Maybe things swung too far towards the mobile QB.
Maybe so. What I find to be a glaring truth from draft to draft is just how much imitation there seems to be. The NFL
is beyond question a league where imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Let's say a team drafts a really tall WR who weighs 220 and he has an all-pro year. The following year everybody will
take a longer look at big guys. I've seen it over and over again. Laquan Treadwell was a first-rounder because he reminded
people of Anquan Boldin, but Boldin was just an outlier in his ability to make contested catches without much speed. Treadwell
has been a disappointment as was Kelvin Benjamin, N'Keal Harry and a bunch of other big guys. That's a random example but
there are dozens and dozens of examples of imitation drafting and it hardly ever seems to work. I think it has to do with the
way the human mind functions. Folks feel more comfortable with what is familiar to them and become risk-averse to take a better player
who doesn't fit a template that the herd accepts.
Whoever does well becomes the trendy physical prototype and to a lesser extent the school and conference where he played
will be looked at with favor for a while, too. This works until somebody drafts a huge bust from a trendy school and then everybody
backs away from that place and finds a shinier one that is safer (for the time being).
The smaller, more mobile QB is popular because Mahomes, Jackson, Murray and Wilson played really well and everybody leans into the template
looking to solve their issues by drafting a guy that resembles the successful guys while often being blinded to their differences
and flaws.
Drafting guys is a very inexact science but I feel that people are better off figuring out who the good football players are without
trying to compare them to successful pros.
All the people who watched Alabama and somehow didn't notice Mac's exceptional accuracy and decision-making, but noticed that
he wasn't a dual threat were victims of the Patrick Principle. They fall in love with the sizzle and lose their ability to see the steak.