Whatever Happened to the Class of 2021?

The 2021 draft’s quarterback class was supposed to be special. Five quarterbacks were selected in the first round, including the top three picks. In total, a record eight quarterbacks were selected in the first two days. The draft had everything: highly-revered generational talents, tried-and-true pocket passers, big-upside projects, backyard ballers, dual-threat scramblers. You name it, the archetype was there. Even with the notion that only half of all first-round quarterbacks actually hit, this still had the makings of a power-shifting draft.

Three years in, and this draft class has been a pretty massive letdown. Of our first-round quarterbacks, Trevor Lawrence is the only real “hit.” Even his career has been more up-and-down than the “best quarterback prospect since Andrew Luck” label would suggest. Trey Lance is already off the 49ers. Mac Jones has reportedly lost the locker room and might not come back as the starter afte the Patriots’ bye week. Zach Wilson still has Robert Saleh standing up for him despite having the lowest touchdown rate of any quarterback (1.6%, min. 300 pass attempts) since Trent Dilfer in 1995. Justin Fields, who returns to play this week, is banking on some Carolina Panthers wins if he hopes to keep his job in 2024. 

A quarterback draft as deep as this didn’t have a single hit in the late rounds. Kyle Trask was labeled heir apparent as the backup behind Tom Brady for two seasons and never got the chance to start. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer was asked if he wanted to see Kellen Mond in a game, he simply replied “Not particularly… I see him every day.” Ian Book was the worst of four quarterbacks in the tumultuous first season in New Orleans without Drew Brees. Sam Ehlinger sat a year, then joined Matt Ryan and Nick Foles in one of the worst quarterback rooms in recent memory. Davis Mills was a quarterback good enough to run the offense during the transition out of the O’Brien-Watson era but bad enough to still secure eventual replacement C.J. Stroud. 

Seriously, what the hell happened here? A class seemingly stacked with talent of all sorts on draft day is only going to see one of 10 quarterbacks get a second contract. 

Well, to talk about this bizarre case study in quarterback development, we first have to talk about how COVID got us here. The pandemic restrictions threw a massive wrench in both the 2020 college football season and the draft process at large. Fan attendance was sparse. Power 5 teams only allowed in-conference play. Players (Trevor Lawrence included) would miss stretches of the season for positive test results. Teams pushed back conference championships and some bowl games were scrapped entirely.

Wilson and Lance both had their whole career trajectories change because of the pandemic restrictions. Wilson wasn’t even on most national radars prior to the 2020 season. However, with the Power 5 conferences banning out-of-conference play for the season, then-independent BYU was forced to cobble together a dirt-easy schedule made of Group of 5 teams and fellow Independents. Lance, on the other hand, was a two-time FCS champion who had his season wiped out entirely. North Dakota State arranged a single exhibition game just to showcase Lance to scouts. All of a sudden, two shiny, new toys entered the draft conversation. Lance was a mystery box of raw potential, while Wilson was an ascendant gunslinger seemingly putting it all together at the right time. 

Wilson’s star grew even bigger during the NFL combine, which was all but canceled that year. The typical Indianapolis meetup was eliminated in favor of individual university pro days. Wilson had one of the earliest showcases, and he shined by making 60-yard, cross-body throws that broke the Internet. The throws weren’t fake. There were similar plays on tape; he still tries a handful of those every season. Wilson just had maybe one of the most uniquely advantageous situations in recent college football memory. He had all the time to throw in the world, playing against inferior competition, while coaches only had game tape and highlights to go off. By the time the evaluation process started, Wilson proved he could do it in T-shirts and shorts, so the Jets were sold. At the pro level, Wilson tried to do that and got eaten alive his rookie year. Wilson finished dead last in DYAR (-569) and DVOA (-32.3%, min. 200 throws) in his first year; he didn’t learn how to throw a proper checkdown pass until the final few games of the season. 

Lance’s small sample size worked against him in a different way. He entered the draft having thrown a football less than 400 times since 2016. Sitting behind Jimmy Garoppolo for a year wasn’t going to be enough. He needed live game reps. Unfortunately, Lance suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2 and you know the rest. Lance finished the season with a -107 DYAR and -62.2% passing DVOA on 33 attempts and was still net-negative (-18 DYAR, -32.5% DVOA) as a rushing quarterback. 

“Okay, so Wilson and Lance are anomalies,” I hear you say. “They never would have been drafted that high in a non-COVID year. What about the other three?” Sure, Lawrence, Fields, and Jones may have been more pro-ready options than Wilson and Lance. All five, however, share one major flaw: development. 

Wilson and Lance could have potentially gotten better on more patient rosters. Wilson’s “sit-and-learn” phase came three years too late and was over four plays into this season. Lance needed game reps coming out, and joining a Super Bowl-caliber 49ers team was the worst possible place to try and learn through failure.

Fields came into the league as a full package. He could strike downfield, he could tuck and run, he finished his final season at Ohio State with a 70.2% completion percentage. Justin Fields just had some bad tendencies, particularly holding onto the ball too long. When Fields got to Chicago, things were obviously going to get harder. Hell, he downgraded from Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Jameson Williams (yes, seriously, four first-rounders) to Darnell Mooney, Damiere Byrd, and the shell of Allen Robinson. Even worse,he played behind the league’s worst offensive line by adjusted sack rate. That line got even worse in 2022 and remains 27th this season.

Fields has been one of the worst passers in the league over the last three years because those bad tendencies solidified under pressure. Fields didn’t get a legitimate wide receiver until this year’s trade for DJ Moore. On the other hand, Fields finished fourth among quarterbacks in rushing DYAR last year and has averaged 6.5 rushing yards per attempt on his pro career (two full yards per attempt more than his collegiate career) because it’s the only option he’s been given for three seasons.

In Fields’ case, the help came too late and the problems solidified. In Mac Jones’ case, the play deteriorated as the situation deteriorated. Jones landed in the best situation of any quarterback in this class. New England went on a historic offseason spending spree to set up Jones for success. Jones got to work in a quarterback-friendly offense under Josh McDaniels. The results were there! Jones immediately came in as one of the most accurate rookies in league history, finished 12th in passing DYAR, and led the Patriots to a playoff berth. All was good, then BAM! Surprise! In come Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, who were wholly unable to run an offense. The offensive line fell from seventh to 25th in adjusted sack rate year-over-year. All the weapons that seemed to fit so cohesively under McDaniels fall apart under the new regime. Jones takes a step back; his passing DVOA fell from 6.1% to -10.1%.

Another season went by and Belichick set Jones up with an offensive coordinator who was both a Bill disciple and a former Alabama offensive coordinator. That would have been a great resource last year. Instead, it’s moot. Half the team’s skill position players walked in free agency. The offensive line is injured, leaving Jones with a fourth-lowest 2.31s average time to throw. Now, with insecurity in the pocket, a years’ worth of mental warfare with Patricia, and a lack of confidence in receiving talent, Jones looks the worst he’s ever been. He leads the league in interception-worthy throws, his DVOA is down to -17.2%, and the Patriots have one of the league’s worst passing offenses. Most of Jones’s errors are on him–throwing deep balls off his back foot, looping balls into tight windows in the red zone, double-clutching passes in the face of pressure.Jones was a limited quarterback who could excel in a good system with weapons. Now he’s a broken man with no weapons and a blase offensive scheme. 

Even Trevor Lawrence, the anointed one, has been massively mishandled. The Urban Meyer situation will go down as one of the most baffling coaching tenures in NFL history. All the garbage drama aside, Lawrence had a bad offensive line protecting him and nobody to throw to, magnified by a coach who didn’t know who Aaron Donald was. Lawrence led the league in interception-worthy throws and the Jaguars finished with the third-worst passing DVOA in the league. Doug Pederson came in, the Jaguars loaded up on offensive weapons, and all of a sudden things clicked. Lawrence ascends to seventh in DYAR (948) and DVOA (13.0%) while pulling off big upset wins and staging historic playoff comebacks. Now Lawrence goes to the Justin Herbert School of “I Know He’s Good But The Numbers Aren’t Great.” Pederson handed off play-calling duties to Press Taylor, and the offense has completely stalled. Lawrence’s aDOT fell from 7.4 to 6.9 year-over-year while also working with the league’s shortest time to throw. The line is bad: Lawrence’s 7.4% sack rate would be a career-high. The weapons are better (hello, Calvin Ridley), but the less aggressive Taylor offense is stifling this group’s full potential. Lawrence is playing at a 4.4% DVOA, just above where Justin Herbert was in his second year under Joe Lombardi’s offense.

This class likely ends up with one of five first-round picks receiving an extension. It doesn’t mean the players are total busts. I could very well see this being a class similar to 2014, where quarterbacks find success on new teams or in new systems. But this certainly won’t be a 2020 class – one where Herbert, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, and Tua Tagovailoa all got major big-money extensions. That draft might have warped our perceptions of how drafting a quarterback goes. 

Contrary to what that slew of franchise-worthy talent would have you believe, our last several drafts have been pretty light on long-term quarterback talent. 2022 is shaping up to be one of the worst classes in a decade. 2019 has one legitimate starter in Kyler Murray, along with Daniel Jones’s $40 million APY albatross. In 2018, the other five-first-round-QBs draft, two of those five got long-term deals while the rest are journeymen replacement-level types (or out of the league). Even the 2017 class is just Mahomes, in part because of the unique and unfortunate circumstances around Deshaun Watson. 

We’ve seen a lot of old-name quarterbacks go in the last few years. Judging by the draft results of the last half-decade, the league has done a poor job of replacing. That’s playing no small part in the league’s historic scoring lows. Standards for starting quarterbacks are rising, churn at the quarterback position is increasing, and the talent just isn’t manifesting yet. The NFL is a win-now league where results are best when they’re immediate. For the most important position on the field, however, maybe teams need to put more time into the development side of things.