Content available exclusively for subscribers
Scouting college quarterbacks, and trying to figure out whether they will succeed on the NFL, is incredibly hard.
The Jets know firsthand after picking two quarterbacks in the first round the last few, and things didn’t work out exactly as planned.
Why is it so hard?
Recently Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton said the number one thing he is looking for is quick processing, both out of the huddle, at the line of scrimmage, and when the play begins. He added that it’s really hard to evaluate that stuff.
Former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah, now a draft analyst for NFL Network, agreed with Payton.
“It’s darn near impossible,” Jeremiah said about the challenge of evaluating the quick processing element. “You do your best to try and figure it out and you try and watch guys and you try and see and follow their eyes and how they’re getting to one to two to three and how quickly they’re doing that, but without knowing how they’re coached and what the scheme calls for them to do, it still makes it a little bit difficult.”
And how do you evaluate the ability of college quarterbacks to process quickly, when first-reads are often wide open on the college level?
“In the college game you can win a lot of games on first read throws,” Jeremiah said. “They spread people from sea to shining sea. You know presnap where you are going with the ball and you deliver it, and you can win games and get a bunch of big plays that way. It’s a little bit of a different game (then the NFL) in that regard.”
So how do you evaluate whether somebody can do something that they weren’t asked to do? So the first time they are often asked to do it, is after you drafted them.
That is a brutal scenario from a player evaluation standpoint.
When you are scouting a college edge rusher, you see them facing an offensive tackle, and you can see what they can do. Now you can see some of the tackles aren’t great, true, but they are still doing the exact job you will be asking them to do on the next level.
When you watch a cornerback covering a receiver on the college level, you can see their cover skills. It’s pretty clear. Covering is covering.
But playing QB in college is such a different animal than playing in the NFL.
So that is the challenge that NFL personnel guys and coaches are dealing with in evaluating college quarterbacks.
Look, before he stepped down as GM, even one of the greatest QBs of all time, Denver’s John Elway, really struggled evaluating college QBs, and he was both a great college and NFL QB. He did it well on both levels, and he couldn’t figure it out, picking guys like Paxton Lynch and Brock Osweiler, high, and they were both out of the league prematurely due to not working out.
So people can destroy Joe Douglas over the Zach Wilson pick, but he has plenty of company.
February 26, 2024
Premium will return by 9:30 pm (or earlier) on Tuesday.
