The pressure starts mounting immediately. The moment a first-round quarterback is picked, the expectations foisted onto his shoulders — from those inside and outside the building — are immense.
We know it’s unfair, yet every year we go through the same exercise, wondering if these quarterbacks can lead their teams to salvation. This year’s crop of QBs is no different, except they’re all now following in the footsteps of C.J. Stroud, who just produced what many believe to be the best rookie quarterback season in NFL history.
Stroud ranked sixth in EPA/Dropback and first in TD/INT ratio among qualified quarterbacks according to TruMedia while leading the Houston Texans to an AFC South title and a wild-card round win. For comparison, Patrick Mahomes started one game during his rookie season, and Lamar Jackson started seven. Josh Allen started 11 games during his rookie campaign but managed to go just 5-6. That’s three of the league’s top QBs, and Stroud outperformed all of them by a good margin.
GO DEEPER
Post-NFL Draft outlook for every team: Which teams improved most? Who has more work ahead?
With six quarterbacks going in the top 12 of the 2024 NFL Draft, I wanted to dive into what you should expect from a quarterback in their rookie season because, as we all (should) know, Stroud is the exception, not the rule.
For this exercise, I examined all the QBs drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft — or who started at least five games during their debut season — since 2017. That gives us a sample of 42 quarterbacks or six quarterbacks per season. Is 2017 an arbitrary cut-off point? Sure. However, I think the sample size is large enough to provide a fair representation.
Conclusions
Winning … is hard
The average QB selected from this list averaged eight starts in their rookie campaigns and won three games. That comes out to 6.4 wins prorated over a full regular season. Only 25 percent of the quarterbacks who started over half of the season had better than a 50 percent winning percentage. Admittedly, there is some bias baked in because teams selecting QBs are typically picking high in the draft and don’t have great rosters.
Average or worse efficiency
Just looking at efficiency, the average EPA/Dropback among this group is -0.05 — or the equivalent of what Russell Wilson and Justin Fields produced in 2023 (good luck, Steelers!). If we examine only the first-round quarterbacks, the starts bump up to 10.5, and the average wins comes out to 4.0. Over a full season, first-round rookie QBs have won at a pace of 6.5 games. Efficiency improves, too, to right around 0 EPA/Dropback. That’s exactly the league average, which is comparable to what Gardner Minshew gave the Indianapolis Colts last season.
One and not done
All is not lost for QBs who struggle out of the gate. Sure, Bryce Young’s -0.21 EPA/Dropback is one of the worst among this group, but there is a good argument to be made he was dropped into a terrible environment in Carolina. Trevor Lawrence and Jared Goff endured bad rookie seasons while suffering through similar issues, and both have turned out fine. When evaluating rookie QBs, landing spots are critical. It’s in the second and third seasons when you want to see a quarterback start to elevate the talent around him.
GO DEEPER
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Of course, there is a flip side to the argument. We’ve seen QBs deliver promising rookie seasons only to flame out. The most recent example is Mac Jones. No, I don’t think Stroud’s rookie season is comparable to Jones’, but I do think meeting somewhere in the middle when it comes to rookie quarterback performance is best for a long-term outlook.
What to expect from the 2024 class
Team success
A few weeks ago, I used my NFL Projection Model to rank the NFL rosters, and using that same process, I can examine what each team that drafted a…
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