MONDAY, MAY 2 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D3
Professional Footballthough, after the Steelers took
Kenny Pickett at 20th overall,
53 picks passed before another
quarterback, Desmond Ridder of
Cincinnati, was selected. Only
four went before the fourth
round.
A lot of factors beyond the
quarterbacks’ ability led to the
fall. Next year’s class, which
includes Alabama’s Bryce Young
and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, is
considered especially strong and
deep. With Baker Mayfield and
Jimmy Garoppolo still available
via trade, teams had fallback
options apart from using a high
pick. And even the neediest
teams had ways to address the
position. The Lions will ride
with Jared Goff again and know
he will play well enough to allow
the rest of the team to function.
Ridder (Falcons), Malik Willis
(Titans), Matt Corral (Panthers),
Bailey Zappe (Patriots) and Sam
Howell (Commanders) may
make a lot of teams regret not
acting with the usual urgency at
quarterback. But the NFL
showed far more patience at the
position because it could.
Looking for a late-round
sleeper? Start with Texas San
Antonio cornerback Tariq
Woolen, whom the Seattle
Seahawks took in the fifth
round. A decade ago, the
Seahawks drafted Richard
Sherman, a lanky cornerback
who started his college career as
a wide receiver, in the fifth
round. Woolen is a lanky
cornerback who started his
college career as a wide receiver.
Sherman was the 154th pick in
2011, and Woolen went 153rd on
Saturday.
If anything, Woolen may have
more raw talent. He stands
6 -foot-4, ideal for Pete Carroll’s
preferred style, and ran a
4 .26-second 40-yard dash. He
may take a year to develop
because of a lack of experience
at the position, but of any player
taken on Day 3, he profiles as a
reasonable bet to become not
just a contributor but a star.blockbuster deals gain
popularity, it’s not the biggest
names who will dictate the
future movement as much as
players such as Carson Wentz in
Washington or even the
continuing reclamation project
of Sam Darnold with Carolina.
Then there’s the quarterback
competition in Pittsburgh. The
Steelers signed former No. 2
overall pick Mitchell Trubisky to
a modest two-year deal in free
agency. They drafted Pickett. And
they still have Mason Rudolph,
their 2018 third-round pick, who
has a 5-4-1 career record as a
starter.
In declaring that all three will
vie for Ben Roethlisberger’s old
job, Pittsburgh Coach Mike
Tomlin told reporters: “It’s really
nothing to handle. Those guys
are competitors. We’re in a
competitors’ business. They
understand that. They
understand that we’re building
the construction of the team to
win.”
No team is made for the
challenge of starting over at
quarterback. But the Steelers, a
model franchise, are certain to
maintain their holistic approach
to team building. They don’t
have hopes. They have plans.
And in the NFL’s incessant
quarterback search, the most
resourceful organizations tend to
survive.quarterbacks and live off false
hope until everybody got fired.
They were passive and hoping to
see what they had before making
significant roster upgrades. They
subjected their developing
quarterbacks to so much early
failure that they could never
recover.
In the endless search for top-
notch quarterbacks, there is no
universal strategy that makes the
mission easier. But inflexibility
hinders success. With general
managers getting younger and
players wanting to move around,
trades and quarterback shuffling
could become more common.
Those deals aren’t always going
to include mega-talents such as
Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan and
Deshaun Watson, but fluidity
will be a part of the equation.
And that’s a potential game
changer in deterring teams from
overreaching in the draft.
There’s a recency bias to
consider. The hyped 2021 class
struggled after five quarterbacks
were taken in the first 15 picks.
New England’s Mac Jones was
the only one of the group to make
the playoffs and perform
consistently at a high level. The
group’s woes made it even harder
for the 2022 crop to be
appreciated.
When the 2022 season begins,
the effectiveness of all those
trades will be scrutinized. And asother high-level AFC teams,
Kansas City and Buffalo,
achieved sustainable success.
Both the Chiefs and Bills made
the playoffs with other
quarterbacks before turning to
Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen
to complete them. Mahomes
inherited a team he could
immediately take to a
championship level. Allen
needed more time, but as he
learned on the job, the Bills
cushioned him with a solid roster
that evolved into a great one.
Then Allen vaulted to the elite
tier, and Buffalo is now in Super
Bowl-chasing mode.
It can seem counterintuitive to
prioritize pursuing the hardest
position in sports to find a star
and then focus on building
around the player before you
even know his name or how he
plays. But that’s how some
shrewd teams are getting ahead.
They are showing the discipline
to wait, the scouting eye to
identify stopgap quarterbacks
who can help them progress and
the sense of timing to know whenimportant piece near the end of a
roster overhaul.
It’s an undisputed principle:
True, long-term contention
cannot begin until a qualified
quarterback is under center. But
there’s a difference between
searching for a franchise
quarterback and waiting for a
savior. It matters what a team
does before that leader
materializes — if he ever does —
and organizations are showing
greater savvy in building around
the vacancy.
Exceptions still exist. In
leading Cincinnati to the Super
Bowl last season, Joe Burrow
burst into prominence as the
classic franchise quarterback.
The Bengals were 2-14 in 2019.
They took Burrow with the first
pick in 2020, and at the end of
his second season, they were
playing for the championship.
It’s an astounding rise, but
Burrow’s ascension might be
impossible to replicate. It’s a
better practice to look at how two
BREWER FROM D1
JERRY BREWER
Team building can begin
before the arrival of a QB
On Thursday, A.J. Brown
immediately signed a deal with
Philadelphia that could pay him
$100 million over four years.
The non-quarterback glamour
position is no longer pass rusher
or left tackle. It’s wideout.
The emerging cost for top
wide receivers explains why
teams are eager to spend first-
round picks on them. It allows
them to fill one of the most
expensive positions with a
player on a cheap rookie
contract. Within minutes of
dealing A.J. Brown, the Titans
used the pick they acquired,
No. 18 overall, on Arkansas wide
receiver Treylon Burks.
The proliferation of spread
offenses and the rise of seven-
on-seven passing leagues, plus
rules that prohibit injurious hits
on receivers, have created a
legion of NFL-ready wide
receivers. The best athletes —
the kids who 15 years ago would
have been running backs — are
selected to play wideout at an
early age. They train with
greater frequency and specificity
than ever before. The pool is
thinned less by concussions and
fear of going over the middle. If
you want to pick the best
players, you will be picking wide
receivers.
“Right now in college football,
all the best athletes are playing
wide receiver and defensive
back,” Washington Coach Ron
Rivera said last summer.
Which teams are smarter: the
ones signing veterans for big
money or the ones letting them
go and finding cheap
replacements? It surely will be
case-by-case. Not every veteran
wideout will age well and stay
healthy, and not every draftee
will hit.
It’s possible that bothThe NFL draft
offers not only an
opportunity for
teams to
replenish their
rosters but also
an annual
snapshot of what the NFL
believes about how to build a
team. We learned this year that
wide receivers are more valuable
than ever and teams think very
little about the 2022
quarterback class. Here is what
to know.
The wide receiver position is
changing before our eyes. The
past three drafts have seen high-
caliber wide receiver talent flood
the league, a culmination of
several long-standing trends.
The influx of wideouts and ever-
growing primacy of the passing
game have rattled how teams
value wide receivers and created
competing models for how
franchises seek to acquire them.
In Thursday’s first round, six
teams selected wide receivers in
the first 18 picks, including two
— the Saints and Lions — that
traded up to get their man. In
the first three rounds, teams
took 17 wide receivers.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals
acquired Marquise Brown and
the Eagles dealt for A.J. Brown,
each trading a first-round pick
for a veteran wideout on the
verge of a new contract.
The wide receiver movement
fit the trend of the offseason.
The Packers dealt Davante
Adams to the Raiders for first-
and second-round picks, and Las
Vegas immediately signed him
to a contract that pays him
$28 million per year. The C hiefs
shipped Tyreek Hill to the
Dolphins for a similar haul, and
Hill signed an extension that
averages $30 million per season.
E veryone is catching on:
It’s time to get a wideout
On
the NFL
ADAM
KILGORE
spread-out passing games. The
players who do that are exactly
whom the NFL is looking for.
The NFL isn’t desperate for
quarterbacks. The excellent
young quarterbacks who have
entered the league and the
durable old quarterbacks who
have stayed in it have combined
to create a glut at a position that
has long been understaffed.
There are still only a handful of
passers capable of winning the
Super Bowl, and teams would
crawl over broken glass to get
them. But more than ever, teams
can find competence at
quarterback with relative ease.
Rule changes have made the
position easier and less
dangerous to play.
The 2022 quarterback class
was regarded as weak, with even
the best passers possessing
glaring flaws. That has never
stopped teams from reaching to
draft passers before. This year,round picks, including No. 1
choice Travon Walker. That total
didn’t include Nakobe Dean,
who often played like the
Bulldogs’ best player but slipped
to the Eagles in the third round,
reportedly because of health
concerns, which Dean called
untrue.
The Packers have taken a
particular interest in the
Bulldogs’ defense. They took
cornerback Eric Stokes in the
first round last year. This year,
they selected linebacker Quay
Walker 22nd overall and
defensive lineman Devonte
Wyatt at No. 28.
Why Georgia? It may not just
be all the talent the Bulldogs
recruited. Georgia’s defense
relies on a seven-man front to
stop the run and apply
disciplined pressure on the
quarterback, allowing speedy
linebackers to focus on either
blitzing or stopping quick,outlooks will win. Three years
ago, the Vikings traded Stefon
Diggs to the Buffalo Bills for a
first-round pick, which they
used to take Justin Jefferson.
Although Jefferson is on a much
cheaper contract, neither side
would take back that deal. That’s
also just one trade, though, and
it would be unwise to think
Jefferson’s success is more
lesson than outlier.
The movement may not be
over. Deebo Samuel has agitated
for a trade from San Francisco,
although the 49ers insist they
will not deal him. The Seahawks
may decide moving DK Metcalf
could supercharge the rebuild
they began when they shipped
out Russell Wilson. The world is
shifting at wide receiver, and
NFL teams have to keep up.
Georgia defensive players
are taking over the NFL. The
national championship-winning
defense produced five first-JOHN LOCHER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wide receiver has become a glamour position, and the Saints traded up to get O hio State’s Chris Olave.five years of accumulating
weapons to help former No. 1
pick Jameis Winston. And in Los
Angeles, aggressive general
manager Les Snead traded Jared
Goff to Detroit to get Matthew
Stafford, and the quarterback
upgrade finished the Rams’
process.
In every case, the teams were
lucky, for certain. But they also
planned so they could capitalize
when that luck arrived. For too
long, teams had grown too
content to draft projectto go for it — and how to go for it.
Consider the past three Super
Bowl champions: Kansas City,
Tampa Bay and the Los Angeles
Rams.
Mahomes was the highly
coveted standout quarterback on
a rookie contract, which allowed
the Chiefs the salary cap
flexibility to put a complete team
around him. Brady left New
England for the Buccaneers as a
free agent, recognizing the talent
there that he could magnify. The
Bucs were ready for him afterGENE J. PUSKAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kenny Pickett, drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers with the 20th
pick, was the only quarterback taken in the first round this year.BY SAM FORTIERRon Rivera’s rebuild of the
Washington Commanders is near-
ly complete.
The front office spent the first
21 / 2 offseasons of his tenure turn-
ing over the roster and acquiring
players at pillar positions, and in
the 2022 draft, it filled in the
cracks by adding more scheme-
specific pieces — such as an interi-
or receiver (Penn State’s Jahan
Dotson), a physical running back
(Alabama’s Brian Robinson Jr.)
and a two-gapping defensive line-
man (the Crimson Tide’s Phidari-
an Mathis).
In Year 3, Rivera acknowledged,
it’s crucial for his team to show
improvement from last season’s
7-10 finish. This draft reflected
that urgency — seven of the eight
picks were seniors, and Rivera
said he expected immediate con-
tributions from at least the first
four selections — but the front
office has a few weeks to apply the
finishing touches.
“We’re not done,” Rivera said
Saturday night. “As you take a look
at your roster and then you kind of
reset yourself, there are some
things that you may want to fill in.”
On Monday, after signing a
handful of undrafted free agents,
Rivera will meet with his coaching
staff to determine which positions
still need help. Last year, in post-
draft free agency, Washington
found starters at left tackle, free
safety and returner. This year, the
Commanders could target line-
backers, defensive backs and of-
fensive linemen, among others.
Come September, Washington’ssuccess probably won’t hinge on
anyone added from April on. It
will depend on how the founda-
tions of the team answer the ques-
tions swirling around them:
Is Carson Wentz closer to the
quarterback that most of the NFL
thinks he is or the one Washington
believes he can be?
Can defensive coordinator Jack
Del Rio get his group to reboundfrom a disappointing season?
Will star defensive end Chase
Young return healthy from a torn
ACL and prove his slow start last
season was an outlier?
But in the draft and in the
meantime, Washington is trying
to support its key pieces. One good
example is Wentz: The big-armed
passer can make all the throws,
especially downfield and over the
middle, but in the past two sea-
sons, the video and data suggest,
his accuracy has declined. His ex-
pected completion percentage has
been among the league’s lowest in
that span, according to Next Gen
Stats.
In the draft, Washington picked
two prospects — Dotson and Ne-
vada tight end Cole Turner — who
were praised for their catch radii.
Rivera noticed Turner while
scouting Wolf Pack quarterback
Carson Strong, and when he de-
scribed how Turner’s length and
athleticism helped him maximize
Strong’s skills, it was hard not to
hear the parallels to his new quar-
terback.
“Carson’s a big, strong guy, and
he threw... deep balls where the
guy had to go get them and make
plays,” Rivera said. “You saw this
catch radius from a tight end [Tur-ner], and so that’s what’s very in-
triguing about [him].”
Washington has solidified most
of its offense, but questions re-
main on defense. Del Rio has tal-
ent at the most important posi-
tions — Young, fellow defensive
end Montez Sweat, cornerback
William Jackson III — but he lacks
obvious solutions at middle line-
backer and Buffalo nickel, as well
as depth at linebacker, cornerback
and safety. Those positions may
come up at Monday’s meeting.
Buffalo nickel could be the most
important. Last year, the defense
was at its best with Landon Collins
in the role alongside safeties Kam
Curl and Bobby McCain. After the
season, Curl said the three-safety
set allowed the unit to disguise its
coverages, most notably in its up-
set of Tampa Bay.
“We feel pretty good about what
we did,” Rivera said Saturday. He
mentioned that Percy Butler, the
fourth-round safety from Louisi-
ana Lafayette, “helps add to the
mix, and we can do some things, I
think, with the right personnel on
the field.”
Butler, listed at 6-foot and 194
pounds, is about the same size as
Curl (6-2, 198), who broke out in
the role early in 2020. Others whocould contribute at Buffalo nickel:
linebacker Khaleke Hudson, who
briefly split the role with a safety
last season; safety Darrick Forrest,
whose body and skill set fit the
profile; or a bigger cornerback.
Middle linebacker may be the
most troubling spot left. Washing-
ton has not found a fit for its
“Mike” linebacker, despite spend-
ing draft capital on the position.
Earlier this offseason, Rivera said
Cole Holcomb may get another
shot; after the draft, when Wash-
ington picked no linebackers, he
may be Rivera’s best option —
though productive inside line-
backers are available on the free
agent market, including Joe
Schobert and Kwon Alexander.
In the big picture, Washington
has done the hard part. Over the
next month, the coaches and play-
ers will work at the facility as the
front office addresses the roster’s
edges. But on Saturday night, after
the long draft process finally fin-
ished, Rivera felt good about the
progress his team had made.
“We’re anticipating a number of
these guys, especially the first four,
are going to get an opportunity to
come out and contribute and play,”
he said. “We feel comfortable and
confident with those guys.”Draft complete, the Commanders focus on filling the gaps
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Commanders Coach Ron Rivera will meet Monday with his
coaching staff to determine which positions still need some help.