With quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III already spoken for (barring an incredibly unlikely and unforeseen development), the top remaining quarterback on the board is Ryan Tannehill.
With the Browns (at No. 4) and the Dolphins (at No. 8) and the Seahawks (at No. 12) all apparently very interested in the converted receover whom Greg Cosell believes is more accurate on the run than Luck or Griffin, Peter King of SI.com points out in his brand-new MMQB column that the Eagles and Chiefs will each put Tannehill through a private workout.
Both already appeared on our visits and workouts tracker, but the dates hadn’t been set. Per King, the Eagles will check out Tannehill on Monday, and he’ll work out for the Chiefs later in the week.
So what does it mean? Based on history, it’s hard to say. This is the time for smokescreens and misdirections, with teams talking up players they don’t like (in the hopes someone higher in the order will take them) and saying bad things about players they hope will slip down the board.
But both the Chiefs (at No. 11) and the Eagles (at No. 15) were interested in Peyton Manning, Kansas City admittedly and Philly reportedly. And so each team has to at least be contemplating the possibility of making a move up to land a new quarterback.
The question is how high will they need to go? With the Browns believed to be interested at No. 4, the safest strategy would be to move to No. 3, which would duplicate the 1-2-3 quarterback class of 1999, when Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, and Akili Smith came off the board in back-to-back-to-back fashion.
Of that class from thirteen years ago, only one of those three quarterbacks ever turned out to be anything. (Some would say none out of those three.) This year, the Colts, Redskins, and a team to be determined will be counting on a much higher success rate.