As we expected, five quarterbacks were selected in the first round of the 2018 Draft.
- Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma (College Stats), went 1st to the Browns.
- Sam Darnold, Southern California (College Stats), went 3rd to the Jets.
- Josh Allen, Wyoming (College Stats), went 7th to the Bills.
- Josh Rosen, UCLA (College Stats), went 10th to the Cardinals.
- Lamar Jackson, Louisville (College Stats), went 32nd to the Ravens.
Where does the first QB go in the average draft? What about the fifth? Let’s investigate, by looking at all drafts since the first modern draft in 1967.
The first quarterback, on average, was selected with the 9th overall pick from 1967 to 2017. But that’s heavily skewed: the median selection from ’67 to ’17 was the 3rd overall pick, and the modal selection was the first overall pick (22 times, and now 23).
The graph below shows where the first quarterback was drafted in each draft since 1967:
How about the second pick? On average, the second QB was taken with the 23rd pick, but the median spot was the 14th overall selection. The most common pick was the 2nd overall pick, which happened 7 times. In 2018, the second pick was Darnold at 3rd overall.
The graph below shows where the second quarterback was drafted in each draft since 1967:
But where the 2018 draft begins to stand out is at QB3. It’s not crazy to see two quarterbacks go in the top 3 — after all, it happened in 9 out of 51 drafts from ’67 to ’17. But the third QB usually goes much later — with the 48th overall pick, on average, from ’67 to ’17. The median spot wasn’t much higher at 44, and no pick was responsible for the third overall pick more than twice. In fact, just two drafts — the 1971 and 1999 versions, where the first three picks were QBs — saw three quarterbacks drafted as early as they were in 2018.
The graph below shows where the third quarterback was drafted in each draft since 1967:
The strength of the 2018 class is starkest when you look at the top four picks. This is the first draft since 1949 with four QBs going in the top 10; the median pick for the 4th QB selected is pick 63! Having four quarterbacks with even top-20 grades is unusual, although this draft does bring back memories of 2011 (Cam/Locker/Gabbert/Ponder) and 2012 (Luck/Griffin/Tannehill/Weeden) — in other words, yes, the new rookie wage scale has really changed things.
The graph below shows where the fourth quarterback was drafted in each draft since 1967:
Finally, this graph below shows where the fifth quarterback was drafted in each draft since 1967. The 2018 Draft joins the famous ’83 and ’99 drafts with five QBs going in the first round:
What stands out to you?