Draft’s first round proves offense is king

BOSTON — If you want to know what teams value in today’s NFL, look at the top of the first round of this year’s draft.

The first three picks: quarterbacks. The first seven picks: offense. The first 15 picks: five quarterbacks and four pass catchers.

If you want to win in 2021, you’d better be able to throw the ball and score points.

Let’s take a look at the top story lines of the first round, which lasted 3 hours, 44 minutes:

With Trevor Lawrence going first to the Jaguars, Zach Wilson second to the Jets, and Trey Lance third to the 49ers, it marked just the third time in NFL history that quarterbacks were drafted 1-2-3. The other years were 1999

(Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, and Akili Smith) and 1971 (Jim Plunkett, Archie Manning, and Dan Pastorini).

With Justin Fields going 11th to the Bears and Mac Jones 15th to the Patriots, it was just the second time that five quarterbacks went in the top 15. In 1999, in addition to Couch, McNabb, and Smith, Daunte Culpepper went 11th and Cade McNown went 12th.

And the Alabama Crimson Tide are dominating the draft like no others:

Alabama tied the 2004 Miami Hurricanes with six players drafted in the first round, and set a record with five first-round picks from the same offense. The Tide also became the first school to have a quarterback, running back, and two receivers go in the first round of the same draft.

The Tide have now had 21 first-round picks in the last five years. They also had players picked 37th and 38th on Friday night.

Reunited and it feels so good: Several teams drafted a receiver who played in college with their starting quarterback. The Bengals drafted LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase to pair him with Burrow. The Dolphins drafted Alabama’s Jaylen Waddle to go with Tua Tagovailoa (though Waddle made headlines in March when he told NFL Network that he preferred Jones to Tagovailoa), and the Eagles got Alabama’s DeVonta Smith to catch passes from Jalen Hurts.

Chase said Thursday night that Burrow texted him that morning and told him to pack his bags and get ready to move to Cincinnati.

Not the Pitts: Florida tight end Kyle Pitts went No. 4 to Atlanta, making him the highest-drafted tight end since the 1970 merger. The previous high was Denver’s Riley Odoms at No. 5 in 1972, and three players at No. 6, including Vernon Davis in 2006 and Kellen Winslow Jr. in 2004.

Pre-merger, Billy Cannon went No. 1 overall to the Rams in 1960.

Quiet trade front: For all of the talk about trade possibilities and teams jumping up for quarterbacks, the first round was rather tame. There were no trades on Thursday night until the Eagles jumped up from No. 12 to 10 to draft DeVonta Smith. There were two trades before the draft started, with the 49ers jumping up to No. 3 and the Dolphins moving around to No. 6.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again: Bears GM Ryan Pace whiffed badly when he traded up to take Mitchell Trubisky No. 2 overall in 2017, and many around the league were surprised when Pace kept his job this offseason (along with coach Matt Nagy). But Pace went right back at it on Thursday night, trading up from No. 20 to 11 to draft Fields.

The pick almost certainly means that Pace and Nagy have been given at least two more years by ownership to get it right.