Offensive picks, quarterbacks prized early

With defensive studs everywhere in this draft, NFL teams turned offensive. With an emphasis on quarterbacks.

Hardly stunning in a pass-happy league, except that no quarterbacks in this crop have been highly touted. Yet three went in the first dozen Thursday night, with two whopping trades putting the Bears and Chiefs in position to grab QBs.

Chicago paid a whopping price to move up one spot to second overall for North Carolina’s Mitchell Trubisky. Kansas City gave up its first-rounder next year to go from 27th to 10th for Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes.

Altogether, eight of the first dozen picks were to aid offenses.

All of which overshadowed the predictable at the top of the draft: Roger Goodell got booed, then Myles Garrett was picked first by the Cleveland Browns.

“C’mon, Philly, C’mon,” Goodell said Thursday night amid the boos, not even wincing at the reception. Moments later, he was back onstage announcing the Texas A&M defensive end’s name. Garrett, a junior and All-American considered the best pass rusher in this crop, is the first Aggie selected No. 1 overall.

Garrett was not on hand, but promised Cleveland fans “great things are coming.”

Then the Bears sent a third-round pick, a fourth and a 2018 third to San Francisco to switch that one slot and take Trubisky, who started only 13 games for North Carolina.

“It was crazy,” Trubisky said. “There was no call. I didn’t think I was going to be picked until the commissioner said my name.”

San Francisco was up next, and new general manager John Lynch already was looking good for bringing in such a haul to drop back to No. 3. The 49ers took DE Solomon Thomas from just down the road at Stanford.

Next was pretty much an offensive onslaught.

“We had a lot of scenarios, but we did not have any scenarios like what’s happened here,” Eagles executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman said.

LSU running back Leonard Fournette, who some scouts compared to Adrian Peterson, went to Jacksonville; new Jaguars boss Tom Coughlin is enamored of powerful running backs.

“He’s special,” Coughlin said. “We need playmakers. We need people to put the ball in the end zone. We need to do something about balance. We need to do something about creating a better situation where the quarterback doesn’t have the entire game on his shoulders.”

Another LSU player, safety Jamal Adams, whose father, George, was an NFLer, was taken by the New York Jets, one pick after Tennessee, needing an upgrade at wide receiver.