Rich: How Teams That DON’T Need a QB Could Massively Shake Up the Top of the ’27 NFL Draft

Everybody has spent two years calling 2027 the quarterback draft. Rich wants to know what happens if the teams picking at the top already have their quarterbacks.

The thought experiment started across town, with the 0-4 Chargers. Rich recalled the fun of Jim Harbaugh's early days in Southern California, the RV on the beach and the segment the show built around it. "This is not a Harbaugh file," he said, "cuz there's no laughing matter going down there now."

Harbaugh came in to take Justin Herbert to the next level. Rich remembered him saying on the show two summers ago that he woke up in the middle of the night asking himself how to get Justin to the Hall of Fame. Instead, Rich said, Herbert is "running for his life again, throwing picks that just make you think, where is that coming from?" Mike McDaniel was brought in to fix the offense, and nothing has been fixed yet.

Rich played an exchange that he said shows how much the tenor of Harbaugh's press conferences has turned. A reporter noted that Harbaugh's charge was to get Herbert protected and McDaniel's was to make sure he did not have to be a superhero, yet two and a half years later he still has to be one for the Chargers to win.

"That just sounds more like an insult than it does a question," Harbaugh responded, before praising Herbert as a competitor he has never seen flinch or get rattled. "We attack, we improve, can't improve everything all at once, but we can improve one thing at a time all the time." When the reporter pressed that Herbert is still among the most pressured quarterbacks in his third season, Harbaugh said he could answer the same way. "I don't think you answered it," the reporter said. "I think I did," Harbaugh replied.

Rich called it a legitimate question, since the offensive line seems much healthier this year. But he also knows Harbaugh's answer will always be belief in Herbert.

That set up the bigger idea. A quarter of the way through the season, Rich listed the winless teams: the Chargers, Texans, Dolphins, Titans and Buccaneers. He also shared the show's new Overreaction Monday tweet of the week, from John Wilson, who predicted the Chargers and Texans will both have top-five picks and neither will win five games. Rich and the crew agreed both teams are too talented to finish that badly, but you never know.

Now look at who those teams have under center, Rich said. Tennessee has Cam Ward. The Chargers have Herbert. The Texans have C.J. Stroud. The Bucs just signed Baker Mayfield to a big deal. Only Miami, with Malik Willis, looks like a team that would take a quarterback at No. 1. "We all know that," Rich said.

That matters because everyone from Daniel Jeremiah to Todd McShay to Mel Kiper Jr. has described next year as "the quarterback draft of quarterback drafts." Rich also noted the Jets and Browns are loaded with first-round picks, the Jets with three.

So the question becomes: if you pick in the top five and do not need a quarterback, what do you do? Trade the pick for a haul, the way Carolina paid Chicago for the right to draft Bryce Young? Or stand pat and take Jeremiah Smith, the Ohio State receiver Larry Fitzgerald called an "absolute mutant" on the show?

Rich acknowledged the history. Keyshawn was the last receiver to go first overall, and Marvin Harrison has not worked out. But he laid out the tantalizing pairings. Smith with Herbert. Smith with Stroud in Houston, an Ohio State quarterback reunited with an Ohio State receiver. Smith in Tampa, where Rich imagines the Bucs spending the season thinking Mike Evans would have looked good around there, and where Smith could join Baker Mayfield, Emeka Egbuka and Bucky Irving. "Let's ride," Rich said.

Tankathon currently has the Texans taking Smith first and the Titans taking Arch Manning second, with six quarterbacks in the top 21. Rich floated the Tennessee scenario: if Texas makes an Indiana-style run, would the Titans take Peyton's nephew and tell Cam Ward thanks for the memories, or believe in Ward and collect a haul of picks? The answer from the crew: it depends on how the last 13 games of the Cam Ward experience go.

Another view in the room is that Miami will be on the clock first, which means a quarterback at No. 1 "and then it's on at number two." Rich reminded everyone that when Caleb, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye went one, two and three, teams called Washington and New England about those picks and were told to keep moving. This time, the teams at two and three might be open for business.

The most fun scenario to Rich is Tampa at No. 2, likely with a new head coach who would have to decide between four or five picks and maybe a player, or Smith. The other dream scenario floated was the Texans at No. 1, putting Smith alongside Nico Collins and a healthy Tank Dell. "I hope they get some linemen later on in that draft," came the response. That is the whole tension. A haul of picks could cascade deep into the future, four or five starters instead of one player.

"Everybody's assuming next year's draft will be laden with people who need quarterbacks," Rich said. "But what if the circumstances are they 100% have them, but for whatever other reasons, they just didn't win enough football games this year?"

It is only four games in, and the top five could change. But Rich is keeping an eye on it.