The Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles are going to come away from the 2016 NFL Draft with the top two quarterbacks available, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. After that, it's anyone's guess where Paxton Lynch, Connor Cook and the rest of the rookie signal-callers will fall. But you can hang your hat on this - whichever team or teams miss out on Lynch, Cook and maybe even Penn State's Christian Hackenberg are going to scan the list of available free agent quarterbacks and come to a conclusion: Sam Bradford is better than all of them.
The question will then become, is paying for Bradford - likely with draft ammunition, maybe a roster player - better than picking up a guy like Brian Hoyer or Ryan Fitzpatrick for free?
As we sit here today, with two days to go until the 2016 NFL Draft, the only truly logical landing spots for Bradford are the reigning Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos and the New York Jets. The Moneyball Browns don't want another well-traveled quarterback with talent but no concrete NFL success. And the San Francisco 49ers may have Chip Kelly, the man who traded for Bradford, but they've got too many holes in too many areas of their roster to go in on Bradford.
It's a two-team race for the Eagles signal-caller, headed by the Broncos and Jets.
Now, there's no guarantee that the Eagles will trade Bradford, despite his demand, voiced loud and clear via agent Tom Condon on Monday. Bradford, a true "competitor," doesn't want to be a stopgap, doesn't want to have to spend next season and maybe the next one looking over his shoulder.
So he wants out. The merits of his response to the Eagles trading up to No. 2 can be debated endlessly - what's important is that Bradford thinks his time in Philadelphia is done, and the Eagles, according to at least one report, didn't say "go away" when the Broncos called to express their interest in Bradford. Instead, they asked what the Broncos were offering. Then they said that price wasn't high enough.
But that shouldn't deter the Broncos or the Jets, because really, both teams are a legitimate quarterback away from contention.
For Denver and GM John Elway, the reasoning behind a potential Bradford acquisition is clear. They won Super Bowl 50 last season, in essence, without a quarterback. Despite losing Danny Trevathan and Malik Jackson this offseason, they return almost the exact same defensive group that was far and away the best in the league in 2015.
Is there any reason to believe that Bradford, despite all his flaws, wouldn't play better than an over-the-hill Peyton Manning and a not-yet-ready-even-after-four-years-on-the-bench Brock Osweiler? If he stays healthy, Bradford could be the perfect combination of both players, bringing Manning's intelligence and Osweiler's talents to the position.
As for the Jets, Fitzpatrick probably remains the best option for an immediate starter. Hoyer could reprise the same role of game manager and Brandon Marshall-feeder in Chan Gailey's offense, but there's no point in bringing in a quarterback with a similar skillset and less starting experience than Fitzpatrick.
Unless that quarterback has skills far beyond those of Fitzpatrick and, at times last season, looked like a legitimate NFL starter. Bradford, again, despite his flaws and unproven status, is that guy.
Now, the Jets, like the Broncos, would probably prefer to add Lynch or maybe Cook and just move forward with their own stopgap (Mark Sanchez, Fitzpatrick), while grooming the young guy.
But Bradford's a win-now quarterback, and both Denver and New York, with their aging defense and a fanbase still feeling the sting of last year's close-but-no-cigar playoff act, are win-now teams.
Eagles GM/not GM Howie Roseman's plan all along was to have Bradford take the reins of the offense for as long as he could keep the incoming rookie in check. Chase Daniel was the well-paid backup who could start in case of emergency, and that rookie was going to spend at least 2016, maybe 2017 learning the ropes.
Elway and Jets GM Mike Maccagnan would probably like to follow a similar path with young quarterbacks in the 2016 NFL Draft.
But if they miss on their man, Bradford suddenly becomes a very talented, and presumably attractive, option for a franchise quarterback. It'd be a long shot, but so is trading a bundle of picks to move up to the first or second overall pick to draft a player that's never taken an NFL snap.
