2017 NFL Draft: Quarterbacks

Note: Before I start this preview, I realized after I had written and published the explanation of process I forgot to explain how my grades work. I borrowed the 80-20 from baseball scouting and combined it with a set of five groupings.

Starter – S - 8.0-7.1, ability to start year 1.

Expected Starter – ES – 7.0-6.1 – ability to contribute year 1, starters by year 3.

Potential Starter – PS – 6.0-4.1 – broadest range, solid contributor throughout career,  players in the upper half of this tier may have high upsides but they’re a few years from reaching that potential

Backup – B – 4.0-3.1 – roster fillers with ability to be spot starters in a pinch but lack upside.

UDFA – UDFA – 3.0-2.0 – players I wouldn’t draft

I won’t talk too much about the last two slots unless those players are drafted. Most players overall will fall into the PS tier but these previews will see mostly S, ES, & PS players.

Well here we are positional preview #1, Quarterbacks. And let’s start by saying that this year’s class is a choose your own adventure contest. You have four different QBs with varying positive traits, a myriad of negative traits, but all of whom are someone’s prettiest girl in the ball. I don’t include athletic testing in my data for QB prospects, there is some merit to some tests but all in all there isn’t a lot to infer from the traditional combine tests for QBs.

I think this is how I’ll end up on the top 10 quarterbacks. I’m including 10 this season for two reasons: 1) I think there are useful players that deep or a little deeper in this draft. 2) I have Webb and Peterman at 9 & 10 and I want to rant about them. So…

1.      Deshaun Watson, Jr, Clemson, 6’ 2.5” 221 lbs – Expected Starter (6.7)

Stats – Yards: 4173, Attempts: 523, Yds/Att: 7.98

Completion%: 67.3%, Sack Rate: 2.4%, TD to INT Ratio: 2.24

Quarterback evaluation is huge on clichés and unfortunately at times I find myself falling into them with Watson. There’s some sloppy in his game and he has a relative low TD to interception ratio among the top guys in this class, but I’m willing to bet on the player I saw against Alabama the last two years in the championship games. He’s good to all parts of the field and honestly he and the next man on the list are as good as I’ve felt about QBs since Winston/Mariota.

2) Patrick Mahomes III, Jr, Texas Tech, 6’ 2” 225 lbs – Expected Starter (6.6)

Stats – Yards: 5052, Attempts: 591, Yds/Att: 8.55

Completion%: 65.7%, Sack Rate: 4.4%, TD to INT Ratio: 4.10

Stats-wise Mahomes laps the field in most categories and it’s not all dink-and-dunk in the way TTU is often viewed. I dropped him to just below Watson because I’ll admit to some concerns with his ability to translate to the next level quickly. I don’t however buy into the two competing and contradictory schools of thought on Mahomes. School 1, he doesn’t play within scheme. I don’t completely disagree here as Mahomes extends plays and is the most constructive version of a gunslinger in quite some time. He’ll need to play more in rhythm in the NFL but he makes throws to all quadrants and makes some truly beautiful touch/anticipation throws in every game. School 2, say that Mahomes plays in the Air Raid and noones ever done that successfully. I don’t buy this for two reasons: 1) a lot of these same people point to school 1 as a major flaw and, by god, if you don’t like the scheme he plays in and he makes plays routinely outside of the scheme then what’s the fucking problem (sorry if for some reason your kid is reading this.). 2) A lot of these people love them some Trubisky and Davis Webb. As @smartfootball pointed out, “*whispers* Mitchell Trubisky also played in a(n) Air Raid-based system”. So, I have a much harder time swallowing that bullshit line of thinking. Mahomes has real flaws that he needs to work on, but he’s Manziel without the cocaine and I’ll bet on that player over a safer option.

Note: This is where I had Goff last year and I should have been more cautious, if I had it over I would probably have him below Kizer and Trubisky, but alas I was a bit hasty and in year two of ranking this way. There will be mistakes and I’m not ready to call defeat on Goff, but I wanted to note this before I got to the last two of the relatively consensus top 4.

3) DeShone Kizer, Jr, Notre Dame, 6’ 4.25” 233 lbs – Expected Starter (6.3)

Stats – Yards: 2925, Attempts: 361, Yds/Att: 8.102

Completion%: 56.2%, Sack Rate: 6.5%, TD to INT Ratio: 2.89

Kizer has all the upside in the world, and if you made a highlight reel of most NFL-ready passes he probably had that covered after the Texas game. I have two major concerns here that keep me from bumping him closer to the Mariota/Watson/Mahomes level and farther from the Trubisky/Lynch area and those are confidence and the combination of completion percentage and sack rate. He’s admitted to confidence issues at Notre Dame and by all accounts off the field personal issues and Brian Kelly’s incompetence did him no favors. Actually, the latter is the main cause for concern one as well. If we take out the nearly 30 passes Kelly made Kizer throw in a freaking hurricane Kizer hit’s the 60% benchmark for completion percentage. I like Kizer I just have nagging doubts about Kizer that I can’t shake.

Note: I can reasonably see Kizer proving me dead wrong and it would make me pretty happy because I’m a big fan of this kid’s upside.

4) Mitchell “Don’t call, ok you can call me, Mitch” Trabisky, Jr, North Carolina, 6’ 2 1/8” 222 lbs – Expected Starter (6.2)

Stats - Yards: 3748, Attempts: 447, Yds/Att: 8.385

Completion%: 68.0%, Sack Rate: 4.3%, TD to INT Ratio: 5.00

The stats scream extreme competence for Trubisky and that’s great, I should love this player theoretically, but there is something wrong that I can’t shake. There is no better description of Trubisky’s dichotomy than the bookends to his season. His coming out party against Georgia was impressive, the team stumbled a bit down the stretch but Trubisky had them within reach of the Bulldogs and put him on mine, and many others, radar. The bowl game against Stanford was rough. He made poor decisions multiple times and showed his inexperience and glimpse as to why he couldn’t pass Marquise Williams on the roster for two seasons. One reason stated for this was that coaches were looking to avoid a locker room mutiny. That scares me more than Kizers “yips” or Mahomes’ gunslinger-ness.

Note: For the second time, I wanted to point out where I had someone ranked last season. Here’s the Wentz line. I want to rant so much here, but I won’t this is where I had Wentz and, unlike with Goff, I stand by this rating.

5) Jerod Evans, Jr, Va Tech, 6’ 3” 232 lbs – Potential Starter (5.7)

Stats - Yards: 3552, Attempts: 422, Yds/Att: 8.417

Completion%: 63.5%, Sack Rate: 7.0%, TD to INT Ratio: 3.625

Evans is going to surprise many here, but he compares favorably across a statistical profile. He has the size, the arm, and flashed early in the season when he was healthy. He’s got upside and managed to be impressive despite being hampered by a lower body injury all season. He’s got the upside, we’ll see if he gets a chance to shine or gets buried.

6) Brad Kaaya, Jr, Miami (FL), 6’ 4” 214 lbs – Potential Starter (5.5)

Stats - Yards: 3532, Attempts: 421, Yds/Att: 8.390

Completion%: 62.0%, Sack Rate: 5.6%, TD to INT Ratio: 3.857

Kaaya is this year’s Cody Kessler. Yes, he’s probably a back-up but he’s going to stick in the league for a decade he’s going to be good in spot starts but he doesn’t have the arm or the upside to be the long-term starter for a Super Bowl caliber team.

7) Josh Dobbs, Sr, Tennessee, 6’ 3” 216 lbs – Potential Starter (5.5)

Stats - Yards: 2946, Attempts: 357, Yds/Att: 8.252

Completion%: 63.0%, Sack Rate: 6.5%, TD to INT Ratio: 2.250

Dobbs was lights out in the second half of the season, after disappointing early. He will have zero problem picking up a playbook, but when you watch him play it appears to be clinical. He’s Clapton to Mahomes’ Prince. Clapton is amazingly proficient and that should be applauded, but Prince will blow your mind technically and make you feel. Dobbs has a chance to be good, but I fear there will always be something missing you can’t quite quantify.

8) Chad Kelly, Sr, Ole Miss, 6’ 2” 224 lbs – Potential Starter (5.2)

Stats - Yards: 2758, Attempts: 328, Yds/Att: 8.409

Completion%: 62.5%, Sack Rate: 4.7%, TD to INT Ratio: 2.375

If Mahomes gives me Favre-esque chills on the field, Kelly provides Favre level concerns off of it. Kelly is a promising prospect who skills-wise is probably the best QB in this tier, but he has too many well-documented troubles that have affected his on-field performances in college to make me want to take anything but a second half of the draft flier on him.

9) Nathan Peterman, Sr, Va Tech, 6’ 2.5” 226 lbs – Potential Starter (5.1)

Stats - Yards: 2855, Attempts: 306, Yds/Att: 9.330

Completion%: 60.5%, Sack Rate: 3.2%, TD to INT Ratio: 3.857

10) Davis Webb, Sr, California, 6’ 5” 229 lbs – Potential Starter (5.0)

Stats - Yards: 4295, Attempts: 620, Yds/Att: 6.927

Completion%: 61.6%, Sack Rate: 2.5%, TD to INT Ratio: 3.083

I’m combining these two because I don’t get it with either. Where’s the upside? Peterman has a good Y/A, but he also was the least used healthy quarterback of the bunch by a considerable margin. Neither gets sacked much, but neither is overly dynamic in any facet of the game, both left programs after getting beat by better prospects higher up this list (Webb-Mahomes, Peterman-Dobbs). There are people eviscerated Goff last season who love them some Webb, and all I see is 620 pass attempts leading to a profile that lacks depth after that total yards passing level. That’s not to say there isn’t growth potential, but I see more from the previous four prospects than I do from either of these two.

So, there we are, my QB ranks. I like this class more than last season, and it’s the first time in a couple years that I’m confident we have multiple long term answers at the top of the draft. Mahomes and Evans are my favorites in this draft, with Trubisky, Webb, and Peterman as those I’m wary of. I think we see five QBs drafted in the first round and the landing spots will be fascinating if nothing else.