It's a Rocky Road for First-Round QBs

The numbers over the last five years show a few exceptions but if the Bears trade up and draft a first-round quarterback they can immediate trouble.

The great fascination for the Bears and their fans with trading up to draft Trey Lance, Justin Fields or Mac Jones is understandable.

They're dynamic college quarterbacks and athletes. 

Those who love this stategy also have to realize doing it means a bad Bears season in 2021.

In fact, if that happens it could lead to a bad 2022 as well because there could be firings and a house cleaning. Inevitably, house cleanings lead to losing the first season of the new regime while everything gets put into place.

So a rookie quarterback drafted in Round 1 most likely would not lead to a winning Bears team until 2023 at the earliest.

This is all based on the fact that first-round rookie quarterbaks rarely do much positive. In the case of this Bears team, the trade up would mean sacrificing picks they need to plug roster holes. So it would be costly.

In the last five drafts, there have been 18 quarterbacks taken in Round 1 and three led their team to winning records in games they started. One was Lamar Jackson, who was 6-1. Tua Tagovailoa last year was 6-3. Patrick Mahomes was 1-0.

Only Deshaun Watson (3-3) and Paxton Lynch (1-1) led their teams to .500 records. The other 12 who started posted losing records and a combined starting record of 45 wins to 96 defeats.

Naturally, first-round quarterbacks have gone mostly to bad teams and their win-loss record as well as passing statistics are not helped by playing with poor teams. 

It's not always the case, though. Seven of the 18 went to teams with winning or .500 records in the previous season.

The 18 first-round quarterbacks put up an average passer rating of 87.66 as rookies but only five of the 17 who started went over that mark and 11 of the 12 who didn't go over it posted passer ratings in the 70s, which is Rex Grossman-bad. 

The 87.66 mark is inflated by the excellent effort of Justin Herbert last season (98.3) with 15 starts. Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones and Joe Burrow all went over that 87.66 rating and did it with enough passing attempts to inflate the number.

By and large, seasons like Mitchell Trubisky posted with a 77.5 passer rating are the norm. 

Then you have the Joshes. 

In 2018 Josh Allen had a 67.9 passer rating and Josh Rosen 66.7. They've since gone down slightly different paths.

The tell-tale stat for rookie passer misery is yards per pass attempt, a key stat which usually reflects a good level of competence. 

Only Herbert (7.3), Baker Mayfield (7.7), Jackson (7.1), Mahomes (8.1) and Watson (8.3) managed to get in the 7s or higher. Those are good numbers.

The rest all had in the 6s, which is mediocre to bad. Then there was 5.3 for Jared Goff and 5.8 for Rosen. Those figures are utterly embarrassing.

So if the Bears trade up for that first-round quarterback, expect he: 1) won't play much because Andy Dalton is the starter, 2) if the QB does play he'll be mediocre to bad and then the chances exist the entire organization is turned over for a restart and more years of misery.

A team needs to be certain a player is special to take gamble and move up for them, and then use them as a rookie starter.

Either that, or they've got to be entirely desperate.

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