Every year about this time, the top collegiate quarterback prospects for the upcoming Draft in April are analyzed, and dissected to the tenth degree by teams, the media, and fans. Question of whether or not they will be that missing piece to lead their team to a Super Bowl championship, or at the very least back to being competitive, are at an all-time high.
That is especially true in the case of the 2013 quarterback draft class. In a word, the draft class on the whole has been labeled as such.
Weak.
But don’t tell West Virginia’s Geno Smith that. He could care less how the draft class on the whole is perceived. Smith is the only quarterback considered a first-round talent coming into the month of the draft, as he prepares for where he will be picked.
Quarterbacks are often taken higher than they should, and we could see that being the case in 2013, as teams will be desperate for a top talent.
The question is, how high will Smith go, and will he be worth it? Conventional thought is that Smith will go in the top-five, but in reality he is more of a late first-round talent. The problem though is that the teams up at the top of the draft, such as the Oakland Raiders at No.3, or the Buffalo Bills at No.8, are in need of a quarterback.
The Raiders traded for quarterback Matt Flynn, but don’t think that means they will pass on Smith. Look no further than Russell Wilson, and what he did for the Seattle Seahawks despite the fact that Flynn was the projected starter.
And as for the Bills, they did a similar move when they got quarterback Kevin Kolb. Those two quarterbacks don’t appear to be long-term solutions, whereas Smith could hold some big upside.
Even the Jacksonville Jaguars at No.2 are looking hard at Smith. The entire Jags front office went to see Smith during his Pro Day at West Virginia. That doesn’t happen unless a team is taking a hard look at a player. And why shouldn’t they? Jacksonville ranked dead last in passing output per game behind Blaine Gabbert, a former 2011 first round pick out of Missouri.
The fact of the matter is that all four of the top picks in the 2013 NFL Draft have Smith on their radar, not to mention as we go further down the list of the top-10 with Buffalo.
We don’t expect Smith to fall farther than No.8 to the Bills on NFL Draft day, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see him being taken in the top-four either.