The 2013 rookie quarterback class is wide open. Ask five NFL draft analysts for their favorite players in the class, and you might get five different answers. There even have been suggestions that no signal-caller will be drafted in the first round.
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NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock advises against that logic.
"It's early in this entire process," Mayock said during NFL Network's Senior Bowl coverage. "Everyone says there's no Andrew Luck, there's no Robert Griffin III. ... I guarantee you by the time we get to April, there will be three to four quarterbacks taken in the first round, and most of them are coming out of this game."
Mayock's words are surprising, but they shouldn't be. Christian Ponder, Jake Locker, Ryan Tannehill and Brandon Weeden all were taken higher than analysts expected in April, much less in late January. Colin Kaepernick and Andy Dalton also almost rose to first-round status and were hardly viewed as sure-fire top picks early in the process.
The point here: Projections from draftniks at this stage of the process aren't worth much. The NFL's decision-makers don't know where these guys will land, so we definitely don't know from the outside. And Mayock pointed out that the emphasis on the quarterback position naturally will make some of this year's promising crop go early.
Among those top Senior Bowl quarterbacks Mayock talked about were N.C. State's Mike Glennon, Arkansas' Tyler Wilson, Miami of Ohio's Zac Dysert and Syracuse's Ryan Nassib.
It's hard to say who will be drafted first out of this group. But don't be surprised if most of them go in Round 1.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.
