Washington Commanders in Danger of Following Troubling NFL Draft Trend?

The Washington Commanders are expected to select a quarterback in the NFL Draft, but they could be in danger of following troubling trends in the league.

North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback Drake Maye (10) / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

The Washington Commanders need to draft a young quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft, but which one is up for debate, and given recent trends in the league there's a trap general manager Adam Peters needs to avoid.

That trap, is one of drafting a young quarterback the team either overvalued or lacked the ability to fully support like the Commanders previously did with Sam Howell who has since been traded to the Seattle Seahawks by Peters whose former franchise suffered a similar fate with Trey Lance in 2021.

But Peters and the 49ers weren't the only ones to get duped into a quarterback situation that didn't develop the way all involved thought it might, and while Washington only spent a fifth-round pick on it's young signal-caller, the list is of recently failed experiments is a long one.

North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback Drake Maye (10) / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

In fact, as many as 11 quarterbacks have been drafted and expected at one point or another to start and even save their respective franchises.

Of the 11 examined in a recent dive into the troubling rise in this trend eight are no longer with their original team, and one isn't even in the league. So what's the cause of all of this?

“Frankly, looking at that 2021 and 2022 list, some of these guys just weren’t really good and were overdrafted," an NFC executive said about recent quarterback selections to 33rd Team, including Washington choosing Howell in 2022. "Maybe the teams just didn’t realize it until the player was in the building, and It was like, ‘Oh boy, we know what it’s supposed to look like, and this isn’t it.’ So you go: ‘Why did we do that?’ The answer you come up with is ‘We did it based on our needs.’

"For me, I don’t care what position you take, if you force yourself to take a guy too early, you’re gonna wake up at some point and just say, ‘Well shoot, he just isn’t really that good.’ And it looks way worse when it’s a top-15 pick, and it’s a quarterback of all positions.”

Evaluations are the easiest part of the process to point the blame at, but there's also a responsibility on the franchise drafting the quarterback to facilitate appropriate growth and development that some have failed to achieve.

"I feel bad about Zach (Wilson) in some ways because last year it would have been the first time he could just sit back and watch a master (Aaron Rodgers) at work,” New York Jets owner Woody Johnson said at the NFL Annual League Meetings. “He's never had that. He's been in the fire since Day 1. He needs to be in a place where he can observe for a while.”

The Commanders have failed in their own serach for a franchise quarterback for over two decades and the closest they came was with Kirk Cousins who played a frustrating game of franchise-tag with the organization before eventually leaving as a free agent. Before him there was Robert Griffin III who looked to have all the potential before injuries ended his rise.

This year, there are four quarterbacks at the top of this year's class with USC's Caleb Williams leading the group while LSU's Jayden Daniels, North Carolina's Drake Maye, and Michigan's J.J. McCarthy represent the back-end of that group.

All four are considered talented enough to potentially become a franchise quarterback in the next handful of years or less and each of them has detractors.

There are several reasons to draft a quarterback. Doing it for need, pressure, or because you're simply picking high enough to get one of the first few off the board are not good ones.

Truly believing in one, and having the infrastructure around him to support his growth, are much better reasons. Still, there's no guarantee they'll work out, or the team drafting him will succeed.

But the signs point to a significant rise in failed first round - or young - quarterbacks, while one successful one, the 49ers' Brock Purdy, is coming off his first career Super Bowl appearance.

Fortunately for Washington Peters was around the for fall of one highly touted quarterback and the rise of an underdog. Giving the Commanders a significant leg up in this year's discussion and decision assuming Peters has pulled the most important lessons from those two experiences.