With the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft over, it is only the beginning of all 32 teams in the league restocking their rosters full of young talent. The big question, as it seems to be every year during draft time, was which teams would make a move to take a quarterback. This year there were three teams in need of a quarterback that picked in the top five, the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and the Chicago Bears.
The Bears' unexpected draft night move
University of North Carolina's Mitchell Trubisky was widely believed to be the best quarterback in the 2017 NFL Draft and was also expected to be the first one taken.
Leading up to the draft there was much debate over whether the Cleveland Browns should take Trubisky or defensive end Myles Garrett. The Browns ended up taking Garrett, which meant that the 49ers would be picking second.
The 49ers were not interested in Trubisky, and the Chicago Bears, maybe thinking someone else could swoop in, ended up offering the 49ers a king's ransom to move up only one spot. The two teams swapped first round picks, with the Bears giving up their 66th pick (3rd round), 111th pick (4th round) and their third round pick in 2018 to the 49ers. Despite paying Mike Glennon the Bears clearly believe that Trubisky is their guy and that he can break their streak of 31 consecutive years without a quarterback making a Pro Bowl.
How QB's picked in the top 5 have done since 2002
Since the NFL expanded and re-aligned into its current 32 team format, there have been 20 quarterbacks prior to Mitchell Trubisky who were selected in the top 5 of the NFL Draft. Those quarterbacks have been a mix of the bad, the average, the good, and the great. Last year's top two picks, the Rams' Jared Goff and Eagles' Carson Wentz, will be left out since it is too early to judge either of them.
David Carr, Joey Harrington and Jamarcus Russell were all horrible busts. Then there have been average quarterbacks like Vince Young, Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford, Robert Griffin III, and Blake Bortles. These players have all had up-and-down careers with both success and failure.
Then there is the last group of quarterbacks that have had good to great careers that were picked in the top 5.
These are quarterbacks like Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Alex Smith, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Cam Newton, and Andrew Luck. It also appears that James Winston and Marcus Mariota are on track to be in this group, if they are not already.
