“Wait for it.”

That expression is often used when one is expecting something good to happen that hasn’t yet manifested. It worked for the New York Knicks fans in the recent NBA finals, where their team consistently fell behind early and put on second half rallies that led to their first NBA Championship in 53 years.

“Wait for it,” can also be used in patience to allow a kid out of college to develop the skills and experience necessary to lead an NFL franchise to a Super Bowl title. In 1983, the league boasted a stable of topflight QB’s coming out of college. That draft started with the selection of John Elway and the first round found the Miami Dolphins picking the next to last choice in that draft to tab future Hall of Fame Quarterback Dan Maino. Between Elway and Marino, four other field generals were selected including Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly, Tony Eason and Ken O’Brien.

As celebrated for quarterbacks as that class of signal callers was, they had three of that rookie group earn Hall of Fame honors but accounted for only two Super Bowl wins. While Elway, Kelly and Marino earned busts in Canton, the only two Super Bowl victories were both notched by John Elway. He led the Denver Broncos to wins in Roman Numerals XXXII and XXXIII in his final two pro seasons.

Wait for it … might be applied to the 2018 draft too. Another year that was hailed as a strong crop of quarterbacks that year found four signal callers picked in the top ten selections. The first round began with Baker Mayfield going to the Cleveland Browns and concluded with the Baltimore Ravens taking Lamar Jackson with the last pick in the opening round.

For the longest time that draft seemed as if the Buffalo Bills and Ravens got the best quarterbacks with the 7th and 32nd picks. The Bills chose Josh Allen with the seventh pick in the first round. The first overall pick didn’t excel in Cleveland but has found a home in Tampa. The third overall selection, Sam Darnold, began his career with the New York Jets, a place known to chew up quarterbacks like a woodchipper takes on redwood. The only clear miss in the first round was the Arizona Cardinals choice; they spent the tenth overall pick on UCLA’s Josh Rosen … who played like he belonged on the Jets.

In recent times, the wait for it slogan could be applied to the first two quarterback picked in the 2018 draft. Mayfield has played like a top franchise quarterback since joining the Buccaneers two years ago. Still, he is looking for his first Championship Game appearance with one win in three postseason starts with the Bucs and splitting a pair of postseason games in the one season he led Cleveland to the playoffs.

As good as Allen and Jackson have been during regular seasons, neither has won a conference title and a trip to a Roman Numeral game. Then there is Darnold. After four losing campaigns with the Jets, and nothing special seasons with the Carolina Panthers and one year as a backup in San Francisco, Darnold found a home in Minnesota.

Two years ago, he guided the Vikings to 14 regular season wins; only one Minnesota team had more regular season wins in franchise history. That would be the 1998 team that won 15. Then last season, with the Seattle Seahawks, he became only the second quarterback in history to lead his team to back-to-back 14-win campaigns … and he did it with two different franchises. The first quarterback to win that many games in consecutive seasons was Tom Brady in 2003-2004.

Then Darnold became the first QB to come out of the 2018 draft to win a Super Bowl, downing the New England Patriots last February.

There was a time that drafted quarterbacks would spend three, four, even five seasons backing up veteran starters. Roger Staubach was a member of the Cowboys for five seasons before he earned the starting role. John Brodie backed-up veterans for five seasons before earning the full-time starting job for the San Francisco 49ers in 1961.

There are a couple primary reasons why quarterbacks learned the trade before moving into a starting spot behind center in the NFL. First, the college game in the 1960’s and before was significantly different than the pro game. Today, college teams are playing pro style offenses, so the quarterbacks are better prepared to make the transition from college to the pros. Second, drafted players years ago were not earning the money that pro players are commanding today. Teams want to get the most out of their young slingers while they are still in their rookie contracts, knowing if they excel after four seasons, they are going to cost a huge chunk of their salary cap to keep.

Wait for it.

Right.

This year we had the Heisman Trophy winning QB out of Indiana picked first in the draft, and the runner-up in the Heisman balloting to Fernando Mendoza was another quarterback, Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia. He became the first Heisman finalist to not be drafted, and after signing as a free agent with the Baltimore Ravens, was cut before they even opened their training camp.

While Mendoza was taken first overall by the Las Vegas Raiders, this year’s quarterback crop out of college was considered light. Only one other signal caller was taken in the first round; Ty Simpson was selected by the Los Angeles Rams with the 13th pick in the first round. The next quarterback chosen in the 2026 draft wasn’t tabbed until the Cardinals opened the third round by choosing Miami’s Carson Beck.

But, before we discard the quarterback crop available in 2026, we have to take into account that Joe Montana was a third-round choice, Brady went in the sixth round and Brock Prudy was the last player chosen in 2022.

Montan and Brady each had more Super Bowl wins that the entire crop of quarterbacks taken in the 1983 and 2018 drafts. Montana has four Super Bowl rings and Brady has more Super Bowl victories than any franchise in the league, seven.

What do the results from quarterbacks chosen in the past tell us about the 2026 crop?

To find out where the real value is … we’ll have to wait for it.