depending on how charitable you are feeling.
As a proponent of tiering quarterbacks rather than ranking them, this might be the perfect draft class for such an exercise. After all, if you ask six different analysts who the top quarterback is this cycle, you might get six different answers. In that vein, the first six quarterbacks in this group (Malik Willis, Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ridder, Matt Corral, Carson Strong and Sam Howell) are the quarterbacks I am the most confident in developing into starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
The next tier (Skylar Thompson, Bailey Zappe and Kaleb Eleby) are the quarterbacks with starter-level traits, but who will need more development to reach such a role in the NFL. But they also offer potential as long-term backups in the league.
After that, Jack Coan and Dustin Crum — with E.J. Perry just on the outside looking in — are your quarterbacks who could develop but need the ideal system and environment around them to do so.
Let’s dive into this group of quarterbacks a bit more as we start the lists of Touchdown Wire’s top draft prospects by position for 2022.