NFL Teams Likely to Move Up in the Draft to Grab a Quarterback

With the 2013 NFL draft due to start one week from today, football fans are agog with anticipation of epic moves and trades that potentially could be made to land a key playmaker or difference maker.

No position is under more scrutiny than the quarterback position, which has led to a great deal of speculation about how many teams will be executing trades to move up or down to secure their future franchise quarterback.

So, that leads us to explore the following topic: How many NFL teams will likely move up in the draft to secure a quarterback?

Since we are still a week away from knowing the final answer to this question, there are some teams that seem like obvious answers, and then there are some teams that could suddenly fit the bill based on how far specific quarterbacks start sliding down the big board to them.

For example, Geno Smith is widely regarded as the top quarterback in the draft and is a probable top-10 draft pick. But what would happen if Smith was still available halfway through the first round? Would a team that nobody expected to trade up for a quarterback suddenly make a play for Smith if they only had to move up three, four or five spots to grab him?

Why this whole topic is somewhat fascinating is due to the overall talent, or according to some draft experts, lack of overall talent with the quarterbacks in the 2013 draft class. There isn't an obvious stud like Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III in this draft. It would not be a major surprise if some of the quarterbacks drafted in the first three rounds resemble Blaine Gabbert or Jimmy Clausen coming out of the gate.

Another issue is the lack of consensus on which quarterbacks are truly worthy of a first-round draft pick. Some experts will pound the table for Matt Barkley, E.J. Manuel or Ryan Nassib.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and teams will have contrasting grades on each of the quarterbacks we highlighted. Sports Illustrated's Peter King wrote that the two quarterbacks that are most likely being targeted in the bottom of the first round right now are Manuel and Nassib.

With that much uncertainty surrounding the quarterback class, we also can't rule out the possibility that this is just one giant smokescreen, and much ado about nothing. It is more likely that there will be more trades executed to grab one of the top-five offensive linemen than there will be for quarterbacks.

So having said all that, let's see which teams are most likely to move up in the draft to land their quarterback of the future. We will start with a couple teams that have a long-shot chance of trading for a quarterback and work our way up to teams that have a better shot at pulling the trigger.