Recent history says the best-case scenario for the Chicago Bears, Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans is they found the next Joe Flacco.
Over the last 10 drafts, there have been 12 quarterbacks taken in the first round after a team traded up for them. Only one of them -- Flacco -- has won a Super Bowl.
Of those dozen "trade-up" quarterbacks, Flacco is just one of three who are slated to be starters this season. The others are Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, who were drafted last year.
The rest are either in a competition for a starting job (Paxton Lynch), a backup (Mark Sanchez), a free agent (Robert Griffin III and Blaine Gabbert), injured (Teddy Bridgewater) or out of the league (Johnny Manziel, Tim Tebow, Josh Freeman and Brady Quinn).
Is it smart to trade up for a QB?
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) May 8, 2017
Of the last 12 QBs that were taken after a trade up, 4 have winning records, and just 1 has a Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/TEYoMPBGDd
In this year's draft, the Bears gave up four picks to move one spot to get Mitchell Trubisky, the Chiefs leapt 17 spots for Patrick Mahomes and the Texans jumped 13 spots for Deshaun Watson.
The shrewdness of the Ravens' taking Flacco in 2008 is they initially traded back before moving up to secure their franchise quarterback.
The Ravens started the draft by dropping from the No. 8 overall pick No. 26, which proved too far down to owner Steve Bisciotti's liking. He began to get antsy that Flacco wouldn't fall to the Ravens. He didn't want to get stuck with a quarterback like Chad Henne or Brian Brohm, who weren't rated anywhere close to Flacco on the Ravens' board.
Bisciotti wanted the Ravens to trade a third-round pick and move up, but Eric DeCosta, the Ravens' director of player personnel at the time, didn't think the team should do it. DeCosta told Bisciotti that Flacco would be there at No. 26. Bisciotti then looked across the table at DeCosta and told him, "And what if he isn't? What if somebody takes him? Is it going to be worth an extra third-round pick? We have three of them. Let's give up a third and go back and get him and be done with this."
The Ravens gave up a pick in the third and sixth rounds to Houston in order to go to No. 18 and take Flacco. At the news conference, general manager Ozzie Newsome essentially delivered the coronation of Flacco, calling him "the guy to lead our football team into the future."
Four years later, Flacco guided the Ravens to a Super Bowl win over the San Francisco 49ers, throwing 11 touchdowns and no interceptions in a near-perfect postseason.