Would the Texans roll the dice on a QB with a top-five pick?
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Prior to this week, we had Washington taking Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral in five straight mock drafts — all outside the top five — mostly because while we like Corral and the progress he’s made from the 2020 season, but he’s not a top five talent. That’s no slight against Corral; he has run Lane Kiffin’s offense flawlessly, and the improvements from a year ago are hard to miss.
But if Corral were in the 2021 draft class, he’d be QB6. The good news is proclaiming him “QB6” doesn’t mean much because it’s so incredibly difficult to project how passers will fare in the NFL. As we see here, just past the halfway point of the NFL season, Mac Jones (15th overall to the Pats) is QB1 while Zach Wilson (2nd overall to the Jets) has looked like a fourth-round pick (though, we’d imagine, this has as much to do with playing on a struggling Jets team as it does with Wilson not yet flashing that first-round potential).
Knowing all this, we have Corral going fourth overall to the Texans, who are fresh off a huge win over the Titans in a game where Tyrod Taylor looked much like the veteran starter Houston was hoping for. But Taylor isn’t the long-term solution, and if the organization likes Corral, it makes sense to take him, even if that means overdrafting him by 5 to 10 spots.
In other quarterback news, the Steelers keep Kenny Pickett in Pittsburgh, while the Lions used their second first-round pick on Carson Strong, whose first-round fate will be determined by the health of his right knee.
And for the first time this mock-draft season, we have three Michigan defenders going in Round 1.
Alright, keep reading to see how all 32 picks unfold.
One other thing, and this is important: now that we’re past the midway point of the season, we’re using the 2022 NFL Draft order (via tankathon, with results prior to Monday’s game) to determine selections 1-32 below.
