Basically this. Elway only came to the Broncos because they were horrible in 1982 and had the #4 pick of the draft, but Baltimore had the #1 pick and Elway refused to play for Irsay and joined the NY Yankees farm team. He was ready to walk and stay out of football for a year and re-enter the draft again the next year or never - he was willing to stay in baseball, forcing a trade.
And the Colts only got Andrew Luck because Manning got hurt, and the rest of their team was so horrible they lost 14 games and got the #1 pick, after firing both their coach and GM, right at the exact time that the best QB prospect since Peyton entered the NFL draft.
Other than something blind obvious like Luck, or other highly touted prospects (Eli Manning and Phillip Rivers, etc.) you have to get lucky. Sometimes you draft Russell Wilson in the 3rd round, and sometimes you wind up with Brock Osweiler in the 2nd.
There's just no way to know in advance. If there was Russell Wilson would have been the first or second pick of the draft, not fallen to the third round. Dak Prescott would have been drafted in the first, not the 4th round, Drew Brees would never have fallen to the 2nd round, Jimmy Grapolo would not have gone with the 62nd pick of the 2nd round, Aaron Rogers would never have fallen to #24, and of course, Tom Brady would never have lasted till the 6th round!
First, he picked Osweiler. Then Osweiler played well enough that everybody thought he might be very good, then he went to Houston, leaving the Broncos with NO future QB.
Then they drafted the best QB available to them, they had zero shot at either Goff or Wentz, they took the 3rd QB. After Paxton was drafted #26, the Jets drafted Christian Hackenburg, #51, and Patriots drafted Jacoby Brissett #91 in the third round. All these teams passed on Prescott multiple times.
So, it's not stone obvious from the start that Lynch couldn't play. It's only in retrospect that we see it for the colossal blunder and waste of two seasons it actually was.