ESPN analyst Jon Gruden said this week that he would be "shocked" if Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg isn't drafted in the first round later this month. To put it nicely, Gruden's assessment bucked the more popular media narrative that paints Hackenberg as a broken prospect. There are some, after all, who suggest he shouldn't be drafted at all.

But I'm always up for challenging convention, and the idea of Hackenberg in the first round raises the possibility of nothing less than a historic event on the evening of April 28. Yes, the NFL is looking at one of the most quarterback-heavy first rounds in any draft. Ever.

We know that Cal's Jared Goff and North Dakota State's Carson Wentz will be first-round picks -- and probably the first two players chosen overall. Memphis' Paxton Lynch appears to have positioned himself squarely in the first round as well. Gruden has anointed Michigan State's Connor Cook as "perhaps" the best quarterback in the draft, and Cook has been gaining (media) momentum as an option later in the round, perhaps for a team that trades back into it.

Add Hackenberg and you have five quarterbacks among the top 31 selections, a rare event that would speak more to the collective desperation of the league than the talent of this class.

Check out the chart. The record for quarterbacks in the first round, dating back to the start of Pro Football Reference's database in 1937, is the celebrated class of 1983. Of the six quarterbacks selected, three are in the Hall of Fame: John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino. There has been only one year with five first-round selections, the largely disastrous 1999 class topped by Tim Couch that also included Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper.

By almost all accounts, the 2016 class is closer to 1999 than to 1983. But the past three drafts have produced five current starters, and since 2010, the average class has produced 2.5. And some in that group, from Sam Bradford to Tyrod Taylor to Colin Kaepernick, are in no way established and actually ripe for replacement. In the end, the NFL has a pileup of teams that are in need and might be ready to dip into this class.

The Los Angeles Rams already have showed their cards, discarding their stated confidence in Case Keenum and turning over a massive bounty to move up to No. 1 overall last week. You could make a list of a half-dozen more teams that are more than reasonable fits to draft a quarterback in the first round as well.

To be sure, there is no doubt about the risk of burning a high pick on a quarterback who has struggled as much recently as Hackenberg. As Gruden himself noted this week, he needs to be rebuilt "from the ground up."

But the message here is not to be so sure that you already know exactly how the round is going to play out. If I had told you a week before the 2011 draft that Christian Ponder would be a first-round pick, would you have reacted with any less skepticism?

Is taking Hackenberg in the first round substantively different from, say, the thought process that pushed the Buffalo Bills to make EJ Manuel the first and only quarterback taken in the 2013 first round? Quite simply, there are some teams that don't try to outsmart the league and wait on a quarterback they like. They draft him as soon as they can.

There are enough recent examples of draft surprises involving quarterbacks -- Tim Tebow was hardly a first-round lock in 2010 -- that this year's five-quarterback scenario can't be viewed too remotely. It only takes one team to be either impatient or set unconventional values.

Is it likely? Probably not. Using a first-round pick on a player who hasn't looked like an NFL prospect since 2013 requires high-end confidence and risk tolerance. It would almost certainly require some draft-night maneuvering, with a needy team trading back into the bottom of the round after making an earlier pick. But we've seen that happen as recently as 2014 when the Minnesota Vikings acquired the No. 32 pick and grabbed Teddy Bridgewater.

My suggestion here is not to dismiss this out of hand simply because Hackenberg isn't showing up on media mock drafts. Whatever you think of Gruden and his ability to assess quarterbacks, you should recognize he is more likely to be thinking along the same lines as NFL front offices than you are. They see what he sees.

At the very least, the likelihood of four in the first round is growing -- would the Denver Broncos let Cook or Lynch get past them at No. 31? -- and the reward of an eventual starter often justifies elevated risk for NFL teams.

This is not as much an argument about inside information as it is about football priorities. There are plenty of teams looking for quarterbacks and there are more than a few interesting, if flawed, candidates to choose from. Let's not assume we know for sure when all of them will be drafted.