What Top Rated Quarterback Will Bust? Statistically, One Of Them Will

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Fans think it all the time.

“This is the year – the year that our team will draft that future Hall of Fame quarterback with that top-10 pick!”

It’s a nice thought and fun to imagine when your favorite NFL team has struggled for the past year, or perhaps even more.

That is all nice in theory, but the odds that some quarterbacks will bust at the top of the draft are somewhat common. If one goes into the way back machine, they’ll find the likes of Tim Couch, Akali Smith, Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, and Cade McCown, to name a few. All of those were busts and Couch, Smith and McCown all came from the same 1999 draft class.

Yahoo Sports went through the numbers and noted some key numbers between first-round quarterbacks selected between the 2000-15 NFL Drafts. Just one in four went to a Super Bowl, just one-third made a Pro Bowl and fewer than half had a winning record.

There will be QB busts in this draft.

Who will fall short this year? #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/bd2xJXeX2x

— KSL Unrivaled (@KSLunrivaled) April 28, 2021

In this upcoming draft, if there are five take in the first round as expected, it will mark only the fourth time in league history that five quarterbacks will have been selected so early.

The first two picks are basically set in stone with Trevor Lawrence going to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Zach Wilson to the New York Jets. The other three are Justin Fields, Trey Lance, and Mac Jones with each of the five have some sort of concern; especially when anonymous scouts get involved and nitpick anything and everything about a player.

It Is Easy To Find The Bust

The biggest issue with trying to figure out who is a bust or not can be very difficult to decipher as it can be vice versa by figuring out what late-round steal could turn into Tom Brady who is a well-known former sixth-round pick.

KSL Sports Scott Mitchell not only ranked the top quarterbacks of the upcoming draft, but he claims to easily know who the bust will be among those five and it is the one from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

.@19scottmitchell lists his top 5 quarterbacks for the #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/KzDw0BZSOq

— KSL Unrivaled (@KSLunrivaled) April 1, 2021

“I think it’s actually really easy, it’s Mac Jones. I’m the least convinced of his abilities. How many Alabama quarterbacks have gone on and just been amazing?” Mitchell asked. “They have these national championships, they go undefeated, but I don’t I haven’t seen an Alabama quarterback that just really wowed me and Mac Jones is kind of similar.

“He just had this amazing talent to throw to but you have amazing talent in the NFL, too. It’s just I just think these other guys and I think the way the NFL is is dialed in. There has to be some athleticism to you as a quarterback.”

Mitchell is fairly bullish on Wilson not being a bust. He likes what he did at BYU and improved in his final year. Those saying Wilson may not be an elite quarterback have a lot more to do with the Jets organization which has been a mess over the past decade with some just OK seasons mixed in with some really bad years like the 2020 campaign which say the team go 2-14 and has not had a winning season since 2015.

Sometimes it is a bad organization that makes a bust and not the actual player or its talent, and that is where Wilson’s status currently stands. He looks the part but the Jets have not been the most reliable organization in making solid careers from its quarterbacks. Perhaps Wilson will break that trend and bring consistent winning to the Jets organization.

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