Kansas City Chiefs avoid quarterback disaster in 2013 NFL Draft

Six years ago, the Kansas City Chiefs held the number one overall pick in the draft. Most of the time, a quarterback goes number one in the draft, but the Chiefs didn’t follow that path. What if they had gone down the traditional route?

It really was just the Kansas City Chiefs‘ luck that the year they landed the number one overall pick, there were no quarterbacks worth taking with that selection. Not only that, but the 2013 draft is widely regarded as one of the worst drafts in NFL history. It’s fitting that the Chiefs had the first pick in a year where no one wanted the first pick.

As we all know, the Chiefs went with Eric Fisher out of Central Michigan as their number one selection. No one was jumping for joy over an offensive tackle being the first pick, but Fisher is still with the Chiefs to this day and made it to his first Pro Bowl this past season. It hasn’t always been pretty, but most would agree that given the other prospects that year, Kansas City made the right choice by drafting Fisher.

It is worth wondering, however, if the Chiefs hadn’t traded for Alex Smith a few months prior to the draft, if they’d have reached on a quarterback with that number one overall pick. Honestly, they probably traded for Smith BECAUSE of how bad the quarterback class was that year, but let’s say they hadn’t acquired Smith.

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Here were the top five quarterbacks taken in the 2013 NFL Draft:

• EJ Manuel – Round 1, Pick 16 (Bills)
• Geno Smith – Round 2, Pick 39 (Jets)
• Mike Glennon – Round 3, Pick 73 (Buccaneers)
• Matt Barkley – Round 4, Pick 98 (Eagles)
• Ryan Nassib – Round 4, Pick 110 (Giants)

It took four rounds before five quarterbacks were off the board whereas this past year’s draft saw that many go in the first round alone. Crazy times we’re living in, man.

Anyway, what a garbage group we have there. Funny enough, the first quarterback taken in that year’s draft – EJ Manuel – actually signed with the Kansas City Chiefs a few weeks ago. He was the only first round signal caller in 2013 and flamed out in Buffalo and was nothing more than a backup in Oakland.

Geno Smith was the guy who people thought would go number one overall that year. He was a lot of fun to watch at West Virginia, but the more film analysts got on him, the more obvious it became that he was not worth spending a first round pick on – let alone the first overall pick.

Had Kansas City gone that route, Geno Smith might have gone down as the biggest draft bust in Chiefs history. He went on to start all 16 games for the Jets in 2013 and threw 21 interceptions to just 12 touchdowns. Since then, he’s played for the Giants and Chargers, but hasn’t seen the field much.

Mike Glennon had potential, but is a career backup. The Bears made a foolish decision to pay him a lot of money in 2017 and he started just four games there before being replaced by Mitchell Trubisky. Glennon served as the backup to Josh Rosen in Arizona in 2018.

Matt Barkley was also thought to be the number one pick at many points during the 2012 college football season, but a struggling USC team and a shoulder injury ended that discussion by the time draft season rolled around.

Barkley wound up going in the fourth round and never amounted to anything in Philadelphia. He had a bit of a resurgence this past season in Buffalo, but that doesn’t exactly equal “first round caliber player”.

Lastly, we have Ryan Nassib, who never did anything in New York with the Giants. He was Eli Manning‘s backup for a number of years, but hasn’t thrown a pass in the pros since 2015.

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Obviously we don’t know for sure what would have happened had the Kansas City Chiefs went with a quarterback first overall in 2013. Had they taken any of these players, perhaps things would have worked out just fine. Maybe that player would have been awesome under Andy Reid and company.

On the other hand, it’s sure easy to look at how these five actually did and assume that’s how it would have played out in Kansas City. Four of the five are still playing in the NFL, albeit as backups, with Nassib being the only one not in the pros.

If the Chiefs had drafted a quarterback with their first overall selection, it’s very likely Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t be in Kansas City.

The rookie deal for whoever was drafted would have run out after the 2016 season, but the chances of the Chiefs making the playoffs and having a late first round pick throughout those four years wouldn’t have been all that likely. Perhaps that means they’d have been able to land Mahomes without trading up, but we’ll never know for sure. It’s also possible that they gambled on a quarterback a few years later, as we’ve seen a lot of teams do over the years.

We’ll never know how different things would be for this organization had they gone with a quarterback number one overall in 2013. That being said, Chiefs Kingdom is VERY glad that the team didn’t take a quarterback with that number one pick.

Even though Eric Fisher hasn’t been an All-Pro caliber player, he’s a hell of a lot better than most of the names in the first round that year.  What an awful draft.