Drafting a quarterback in the first round and the anticipation of waiting to see him succeed—or whether or not the succeeds—pretty much go hand-in-hand. There isn’t a single thing more pivotal you can do to decide the fate of your team than drafting a quarterback in the first round, so it carries quite a bit of weight to it.
Even with the advancements of the game, however, quarterbacks still don’t come into the NFL ready to hit the ground running. And Pittsburgh Steelers fans haven’t had to see the early growing pains of a ‘future franchise quarterback’ in nearly two decades, when they drafted Ben Roethlisberger 11th overall in 2004.