Dave Hyde: With the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft ... it’s obvious, isn’t it?

Its transparently obvious who the No.

1 pick in the NFL draft will be after the league met Cam Ward , tested him, measured him and interviewed him at the NFL combine in Indianapolis .

All the good and the bad about me, as Ward said in an interview.

Ignore the next two months of head fakes and manufactured doubts.

The former University of Miami Hurricanes quarterback is the pick, barring something unforeseen, as one NFL scout said.

Now for the more difficult question of the equation for Ward fans: Can he please get drafted by the right franchise? The Tennessee Titans have the No.

1 pick and need a quarterback.

But if they dont want Ward, theyll trade it to Cleveland, the New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders or New York Jets who are desperate for a quarterback.

Ward knows all about the value of landing on the right team as he said at the combine .

He created a spreadsheet last winter of the half-dozen college teams willing to pay him the market rate of $1.5 million.

I needed to pick the right team to win right away, he said.

That meant researching who was returning to each teams offense, the quality of those starters and some projection of how hed fit into the system.

Thats why I picked Miami, he said.

Its why he picked Washington State before Miami.

Before Washington State, he picked Incarnate Word in Texas for the simple reason it was the only place that would take him.

The tough part of the draft, as Ward said, is he has no choice in the team.

And so many teams act like picking a quarterback is a blind date.

The biggest fable Miami Dolphins fans and front office have fallen for during this mediocre run is you need a top-level draft pick to win.

History says otherwise.

Since 1999, only four of the 26 Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks were drafted by the original team holding a top 10 pick.

All four of those quarterbacks were named Manning, Peyton and Eli.

The only other quarterback in the top 10 to win a Super Bowl is Patrick Mahomes, whom Kansas City traded up from 27th to get.

If franchise quarterbacks are rare, having people who can recognize and develop them is equally rare.

Confetti is dropped on the likes of ninth-rounder Brad Johnson, fifth-rounder Tom Brady (six times) and second-rounder Jalen Hurts, because they had something more than the right stuff.

They landed in the right franchise, too.

Last years second pick Jayden Daniels set the league on fire his rookie season in Washington.

He also landed with a proven head coach in Dan Quinn, a top offensive coordinator in Kliff Kingsbury and an offense that needed his star power.

Meanwhile, it was a hot mess for the top pick, Caleb Williams.

Bad offensive line.

Coaches who were fired in midseason.

No plan on how to use him.

Williams suffered accordingly.

Its the same every year.

Why do you think Clevelands top pick of 2018, Baker Mayfield, and that drafts third pick, the Jets Sam Darnold, only found success years later in Tampa and Minnesota, respectively? Organizations make quarterbacks, said Hall of Fame NFL coach Bill Walsh, who helped the likes of Cincinnatis Ken Anderson and San Franciscos Joe Montana and Steve Young.

The Dolphins are recent proof of this.

Tua Tagovailoa looked like a bust as a rookie.

Coach Mike McDaniel showed Tagovailoa is a starting NFL quarterback.

Tennessee, if thats Wards team, has an offensive-minded coach in Brian Callahan.

It has a defense built to win.

But some things are unmappable, and that gets to the infrastructure and culture.

Ward will help with that culture.

Hes succeeded on new teams already.

He stepped into Miami last winter and immediately became its leader.

When some receivers said they would be working out with NFL players rather than him in the summer, he had a telling comeback.

You better go play with them next year, Ward said, because I wont be throwing to you.

He earned that swagger by starting at the bottom of college football and working his way to a top role.

Miami fans appreciated that.

The NFL types started to in seeing him at the combine.

The question now isnt just if Ward can help a team win.

Its if Ward gets to a team that knows how to win..

This article has been shared from the original article on sun_sentinel, here is the link to the original article.