The 2021 NFL draft class was once considered to be loaded with the best quarterback talent we’ve seen in years. Three years later, however, only one of the quarterbacks taken in the first round still starts; thus, a re-draft is needed.
In that year’s draft, we’d see five quarterbacks taken in the first round, with three of them going in the top three. The class would feature stars in the making in quarterbacks Trevor Lawrance, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields, and Mac Jones. Unfortunately, this group of guys would turn out to be one of the most disappointing quarterback classes in recent memory.
In our re-draft, we will be selecting a new player for the teams who drafted the quarterback and a new team for the quarterbacks selected. We will also assume that these new picks do not affect future drafts.
With that being said let’s get into Re-drafting the 2021 Quarterback Draft Class.
Which teams do these NFL quarterbacks end up in this 2021 re-draft?
Trevor Lawrence
Going into the NFL draft, Lawrence would be the clear number-one pick. Lawrence was a star at Clemson, proving it early as a freshman when he would lead the Tigers to a national championship. In his time at Clemson, Lawrence would play in forty total games, finishing with a record of 38-2, only losing in the playoffs.
He had proven himself in college, and he was the no-brainer first-overall pick in the 2021 draft. The draft would come around, and Lawrence would indeed be taken by the Jaguars with that first overall pick. He’d have a good rookie season but would ultimately end up leading the Jaguars to the league’s worst record.
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He’d quickly turn it around, though, and lead Jacksonville to the playoffs with a record of 9-8 the next year. Lawrence would throw for over 4000 yards and twenty-five touchdowns that year. He is the only quarterback on this list to go to the playoffs and is the only quarterback in this draft class who still starts.
Lawrence isn’t going anywhere in this re-draft, and he will remain the first overall pick for Jacksonville.
Zach Wilson
Now, here’s a guy that should’ve gone in the third or fourth round. Wilson is just not good at all, he’s now on the Broncos after serving as the Jets’ third-stringer this past season, and for good reason. Wilson would have a decent collegiate career with BYU with a winning record of 20-10. He’d also have stats of 7652 passing yards on 566 completions, fifty-six touchdowns, and just fifteen interceptions
After a junior year where he’d only lost one game and an amazing pro day, Wilson’s stock would be boosted to the moon. Wilson would catch the eyes of many NFL teams after his pro day and was now considered to be a top pick in that year’s draft.
The draft would come around, and Wilson would be selected second overall by the New York Jets, and a downward spiral would start from there. In his three years with the Jets, Wilson would have a record of 12-21, and he would fail to throw for over 2400 yards in a season.
Stats-wise last year would be Wilson’s best year, but it didn’t matter at all. Wilson wasn’t even supposed to play that year after the Jets traded for future hall-of-fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the offseason. Unfortunately, Rodgers would tear his Achilles just a few snaps into the Jet’s first game. Later in the season, Wilson’s performance and attitude would be so bad that he’d be demoted to the team’s third-string quarterback, and veterans Trevor Siemian and Tim Boyle would be ahead of him, with Boyle as the team’s starting quarterback.
As of today, Wilson was just traded to the Denver Broncos in a late pick swap, the Jets giving Denver, Wilson and a seventh while Denver gets a sixth. Wilson now has a fresh start with Denver where he could be the team’s starter.
As far as our re-draft goes, the Jets will be taking offensive lineman Penei Sewell with the second pick. With the injury to Rodgers years later and the constant sight of the Jets quarterbacks on their backs due to an awful line, Penei will fill the gap, helping to prevent this and giving the Jets elite linemen for years to come.
Now for Wilson, he will still go in the first round (even though he shouldn’t) at nineteen to Washington. Washington has struggled to find their guy over the years, as they are now gearing up to take a quarterback with their second overall pick in this year’s draft. Maybe Wilson could find his footing in Washington with a better line and weapons, proving why he was a first-rounder.
In reality, though, Wilson is in the early stages of being known as a bust and will be if he doesn’t pan out in Denver.
Trey Lance
Poor Trey Lance, this guy had absolutely zero reason to be drafted this high in the NFL. Trey had only played one real year in college at North Dakota St. In that year Lance had stats of 2786 yards on 192 completions, twenty-eight touchdowns, and zero interceptions. He’d also have an undefeated record of 16-0.
This was his only positive, and he would be seen as a project quarterback. Who else than the 49ers would invest in a project quarterback at third overall though? After a trade with the Dolphins, the 49ers would acquire the rights to the third overall pick. They’d then use this pick to select Lance third overall.
Going third overall would be Lance’s only career highlight. Lance would never get a chance to succeed even with the amount of talent that surrounded him in San Fran. He’d start in four games, two his rookie year and two his sophomore year. In his sophomore year, Lance broke his leg in the second game, and he hasn’t played a down since. Did the injury end his career? No, Brock Purdy did.
After the injury to Lance, Jimmy Garrapolo would once again be the team’s starter. Then he’d once again get hurt. Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy was now the starter, and it hasn’t changed since that. Early this season Lance would be traded to the Cowboys, where he serves as Dak’s backup.
San Fran had given up on Lance before he even got a shot, and we never got to see the Trey Lance project be complete. For the 49ers it would work out though as Purdy would take them to the Super Bowl, after an MVP-caliber season.
Now for our 2021 NFL quarterback re-draft, the 49ers will be selecting Micah Parsons third overall to pair alongside Nick Bosa and the rest of the elite defense. They obviously don’t need to take a quarterback as Purdy leads them now. With the addition of Parsons the 49ers defense just gets even scarier than it already is, and it has the potential to go down as one of the greatest ever.
For Lance, he will fall to twenty-eight where he will be selected by the Saints. With the retirement of Drew Brees the Saints were desperately in need of a quarterback, so what did they do? They signed Jameis Winston. Winston and Taysom Hill were not the answer for New Orleans, so instead of the Jameis Winston experience, they drafted Lance and had a chance to complete the Lance project.
Justin Fields
Out of all the quarterbacks taken, Fields was the most athletically gifted. Unfortunately, Fields just wasn’t the best passer or game manager. Fields would be a star at THE Ohio State University, and he would be drafted eleventh overall by the Chicago Bears.
On 2021 NFL draft night, the Bears would trade up from twenty to the Giants eleventh to select what they thought would be the one.
Unfortunately, Fields wasn’t the one, and he’d be traded to the Steelers this offseason for a sixth-rounder that could potentially turn into a third if Fields plays 50% of snaps in the 2025 season.
How did we get here though? Why was such a gifted quarterback given up after three seasons? Well, many say he was put into the wrong system, some also say he’s a running back. Fields just missed the factor that he needed to succeed. He was not a good decision-maker, and he wasn’t the best passer.
I also believe that he was rushed into the starting position far too soon. Fields would be named starter in week three of his rookie season after an injury to Andy Dalton. Anyways, after his sophomore year, the Bears would finish with the worst record in the league at 3-13, landing them the first overall pick. This very pick would change the course of the Bear’s history.
With that pick, they would trade it to the Panthers for their first-rounder, their second-rounder, next year’s first-rounder, a 2025 second, and, oh yeah, star receiver DJ Moore. With their new first overall pick, the Panthers selected quarterback Bryce Young. The Bear’s picks would turn into o-linemen Darnell Wright (10th overall 2023) and defensive back Tyrique Stevenson (second rounder 2023). They also still have the first this year and the second next year.
So what did the Panthers first turn into? Well, it turned into the first overall pick after an awful year from Bruce Young and the Panthers. That first overall pick is now about to become Caleb Williams.
Now that that’s out of the way, how did Fields’ career in Chicago go? Fields would end up with 6674 yards on 578 completions, 40 touchdowns, thirty interceptions, 2220 rushing yards, fourteen rushing touchdowns, and a record of 10-28. Fields would fail to throw for over 2600 yards in a season but would be one of three quarterbacks to rush for 1,000-plus yards in a season.
Chicago had given him everything to succeed, trading for Moore after people said he had no receivers and drafting Wright after people said he had no o-line, but he also had an awful offensive system. Fields had just ultimately failed to succeed in Chicago, throwing crucial interceptions, which caused many losses. Fields was amazing in quarters one through three and was horrendous in quarter four.
For our 2021 NFL re-draft, Fields will move up to nine where he will be taken by the Denver Broncos. The Broncos have struggled at quarterback since Peyton Manning retired, and with Fields maybe he can succeed in their system and not fail in Chicago.
In Chicago’s case, they will stay at pick twenty and select receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown while Andy Dalton starts. With St. Brown Chicago will now have one of the best receiving rooms in the league once DJ Moore and Keenan Allen arrive.
Mac Jones
The last first-round quarterback in our re-draft, Jones, would be decent at Alabama, but what quarterback there under Saban in the past five years hasn’t been? Anyways Jones would be taken fifteenth by Belichick and the Patriots.
Jones would go on to have a phenomenal rookie season where he threw for 3801 yards on 352 completions, twenty-two touchdowns, and thirteen interceptions. He finished the year with a 10-7 record and was also selected to the Pro Bowl that year.
It looked like it would be a great start in a long career for Brady’s replacement, but Jones wouldn’t ever get better, he’d only get worse. In the years after he would regress to 6-8 2997 yards and 2-9 2120 yards. He would be traded in the offseason to his hometown Jaguars where he now backs fellow 2021 first-round quarterback Trevor Lawrance.
Jones could’ve been great but got thrown into a bad New England offense. He was given the keys and ultimately lost them, as did Belichick.
In our 2021 NFL re-draft, Jones will now fall to seventeen where he will be taken by the Raiders. With Carr regressing and on his way out to the Saints in the coming years, Jones now had the perfect opportunity to sit behind him until then.
For the Patriots they will be taking receiver Nico Collins in an attempt to bring light to their dead receiving room.
Kyle Trask
Trask would be taken with the final pick of the second round in that year’s NFL draft. In his NFL career, Trask hasn’t started a single game and has only attempted a total of ten passes on an NFL field.
Trask played college football at Florida, where he exploded for over 4000 yards in his senior year playing twelve games.
He was taken to back Brady and hopefully fill his spot once he retired. Once Brady finally hung it up Tampa would sign Baker Mayfield, and Trask and Mayfield would compete for the starting spot. During training camp, it was reported that Trask and Baker were neck and neck.
The Bucs wouldn’t announce the starter until just days before week one and in their first game Baker would run out of the tunnel as a starter and it remained that way. Baker would go on to lead the Bucs to the playoffs. Trask is still with Tampa and serves as the team’s backup.
In our quarterback re-draft however, Trask will end up going to Pittsburgh in the third round of the 2021 NFL draft. With Big Ben in his last year, Trask will enter with a chance to battle Kenny Pickett next year for the starting job after sitting behind Rothlisberger for a year.
For Tampa, they will be selecting running back Khalil Herbert. In a run game that has been mediocre over the past few years, Tampa will be bringing in hard-hitting elusive back Khalil Herbert to help fix that. Herbert has been the head of the Bears’ running backs for the past few years, and should greatly help Tampas run game.
Kellen Mond
Mond would be the sixty-sixth pick in the third round to the Vikings. Mond was Texas A&M’s starter for four years, and he’d have okay stats. In his NFL career, Mond has a total of three pass attempts that came his rookie year, he hasn’t sniffed the turf since. Some people even had the Bears taking a huge swing and taking Mond in the first round.
Since being drafted by the Vikings, Mond has been cut and signed with the Browns where he served as the second string to Jacoby Brissett after Watson’s injury in 2022. He then spent time on the Colts practice squad back in October. Mond has now just recently signed with the Saints.
He was also publicly trashed in a press conference with former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, who, when asked if he wanted to see Mond in the season finale, said, “Not particularly.” When asked why, Zimmer doubled down and said, “I see him every day.” That quote pretty much sums up Monday’s career.
In our re-draft, Mond will be heading to Chicago at pick 151. With the Bears now not taking Fields in the re-draft, they will need somebody to compete with the aging Andy Dalton. Mond could potentially beat out Dalton here for the starting job.
The Vikings will now select linebacker Ernest Jones. Since the 2021 NFL draft, Jones has been a pretty solid linebacker for the Rams. Now in Minnesota, he will look to add to an already solid defense.
Davis Mills
One pick after Mond, Mills would be taken at sixty-seven in this quarterback re-draft. Besides the first-rounders, Mills is the only other quarterback in this NFL draft class to start for multiple seasons. Mills was pretty decent when he started and arguably had better stats than some of the starters.
Mills would play college football at Stanford, where he barely got to play, but when he did, his stats weren’t awful, but they weren’t the best.
Mills is now known for changing NFL history. With just seconds left in the Texans season finale against the Colts on fourth and long, head coach Lovie Smith.
Ian Book
Book would be taken in the fourth round by the Saints. He has started and played in one game for them which he lost. Book played in college at Notre Dame where he’d have alright stats.
Since being drafted, Book was cut by the Saints and then claimed off waivers by the Eagles. He was then waived by the Eagles and is now on a reserve contract with the Chiefs, where he would win a Superbowl.
The Saints will now instead be taking Rhamondre Stevenson to backup star running back Alvin Kamara.
For Ian Book, he will be going undrafted.
Sam Ehlinger
Now for our last NFL quarterback of the re-draft. Ehlinger would be taken in the sixth round by the Colts. He has started in three games for the Colts, all in his sophomore year; he would lose all three. In college at Texas, he would play all four years and had pretty good stats.
Since being drafted he only has the three starts and hasn’t done anything at all in the league other than that. Sam is still with the Colts where he serves as a backup to Anthony Richardson.
The Colts will now instead be selecting O-linemen Trey Smith. Since being drafted by the Chiefs, Smith has been amazing for them, starting in every game except in his sophomore year, which he did not play. Here the Colts will be taking him to beef up their O-line
For Sam Ehlinger he will also be going undrafted.
