With the exception of the Michael Sam watch, quarterbacks dominated the NFL’s final-day storyline Saturday.
A whopping nine passers were taken in rounds 4-7 as the NFL Draft wrapped up at Radio City Music Hall, including three — Aaron Murray of Georgia, Alabama’s AJ McCarron and Zach Mettenberger of LSU — from the Southeastern Conference in a span of 16 picks.
Forever mindful that Tom Brady famously was had for a sixth-round pick in 2000, plenty of teams were willing to take a flyer on a quarterback even though this wasn’t considered a particularly deep year at the position.
The opinions on the class were scattered so far across the map that the first passer taken Saturday came out of left field.
Jaws dropped when the Cardinals took project Logan Thomas from Virginia Tech in the fourth round with the 120th overall pick. Coach Bruce Arians reportedly had become enamored with Thomas’ athleticism during a private workout this spring.
Even so, Thomas was a mistake-prone gunslinger in college, and there was speculation that the 6-foot-6, 250-pound prospect could end up moving to tight end in the NFL.
Despite passing on the top three quarterback prospects in the first round in Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater, the Texans didn’t ignore the position altogether when they took Pittsburgh’s Tom Savage in the fourth round with the 135th pick.
Savage, a Rutgers transfer, had been thought to be one of the fastest-rising players in the draft after teams suddenly flooded him with workout requests in the past month, but that couldn’t move him into the first three rounds.
McCarron, meanwhile, suffered the most embarrassing fall of the quarterbacks because of his pre-draft boasts.
McCarron told reporters at the combine that several teams had given him a first-round grade, but that turned out to be nowhere close. He ended up as the ninth passer taken overall, going to the Bengals with the 164th pick in the fifth round.
That was one pick after the Chiefs took Murray from Georgia, though Murray’s athletic ability is so limited that many scouts doubt he ever can challenge for a starting job in the NFL. That wouldn’t seem to bode well for McCarron’s chances, either.
The third SEC passer taken in that stretch was LSU’s Mettenberger, who went to the quarterback-needy Titans with the 178th overall pick in the sixth round.
Mettenberger had been considered a first- or second-round talent but fell because of injury concerns and after he had a suspiciously diluted drug test at the scouting combine.