Originally posted by LeProfessionnel:
By far not the norm. Nor was Brady. Quality starters are found in rounds 1-2 far more often than rounds 3 and beyond. This isn't even debatable.
I would confine this more to the #1 overall QBs and one or two QBs drafted after #1 in the first round in loaded QBs years -- e.g. 1983, 2004, 2015. Guys that are drafted in the middle of the first round and later in middling QB years don't usually pan out. In 2012 Luck came out, then there was RG3 the one year wonder and then Weeden and Tannehill also came out in the first.
It seems to me that reaching for a middling QB prospect in the first round just never seems to work out. Either these guys blow you away (Luck, Mariota, Winston) or you need to stay away and look for a sleeper in the 3rd or 4th rounds.
If you're going to define a "reach" as a team selecting a QB merely because of positional value even if the player is far down the overall board, I think the following first round QBs qualify a reach since 2004:
2004: JP Losman
2005: Jason Campbell (Aaron Rodgers, coincidentally slid because of the Tedford busts that littered the NFL at that point in time, he was the rare QB value pick in the first round)
2006: Jay Cutler (ended up having a decent career, but was somewhat of a reach in the first round).
2008: Joe Flacco (a reach that ended up working out!)
2009: Josh Freeman
2010: Tim Tebow
----2011--- Rookie payscale kicks in which makes rookie QBs significantly more valuable and the QB reaching amps up accordingly
2011: Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder
2012: Ryan Tannehill, Brandon Weeden
2013: EJ Manuel (2013 was the worst QB draft perhaps ever)
2014: Blake Bortles (I don't know if I'm willing to call Manziel a reach, he was unbelievable in college but major red flags came with the major talent, 2014 is also interesting because of the two second round QBs -- Derek Carr and Jimmy Garrapolo)
2015: After the foul stench of the 2011 through 2014 reaches, there was no 1st round QB reach
2016: Jared Goff looks absolutely disastrous right now and a lot of people predicted this a year ago, can we call him the first reach at #1 overall?
Please note who I left off this list -- Jamarcus Russell, Matt Leinart, Vince Young. All of these guys were regarded as interesting boom-bust prospects. Also, I don't know if I qualify Manziel as a reach given his performance in college.
The point here is that there are tier 1a prospects: Elway, Manning, Luck (can't miss), and there are tier 1b prospects: Eli Manning, Rivers, Ryan, Winston, Mariota (probably good) and boom-bust (Marino because of the Cocaine rumors and his Vince Young-esque Wonderlic, Michael Vick, Cam Newton, Manziel, Russell, etc). I would personally stay away from any prospects except for 1a and 1b, even though you sometimes hit on the boom-bust prospects. But never, ever reach for the middling QB prospects that have "all the right mechanics" and "99th percentile arm strength," e.g. Blake Bortles and Blaine Gabbert. Trubisky has Bortles written all over him, but he may have a Jay Cutler ceiling in him.