Just going to throw my own worthless opinion in here.
I acknowledge the importance of having a franchise QB to the success of the team, but I got so sick and tired of Peyton having to cover for an average to below average O-line (sorry, but truth), a crappy run defense, and for the most part, a below average secondary that I'm happy to see the team go the other route for several years and build an incredibly strong, and hopefully deep, team in all the other areas while they tinker, and hope, and use their strong scouting team to find a good to great QB to maybe do only slightly better than game manage.
Probably not the way to a Super Bowl win, but you never know. Brad Johnson, Trent Dilfer, and Joe Flacco have all won in the last few decades, so it's not impossible. And yeah, they all had incredible defenses, but that's my point. There is another route.
And Peyton was an all-timer, one of the five best, if not the best, ever. And he won one ring in Indy. What are the odds that we get anyone even close to as good as he was? And if we do, at what cost to the rest of the roster?
So, yeah, I'm on the Sam Darnold, or Carson Wentz, or Ryan Fitzpatrick, or even, if necessary, Jameis Winston bandwagon. Use that first rounder to grab the best OT or DE available. Shore up the back end of the defense with some more solid draft picks (the track record shows we can depend on at least two or three new starters from this draft). Roll with the average guy who they might be able to coach up.
I think even with QB being the "most important position in sports", there are other routes to the top.
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