Yesterday, I looked at how much the NFL was relying on highly-drafted passers. The answer: quite a bit, as 50% of passes were thrown by a quarterback drafted in the top 32 or top 18 in each of the last three years.

That is certainly significant, but it’s not groundbreaking, either. Allow me to transport you back to 1972. The NFL had 26 teams, and 14 of those teams had a starting quarterback drafted in the top 10 or earlier! This includes Archie Manning (Saints), John Hadl (Chargers), Jim Plunkett (Patriots), Craig Morton (Cowboys), Norm Snead (Giants), Joe Namath (Jets), Roman Gabriel (Rams), Terry Bradshaw (Steelers), Mike Phipps (Browns), Len Dawson (Chiefs), Dan Pastorini (Oilers), Steve Spurrier (on the 49ers along with top-5 pick John Brodie), Marty Domres (Colts), and Earl Morrall (on the Dolphins along with top-5 pick Bob Griese). ^[1]Complicating things a bit was before 1967, there were two drafts: one by the NFL, and one by the NFL. Hadl was drafted 10th overall in the NFL Draft, and in the third round of the AFL Draft. Morton … Continue reading

The non-top 10 picks that year that were starters included Fran Tarkenton, Ken Anderson, Daryle Lamonica, Billy Kilmer, and Johnny Unitas. It may not have been a great passing year because of the rules in place at the time, but it sure had a lot of great quarterbacks. This was an era of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, even if 1972 just missed both Bart Starr and Dan Fouts.

On the other end of the spectrum is the 2001 season. An undrafted Jon Kitna, playing for the Bengals, led the NFL in pass attempts. Brad Johnson (Tampa Bay), was third in attempts; Aaron Brooks (Saints) and Rich Gannon (Raiders) rounded out the top 5, and neither was drafted in the first three rounds.

Kurt Warner (Rams, undrafted), Chris Weinke (Panthers, 106th pick), Trent Green (Chiefs, 222nd), Doug Flutie (Chargers, 285th), and Jeff Garcia (49ers, undrafted) all had 500+ pass attempts. Mark Brunell (Jaguars, 118), Elvis Grbac (Ravens, 219), Jay Fiedler (Dolphins, undrafted), Tom Brady (Patriots, 1999) and Jim Miller (Bears, 178) were starters, too. And Matt Hasselbeck (Seahawks, 187) and Alex Van Pelt (Bills, 216) led their teams in pass attempts, too. And backups in the NFC North (Ty Detmer, Shane Matthews, and Mike McMahon) combined for nearly a full season, too, and all were late round or undrafted quarterbacks.

If you sort each passer by draft order, you can see which draft pick is necessary to cross the 50% threshold. In 1972, you only had to go to the 10th pick; in other words, half of all passes that year came from players selected in the top 10 of the NFL or AFL Draft. In 2001, you had to go all the way down to pick 106. Over the last few years, the average is just north of the 20th overall pick.

The graph below shows the median passer (by draft slot) in each year since the merger:

The trend does seem to be going down. Whether it’s due to better health (a hidden element, perhaps) or the rookie wage scale encouraging teams to draft quarterbacks early (and start them), the median passer could dip below 20 this year.

As recently as 2008, the median passer was drafted 64th overall. In 2017, that was 32nd, and that was with injuries to Luck, Bradford, Tannehill, and Rodgers. But consider that over the last decade, three teams replaced undrafted quarterbacks with number one overall picks: Carolina switched Jake Delhomme for Cam Newton, Tampa Bay had Jeff Garcia then and Jameis Winston now, and the Cardinals had Kurt Warner then and Carson Palmer in 2017 (and a new number one pick, Bradford, in 2018). Two other teams in 2008 had undrafted starting quarterbacks: San Francisco with Shaun Hill and Dallas with Tony Romo.

Five teams had quarterbacks drafted outside of the top 100 in 2008 and a top-3 quarterback in 2017: the Chiefs went from Tyler Thigpen to Alex Smith, the Rams from Marc Bulger to Jared Goff, the Lions from Dan Orlovsky to Matthew Stafford, the Bears from Kyle Orton to Mitch Trubisky, and the Jaguars from David Garrard to Blake Bortles.

Both Ohio teams also went up the draft chain, swapping Ryan Fitzpatrick (250) and Derek Anderson (213) for Andy Dalton (35) and DeShone Kizer (52, and likely a new switch to the first overall pick in the 2018 draft).

Meanwhile, only two of the 32 teams had a quarterback drafted in the top 24 in 2008 and a non-top 24 QB in 2017: the Raiders happily switched from JaMarcus Russell to Derek Carr, while the Colts moved from Peyton Manning on paper to Jacoby Brissett following Luck’s injury.

It’s an open question whether this new trend is here to stay, but it’s definitely true right now: teams are relying more on highly drafted passers now than at any time since the early 1970s.