April 28, 2017
At around this time last year, we made the observation that around half of the NFL's teams could be shopping for a quarterback either imminently, or in the near future. We also recently brought up a reminder that last offseason, the Eagles looked ahead to the 2017 NFL Draft's quarterback class and determined that is was not likely to be strong.
Partially as a result, the Eagles felt the need a year ago to aggressively pursue Carson Wentz in the 2016 NFL Draft because they felt that, eventually, a large number of teams would be jockeying for a small number of quarterbacks, most of whom were far from slam dunk prospects.
The top three quarterbacks in the 2017 NFL Draft, for example were North Carolina's Mitchell Trubisky, Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes, and Clemson's Deshaun Watson. In an interview with PhillyVoice, NFL analyst Ron Jaworski strongly opined that he would not take any quarterback in this class in the first round.
But that's what happened.
And in fact, three quarterbacks came off the board in the first 12 picks, all the result of trade-ups. The Bears traded up one spot for Trubisky, the Chiefs traded up 17 spots for Mahomes, and the Texans traded up 13 spots for Watson. Here's what each team had to give up to secure their rookie quarterbacks.
| QB acquired | The cost |
| Mitchell Trubisky (2nd overall) | The Bears gave up the 3rd-overall pick, the 67th-overall pick, the 111th-overall pick, and a third-round pick in 2018, all to move up one spot to get a quarterback. |
| Patrick Mahomes (10th overall) | The Chiefs gave up the 27th-overall pick, the 91st-overall pick, and a first-round pick in 2018 to move up to 10 to select Mahomes. |
| Deshaun Watson (12th overall) | The Texans gave up the 25th-overall pick along with their first-round pick in 2018 to move up to 12 to select Watson. |
Those are all exorbitant prices to secure quarterbacks with significant warts. In 2017 (and really anytime), it's good not to be desperate for a quarterback.
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