*Walt taking 2014 and 2018 |
Charlie Campbell, Senior Draft Analyst |
General Manger Says Four Quarterbacks in the Top 20
Updated Feb. 28, 2019By Charlie Campbell. Follow Charlie on Twitter @draftcampbell.
The 2019 NFL Draft has the potential to be a wild and exciting first round with trades and franchise-altering moves being made at the quarterback position. In speaking to a couple of general managers and a few other team sources, they expect four quarterbacks to be selected in the first round, and they believe that they are all likely to go in the top 20, with teams trading up to select some of those quarterbacks. The four signal-callers they expect to go on the opening night of the draft are: Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray, Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins, Duke’s Daniel Jones, and Missouri’s Drew Lock.
After those four quarterbacks go in the first round, sources say they think that two more quarterbacks will get selected on Day 2. Both general managers said they thought that North Carolina State’s Ryan Finley and Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson would be selected on the second day of the draft and both could go in the second round. They didn’t think either would slip to the third day of the draft.
A few team sources said this draft reminds them of the 2017 NFL Draft where three quarterback prospects rose throughout the lead up to the draft and all three teams that drafted them in the top half of the first round traded up to do so. The Bears (Mitchell Trubisky), the Chiefs (Pat Mahomes) and the Texans (Deshaun Watson) all traded up to land those signal-callers. They feel that once one quarterback gets drafted, that will start the dominoes and have teams trading up to land their guy. Because of the belief that those trades will happen, some teams think all four quarterbacks will go in the top 20 and could easily be gone in the top half of the first round.
