Teams that select quarterbacks in the first round of the draft generally struggled in the passing department prior year, although not as much as you might think. On average, these teams ^[1]Since 1970, excluding quarterbacks taken in the supplemental draft, and including the 2015 Bucs. had a Relative ANY/A of -0.71, meaning those teams were 0.71 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt below average. For reference, that’s right about where the 2014 Bears finished, and Chicago ranked 27th in the NFL in ANY/A last year.

There have been 91 teams that have selected a quarterback in the first round of the regular NFL Draft since 1970; the Tampa Bay Bucs are almost certainly going to be the 92nd. ^[2]Note: Kerry Collins, Tim Couch, and David Carr all were drafted by expansion teams in the first round. These examples are being deliberately excluded in this analysis. Every once in awhile, a good passing team will dip its toes into the quarterback waters and select a passer in the first round. Over this time period, there have been eight teams that had a RANY/A of at least +1.0 and then selected a quarterback in the draft.

The 2005 Packers are not that team. In ’04, Green Bay behind Brett Favre had a RANY/A of +1.42, which didn’t stop the franchise from drafting Aaron Rodgers in the first round in the following draft. But there are four other teams that had an even better RANY/A the year before selecting a quarterback in the first round during this period. Can you name the team with the best RANY/A?

Let’s look at the same information in graph form. In the picture below, the X-axis represents the draft year, while the Y-axis shows the drafting team’s RANY/A in the prior season. The data set is all non-expansion teams to select a quarterback in the first round of the regular draft since 1970, and the 2015 Bucs.

As you would expect, there’s more going on in the bottom half of the chart than the top half. As you can see on the far right of the chart, assuming the Bucs take a quarterback with the first overall pick, they’d be well in line with other teams that drafted a quarterback. But that brings up another point: we really should be looking at what type of first round pick a team used to draft a quarterback. After all, the first overall pick is a much different pick than the 20th selection. That’s what this next chart does: the larger the bubble, the more valuable (i.e., closer to 1) the pick used.

Perhaps the clearest example of need meeting availability was in 1975. That year, the Falcons traded up from 3 to 1 to secure Steve Bartkowski, after a horrendous passing year in 1974 (Atlanta finished 2.1 ANY/A… behind the second-worst passing team in the NFL!)

Anyway, not much in the way of analysis today, but I thought this would be a fun weekend post. Enjoy!