Mark Brunell had a good career. He made the Pro Bowl three times. He was the first big quarterback star for the Jacksonville Jaguars, helping them to an AFC championship game at the end of the 1996 season. Brunell made it 17 years in the NFL.
He also has an unusual distinction. Brunell is the best quarterback to ever be picked in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. It’s not really debatable either, which says more about the fifth-round quarterbacks in history than Brunell himself.
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When we talk about Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders and his chances of overcoming a fall to the fifth round of the NFL Draft to become an NFL star, we also have to look at the history of quarterbacks from the fifth round. And it’s not good. It’s actually stunning how few decent quarterbacks have come from that round.
Almost 60 years of bad history doesn’t mean Sanders can’t be a success in the NFL. But that history is telling.
Mark Brunell the GOAT of 5th-round QBs
In the Super Bowl era, which dates back to 1966, there have been two fifth-round quarterbacks to have more than 10,000 career passing yards, via Stathead. That’s right — only two.
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Brunell leads the list with 32,072. Steve Grogan, a longtime New England Patriots starter who was drafted in 1975, is second with 26,886. Grogan also never made a Pro Bowl and had more interceptions (208) than touchdowns (182). Grogan played in a different era and had some productive seasons as a starter, but it’s hard to say he was a star out of the fifth round.
Then there’s a huge drop to third on the list. That’s Gary Hogeboom, a 1980 draftee who started just 37 games with three teams, and had 9,436 career yards. No other fifth-round quarterback reached the relatively modest total of 7,000 career yards.
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Among the group, only Brunell, Grogan and Hogeboom started 37 or more games in their careers. Hogeboom’s starts came over a 10-year career. That means in the 59 NFL Drafts from 1966 to 2024, there have been two regular starting quarterbacks to come out of the fifth round.
If you believe Sanders will get to 10,000 yards passing in his career, or even become a regular starter for the Browns or someone else, it’s betting on him joining a very, very small list.
Shedeur Sanders had a high-profile fall in the NFL Draft. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
(Diamond Images via Getty Images)Shedeur Sanders tries to battle history
There’s a little bit of statistical flukiness with that wretched history of fifth-round quarterbacks. It would have looked a lot better if Tom Brady went in the fifth round instead of the sixth. Kurt Warner made the Hall of Fame after not being drafted at all, and Tony Romo had a good career as an undrafted free agent success story.
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There are some good quarterbacks to come from the fifth round and beyond. There just aren’t many to come specifically from the fifth round.
There are only 21 fifth-round quarterbacks to reach 1,000 yards passing and here are some of the names: Steve Pelluer, Don Strock, A.J. Feeley, Sam Howell, Dan Orlovsky, Josh Johnson, T.J. Yates and Brett Hundley. It’s not a good list to be on.
No matter how many times you hear about Brady or even mid-round picks like Joe Montana, Dak Prescott or Russell Wilson beating the odds, most of the NFL’s best quarterbacks have come out of the first round. By the time teams reach the fifth round, they’re not expecting to hit on a quarterback of the future. Anyone who shows a glimmer of hope of being a viable NFL starter is usually gone long before the fifth round. The reason so few good quarterbacks have come out of the fifth round is because there aren’t many good quarterback prospects left by the fifth round. And those quarterbacks taken in the fifth round don’t get nearly as many chances to succeed as those drafted in the first or even second rounds.
Sanders will try to be an outlier. He starts his career fourth on the Browns’ depth chart. He is an unusual case, a gifted passer who fell in the draft perhaps in part because teams were turned off by his pre-draft interviews or the attention he would bring as a celebrity coming out of college. He’s more talented than most fifth-round quarterbacks.
But the history of those previous fifth-round quarterbacks is another reminder that Sanders has a lot to overcome to become an NFL star — or even an NFL starter.