The NFLs final 4 QBs are often first-round picks. This time 1 is not like the ot

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Joe Theismann won one Super Bowl and played in a second with Washington after entering as a fourth-round draft pick with another franchise.He starred for a coach Joe Gibbs, whose path to the Hall of Fame featured three championships with three starting QBs  including one selected in the sixth round (Mark Rypien) and one who was chosen in the first round but wound up taking a detour to the USFL before reaching the sports pinnacle (Doug Williams).So perhaps Theismanns view is shaded by all of that personal experience. He does not consider it vital for a team to find its quarterback early in the draft, even if recent evidence shows that conference title game participants most often do employ first Mike Scott Jersey -rounders at the sports most important position, a trend reflected in Sundays matchups: at in the AFC, and Jared Goff's Lions at in the NFC. Three outta four ain't bad.I definitely dont believe that being a No. 1 pick is the key to getting to a championship game. Its still a team game, said Theismann, who made it to the Super Bowls after the 1982 and 1983 seasons, beating the Dolphins in the first and losing to the Raiders in the second. Ive always said this: The quarterback is the most dependent player on the field. So if youve got first-round talent at that position, good for you, but thats also no guarantee.ADVERTISEMENT  Of course not. Nothing is certain when it comes to talent evaluation, fulfilling potential shown in college or blo soming in the pros. But it clearly can be a sign of things to come when a QB goes at, or near, the top of a draft, which is why USCs Caleb Williams, UNCs Drake Maye and LSUs Jayden Daniels are expected to hear their names called early in April.So, sure, by being the 262nd and last choice in the 2022 draft and is now set to appear in a second NFC championship game in two NFL seasons, but otherwise, a trio of high picks will help determine which two teams head to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.Super proud of him. I just hope he continues to blaze trails and just show people that draft status is what happens on draft day. What happens after that is up to you, Niners All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams said about Purdy. You get a player like that with the last pick of the draft? Literally like playing the lottery and winning the Powerball when its at $2 billion.The only newcomer to this round among the quartet is Jackson, who becomes the 30th quarterback to start a conference title game in the  Brian McCann Jersey last 15 seasons. He got there with a masterful performance in a 34-10 victory over the Houston Texans last weekend  throwing for two touchdowns and running for two more  after beginning his career 1-3 in the playoffs.Take a look at that group of 30 and the pattern is obvious: 20 were first-rounders (including Goff at No. 1 overall to the Los Angeles Rams in 2016, Mahomes at No. 10 in 2017 and Jackson at No. 32 in 2018); five went in the second round, two in the third, one in the sixth (Tom Brady) and one (Purdy) in the seventh. Only one of the 30 was undrafted: Case Keenum, whose Minnesota Vikings fell one game short of Super Sunday after the 2017 season.Brock is sort of the exception to the rule, I gue s you could say, Theismann said. Its always good to have that one guy in there that might say: I dont fit that mold that everybody projects for us. But I still can get the job done.And how. Purdy compiled an NFL-best pa ser rating of 113 this season, accumulating 4,280 yards and 31 TDs while completing 69.4% of his throws. His 9.6 yards per attempt were the most for a qualifying QB since Kurt Warner's 9.9 back in 2000.He was the only one of the eight quarterbacks who started in the divisional round last weekend to be drafted after the first round. But only one of those eight quarterbacks  Houston rookie C.J. Stroud  was picked in the top five by his current team.Purdy is "putting up numbers that Jimmy Wynn Jersey  are impre sive for first-rounders, said Christian McCaffrey, the San Francisco running back who was a unanimous choice for . At some point its not surprising. At some point, its just who he is.The  Yordan Alvarez Jersey other starting quarterbacks still around have impre sive pedigrees, but the ways they arrived at their current clubs demonstrate that going through a season so bad that a team is in position to take a franchise QB with one of the top few picks isn't always the path to succe s.The Chiefs were coming off back-to-back playoff berths with Alex Smith at quarterback when they made the bold decision to package two first-round picks and a third-rounder to move up 17 spots to draft Mahomes.After Mahomes sat for most of his rookie year, the Chiefs traded Smith and now have  the second-longest streak ever  and won two Super Bowls with the two-time MVP at the helm.A year later, the Ravens jumped back into the first round via a trade to take Jackson so he could replace Super Bowl 47 MVP Joe Flacco.Jackson became the starter midway through his first season, won the MVP award the following year and was a this season as the Ravens, like the Chiefs, benefited from going after a young quarterback even when they had a veteran starter in place.I think everybody in the world can now see that hes the MVP, hes probably, not probably, he is the best quarterback in football," Ravens kicker Justin Tucker said about the front office's decision to draft Jackson."But for those guys to have that foresight, and the ability to develop along the way, with a player-coach partnership, it does speak to how well that they do things upstairs.For more than a decade, the Lions boasted a QB taken at No. 1 overall after turning their 0-16 record in the 2008 season into Matthew Stafford.But poor management and the inability to build the rest of the roster led to zero playoff wins in 12 seasons with Stafford. So Detroit sent him to the Rams  who won the Super Bowl in his first season there  and Los Angeles dealt two first-round picks to the Lions and made Detroit take on Goff's hefty contract as part of the exchange.But Goff played like the QB who helped the Rams reach the Super Bowl in the 2018 season, the Lions used the extra draft picks to add talent around him and Detroit is in a conference title game for the second time in the Super Bowl era  and got there by beating the .Here's something else all four QBs remaining have in common: Every member of the quartet is a twentysomething, the second consecutive season in which the last four standing had yet to turn 30. The only other  Dallas Keuchel Jersey time that happened in back-to-back playoffs since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger came in 2003 and 2004.If youre under 30, youre still young enough that you havent been beaten to a pulp, Theismann observed. Which is important, because you dont start feeling things that arent there.___AP Sports Writer Noah Trister contributed to this report.___AP NFL: