NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 233. 2024 NFL Draft QB Rankings

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers give you their updated Top 8 quarterbacks for the 2024 NFL Draft

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year.

It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama. That is Connor Rogers joining you guys for a very special ranking episode. The one that everybody's been waiting for.

Just kidding. We know you like the wide receivers better, but it's quarterbacks. It's the ones that get all of the headlines, determines the very top of the draft. It determines the top of day two, and it determines the top of day three. Everything revolves around this position. How strong the quarterback position is well that's how the rest of the nfl draft goes no matter what is going on with those other positions as well very excited about this one connor obviously we have a

quarterback class that is good enough to potentially go one two three we've talked about that so many times as we have done mock draft episodes but there's other plenty of other quarterbacks that could threaten the first round quarterback record. You know, do we get five? Do we get six? Do we get seven in my best LeBron James voice with the Miami heat? How many quarterbacks are we getting in the first round? We're going to determine how much we like a lot of these guys that we have in the top eight today. I'm very excited to break it down with you.

How you doing my friend? I'm good, man. This is one of those where it almost feels like it got away from us because we talk about these guys so much anyway that you look back and you're like, wow, we actually never did the quarterback episode where we, of course, we do summer scouting every single year, but that's a long time ago now. I mean, a really long time ago now where things have changed.

Some guys have gone back to school. Some guys had good seasons. Some of it went pretty close to how we expected it to. And it'll be fun to, I think more importantly than rank these guys, actually talk about the areas that they're succeeding at and the areas they need to grow at because there's probably no position more than quarterback that the growth area evaluation part is so vital and i think it's something that you just naturally get a little better at year after year because you learn from your misses right that's how it's gone for me this is the hardest position i think to evaluate in terms of uh success rate because there's so much you also can't see you know how is a guy's mental makeup which is just to succeed at this position in sports you have to be built so differently and that's a really hard thing for a lot of people to see where even teams miss on it all the time and

they spend time around these guys non-stop so and have connections around these guys that are really really helpful so yeah this will be a really good episode, man, because you nailed it. This is a class that I wrote something in my NFL draft notebook for NBC Sports on Friday that was, hey, here's the six guys I think that can go in the first round, and here's everything you need to know about them. And the fact that that's the conversation, right? Here are six guys that legitimately could go in the first round. Yeah.

That's pretty insane, right? Here are six guys that legitimately could go in the first round. Yeah. That's pretty insane, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we would learn from our misses if we had any. Yeah, that's right. We don't, right? If I had them. No, but I mean, you're totally right.

It's a position that I was having this conversation with Steve Palazzolo the other day. We have so much film, so much data that we try to contextualize as best that we possibly can here at pff and we think that it it helps so much we feel like we have a lot of data that you can't really get anywhere else that helps you evaluate this position but even with all of that there's no blueprint like oh if this guy is great in this area it means it's going to be great in the nfl you just never know because of how much is on the position shoulders and you mentioned this getting to know these guys their work ethic how they're going to fit with the team a city an organization the leadership qualities the toughness the intangibles how much they can get better are they capped out in college all of

these questions that come into account when you're evaluating these guys and we're going to break down some of that here as we get to our top eight so this isn't the last time that we're going to talk about quarterbacks obviously we have the combine coming up we got a little bit of time to get to you know what's going to be our final big boards our final rankings but like you mentioned we haven't done a formal qb ranking episode in a long long time we've kept tabs on these guys we watched them in college football obviously as we have updated our rankings and done mock drafts. But it's different when you really get to sit down. And for me, it's been writing these guys up for the draft guide. I've got to have trait breakdowns.

I've got to have PFF statistics. I've got to have strengths, weaknesses, scouting summaries, bottom lines about these guys, the round grades that I have for them, the offenses that I think that they could fit in, trump cards, red flags, all this stuff. And it's so different even when you get to sit down and view players through this kinds of lens. I learned a lot about quarterbacks in this class that I had opinions on.

It's not like it drastically changed one way or the other, but I saw guys differently. Absolutely. And I think that you're going to see that in these rankings. So if you want to kick it off, my friend, who do you have at number eight here in your quarterback rankings? Michael Pratt. And he is somebody that from Tulane, for everybody listening, just getting into the draft, I promise I will try to be better about that and not assume that you know who quarterbacks from Tulane are or anything like that. Now, Pratt,

he was on our radar during summer scouting. This wasn't my first look at him counting the senior bowl. And we had a conversation, Trevor, I remember in the middle of the season, because Pratt got banged up this year. He came back and he just didn't look like himself. So I remember we've talked about him a couple different occasions now. He comes in at number eight for me. He's an interesting player because he was a four-year starter in college. He played for Tulane four years. Now you're seeing all these fifth and sixth-year players. Pratt was a four-year starter.

Basically, he got there in 2020. He was a three-star recruiter. Didn't start playing football until his freshman year of high school. I believe he was actually homeschooled growing up before high school. So a kind of a, you know, late starter in terms of just playing the sport, not even playing quarterback and gets to Tulane and he starts nine games as a freshman and then starts, you know, 11 the following year, 13 after that and 11 this year. Cause like I said, he got banged up and he was a senior bowl guy he was one of the first guys to accept that senior bowl invite Pratt is interesting because he's not somebody like a lot of these guys with this crazy arm and he'll have all these big time throws I mean you look at 2023 2,405 passing yards 22 touchdowns five picks 19 big time throws that's

a good number for him also had 14 turnover worthy plays and then the year before that he did pass for 3 000 yards 27 touchdowns five picks 13 big time throws and seven turnover worthy plays so it felt like when i watched him trevor i felt like 2022 as a whole was a better year for him tape wise but he also didn't have as much of the extraordinary, but he also, what I think is one of the calling cards of his game was just this timing and rhythm thrower and in command of the offense. And that's what you see for a guy that he's had almost 1500 dropbacks for Tulane. I mean, he's just played a lot of football for them. Full field reader, good mobility on rollouts. He has no problem picking up some yards with his feet for scrambles

when defenders drop too far into zone coverage. I thought he throws with good touch. He understands how to throw a changeup. I think that when he gets in rhythm, just managing the game with timing is very, very natural to him. Now the limitations that, in my opinion, are physical, right? Where I kind of look at Pratt and see the ceiling to not be very high is that I don't think he has this big arm I didn't see him drive the

ball outside the numbers consistently it's not something they really wanted him doing a lot right on the throws I got to watch it's not something that really jumped out I actually thought defenders and coverage were able to break back and make a play on the ball easier when he had to really push the ball and try to drive it because it just didn't have that high end velocity a lot of these guys have coming out and this is a four-year starter so when we talk about somebody you know I remember I had this conversation years ago about Jared Goff when Jared Goff was coming out he was I believe 21 as a prospect and I was I liked Goff I liked Goff quite a bit and I remember one thing I wrote

down with him was like I just don't know if his arms are strong as usually see for a number one overall pick. And an evaluator at the time that I was having a meal with was like, you got to realize when a prospect you're watching the film and he's 20 or 21 bed on the arm getting stronger. But it's not typically like that for guys that are 23 or 24 as prospects. So the one thing for me, Trevor, and I'm really curious your thoughts on this. I thought when under pressure, all the things you love about him, it kind of started to fall apart, like the accuracy and that rhythm throwing.

And sometimes the guys like this that know how to point guard the game, they thrive under pressure because they're just so comfortable getting the ball out. And I thought with Pratt, he didn't look comfortable under pressure at all. You know, Pratt's also my number eight. So this makes it an easy transition here to continue to talk about it.

You know, I'll list off some PFF statistics throughout this show. But just like some of the other rankings that we've had, when I do those, just keep in your mind, it's almost always, whenever I can, it's a two-year sample size of these things because you at least want to have a two-year sample size of data to show because more volume in the data that represents what you're looking at is going to often be more true than something that might just be like one year, it's more difficult to replicate. You don't know if it's going to be consistent so you know his under pressure grade you're just answering your question there it's not bad his plan or pressure is actually a 62.4 grade but i mean also when when you look at his his play like outside of structure because that's another category that i like to judge with these guys i look at um scramble grade so there's there's categories where we can look at dropbacks

and how guys perform for different dropbacks there's six different categories of basically like a qb getting moved and it's like scramble right scramble left and then there's like roll out plus scrambles um and then there's like roll out one direction kind of scramble the other almost just kind of like a broken drill but there are ways where we can look at the grades for the throws and the performance of just really when a QB is moved off of his spot. Because some rollouts are designed, but we're trying to measure, okay, did you roll out? And then is there pressure there or whatever? Is it not as in rhythm? So it's true, like QBs are moved off platform kind of a throws. Scramble Gray, he had a 60.2, which is okay. An adjusted completion percentage actually was really good.

It was a 78.6. I think, too, what you're talking about with Pratt, though, and what makes his evaluation a tricky one for me is he was a very different quarterback after he hurt his knee wildly different because there are games and i i like like we've said before on this show when i evaluate guys i will watch the previous year and then i will watch obviously the year that we we just had because you want to see progression you want to see okay did a guy get worse did he get better in certain areas pratt's 2022 film there's a handful of really nice games from him.

And that first game of the season this year, I think it was South Alabama is who they were playing. Dude, he was damn near perfect. He had like a 95.0 PFF passing grade. It was unbelievable. It was an incredible performance. Layering throws to the sideline, over the middle of the seam, deep ball passes, rollouts in the pocket.

Like he was an assassin and then on one of the very last plays of that game he scrambles it takes a weird hit misses some games because of a knee injury and he just didn't look the same yeah and i don't know if it's because he didn't trust the knee or what it wasn't it wasn't his back knee that he heard it was his front knee which you know that one right what did you say it wasn't the plant leg no it wasn't it wasn't the back leg it wasn't the drive leg it was more but sometimes i've heard guys say that when you hurt the front knee even though it's not the drive knee that the the back foot sometimes that's that makes you a little bit more skittish because that's the knee that's closer to the line of scrimmage like it's

closer to pressure. So I felt like he didn't climb the pocket the way he needed to. He didn't follow through the way he needed to. He wasn't as tough in the pocket. I think because of that, you saw some just very head-scratching misses from him after that injury. And the reason why it's tricky is because for some of these guys, we have measurements already. If guys went to the Senior Bowl or the Shrine Bowl, we have their measurements, so we don't have to wait till the combine.

Pratt, you mentioned, was at the Senior Bowl. Pratt measured in about 6'2.5", that's 43rd percentile, 216 pounds, 31st percentile. But here's the issue. Nine-inch hands, flat, that's eighth percentile for NFL quarterbacks. His arm length is 30.5. That's not that big of a deal for what I quarterbacks his arm length is is 30 and a half that's not that big of a deal for what i'm talking about but just to give you guys the numbers nine inch hands are small hands and there are times when that ball flutters on him a little bit oh yeah and i think it's because he does not have big enough hands to truly grip the football

and when he can throw in rhythm like you mentioned i think everything's kind of married up very well and he still throw he could still throw a tight spiral with good clean mechanics because i think he has really good mechanics but there are times when he just misses and i wonder if it's okay was it the knee or is it because the hand size is really hindering how much control you have over that ball so he does a lot of things well I agree with you when he's playing in rhythm in timing in structure really good quarterback you mentioned the touch throws it's one of my favorite things about him that I noted really nice touch throw and there's that's not the case for everybody in this class some guys really struggle to take some juice off of it he i like how you put it throws the change up really well so i agree with you there's a lack of velocity there's a

lack of distance that you can get from this guy but he could play point guard from for you when you look at that 2022 tape that's a point guard type of a quarterback you know you talk about guys like brock purdy's the easy example that's on the top of everybody's mind and i don't mean this to say like a massive insult to the kind of year that brock purdy has had over the last two years really but that's kind of what you're talking about here he is a big-time facilitator and that's sort of the mold that i see with michael pratt so I ended up giving him a late third round grade. That's what I've got with him off of film. And, you know, when it's quarterback, you know, sometimes get picked a little bit higher, but to me, I saw the same physical limitations that you

did, but ultimately I just still have that question mark. Did you have the accuracy issues throughout 2023 because of hand size, like lack of literally physical ability? Or was that knee really bugging you all year long? Because in that first year, like I said, that first game, you looked damn near perfect. And since then, it just wasn't the same. So he's a little bit of a tricky eval for me,

but I ultimately came up with a late third round grade for Michael Pratt. He reminded me a little bit of Jake Browning in a way, same build, same style of play. They ironically both have those nine inch hands. So if you're looking for somebody that not only has hung around the league for a while, and it will be a backup in this league for a long time,

but had some successful moments when he filled in for Joe Burrow this year with not much expectations. I think that was something that, you know, came up while watching Pratt. I was like, I feel like I just watched someone a littlerow this year with not much expectations I think that was something that you know came up while watching Pratt I was like I feel like I just watched someone a little similar this year and I was like definitely how Browning plays as well so uh and Pratt's gonna do well for himself I think Pratt's gonna be a third or fourth round pick in this draft I really do that's basically where I had his film grade it was it was a late third it was kind of teetering on that like fourth round, third round kind of kind of a numerical grade that it came away with film.

So we got a number seven. Spencer Rattler. I don't know if there's much of a surprise here. Are you higher or lower on him or right there? So I have I have Spencer at seven. I do have Spencer at seven. Your brain kind of twisted into a pretzel for a second. Because I. Because him and pennix are extremely close for me wow okay him and pennix are extremely close and there was a point where i was kind of going through quarterbacks where i actually had spencer a little bit higher than pennix just because of some limitations that will get to pennix you think i would leave the show that's why yes i felt like you were gonna quit the show and i don't need to go out and hire a podcast

co-host um with two months until the draft so i didn't need to go out and hire a podcast co-host with two months until the draft. So I didn't need that. So I ended up, no, but I, these guys have very, very similar grades. They're different players we get into, but I also have Spencer Rattler at number seven. So go ahead. I enjoyed watching Rattler because he's just had such a long windy road. I mean, he's going to be, and this isn't a good thing, but it's an interesting thing. he's going to be and this isn't a good thing but it's an interesting thing he's going to be 24 on draft night so he turns 24 i believe at the end of march he's had beer yes 100 we think he might have had one beer the over under is 0.5 beer well we'll see where it's at he's a smaller guy stature wise. He's,

you know, I believe six feet tall and an eighth, six. Yeah. Yeah. An eighth. Weight's fine. Two 19.

He's, you know, filled out. So this year there are 3,183 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, eight interceptions, 12 big time throws, 11 turnover.

He plays not numbers that pop out at all in any kind of way. When you watch this offense and this team, you genuinely have some sympathy for Spencer Rattler. I believe I read they started 10 different offensive line combinations. Brother, I looked it up and did the math. He was pressured on almost 40% of his drop back yeah it's 38 it was like it was like i think i came up with like just over 39 but whatever like it's it's close i don't i don't know i might have had a filter clicked on or whatever that's we're always a hair off i feel

like one of us has a weird filter on i had 38 but the point stands it's insane by the way 40 percent of his dropbacks not just this year over the last two years yeah it's it was a massive issue I mean to put in context that was a big thing we talked about Will Levis last year Will Levis barely stood a chance on so many different plays so this is somebody that was pressured a ridiculous amount in his two years at South Carolina he didn't really stand a chance back there. I think that he's a very natural thrower. And what I mean by that is there's just really no wasted motion when he throws the ball at all. It's, it's very easy for him,

a legit scrambler. He improved at keeping his eyes up when scrambling to make a play, to make a throw. When the play breaks down, I thought he showed an improved understanding of getting the ball out faster in 2023 with quicker area throws. He got a little out of that,

you know, just hunting a huge play because I think he just had the awareness around him that they didn't have that kind of offense where it's like, you know what? I got to get this ball out in the short area with accuracy and give my guy a chance to have a catch and run ball rather than just hunting these intermediate and deep areas of the field over and over again. And speaking of the intermediate area

of the middle of the field, this is where he throws it a lot of velocity. This was a really promising number that stood out for me this year in 2023 in that 10 to 19 yard range in between the numbers 30 for 44, 68.2 completion percentage completion percentage uh averaging 11.4 yards per attempt four touchdowns in one pick he was very accurate he threw with anticipation in the intermediate area of the field which surprised me because for a guy that's about six feet tall and i thought at times on the field in mobile i didn't think he was seeing things that well that first day of practice and he got better as the week went on on tape he's fine seeing things in the middle of the field I didn't really think he got lost too much and when you talk about the lack of big time throws this year only 12

this is a dude that had 32 big time throws for Oklahoma in 2020 and 21 for South Carolina in 2022 the arm talent's very evident it's just he wasn't in a great offense in my opinion where you're constantly showing off that arm and i watched the film i just found myself saying over and over again can somebody make a play for this guy there wasn't a lot of separation right there wasn't a lot of let me go be a hero for my quarterback here um he's clearly matured since being a recruit and a young starter at ok, taking full advantage of a fresh start. You get to the negatives. They're problematic.

The unnecessary prayers into coverage. I mean, he's got 33 turnover-worthy plays in the last two years. It's gotten better. It's still a little bit of an issue. 14 fumbles over the last two seasons. He's pressured so much, but he gets happy feet and leaves the pocket early and runs himself into sacks. He didn't have confidence in the line, and I get it,

but then there was times where there was clean dropbacks, and he just ran himself into a sack. It's lack of trust, but it's also one of those situations where you'd like to see him have a little bit more of a calm demeanor. He didn't really challenge outside the numbers often or successfully in 2023 and like i said he'll be one of the older quarterbacks of this class i don't really care about that because nicks and pennix are in the same combo of that but yeah there's a lot to like what rather he's a high variance quarterback though which is weird for a mid-round quarterback

because those are typically guys that you draft as backups, but with Rattler, he has starter traits and also really bad late day three habits. Yeah. That I don't, I think honestly, that's just him and you have to live with them, but you will fall in love with the tantalizing play. And as he's matured, it gives you hope that it is steadily going in the right direction.

Yeah. I see him decently similarly to you. And this is a prospect that's tough for me to quit because of context, right? I felt I was actually lower on him when he was at Oklahoma with better stats and more big time throws and things like that, because I was like, OK, you're kind of playing in a gimmicky offense. There's no defense in the Big 12 when he was basically at the big 12 lincoln riley was you know cooking up stuff that was taking advantage of of inferior defenses and inferior coverage and

rattler was able to just kind of sit back there no pressure unleash a pretty big arm and there was just there was no real translation to what we saw in Oklahoma to the NFL level. Now, all right, everybody, calm down. Don't use that as ammo against Caleb Williams. It's different. We'll get to Caleb Williams later in the show. Very different. But when I look at Spencer Rattler, he is somebody who I think he's better than his PFF grades.

Okay? Yeah. We've got some things that we categorize as more stable metrics when it comes to projecting guys from college to the NFL. Um, we also have a, a statistic called wins above average that we use to try to quantify value. And obviously quarterbacks have higher wins above average. It's very similar to kind of like what you hear in baseball the categories for passing grade that are typically most translatable or most stable are passing grade from a clean pocket because you've got i mean straight up you we like to talk about the out of structure stuff and the out of structure stuff is what kind of like takes you

to the next level it's what makes you an x factor. Like, okay, are you, are you something special? But in order to be something special, you have to have a good baseline. So you're great from a clean pocket. You're great on a standard drop back, no matter how far the distance, or if there's play action, I'm talking about like a standard drop back, no rollouts, no scrambles, no nothing like that. A standard drop back early down work. So what are you as a passer on first down and second down to set the tone, to put yourself in third and advantageous situations, or even convert first downs before you get to third downs. And then no play action is the other one.

So those are the four kind of contextualized passing grade categories that we think are most stable. And I'll read off some other numbers for some of the guys that are a lot higher that have elite passing grades. But Rattlers is 87.8 from a clean pocket which is good but then you really drop off 70.0 in standard drop backs 60 69.7 in early down passing 65.4 in no play action um and it's just these things get worse and worse under pressure outside of rhythm 37.7 but man like, the volume was so big when it came to pressure plays. It's almost like you just, like you said, feel bad for the guy.

He's throwing up a lot of prayers and a lot of contested catch situations to Xavier Leguette, but it's like, dude, again, I don't mean to make excuses for the guy. Who else is he throwing to? Juice Wells was hurt this past year. They didn't have anybody. People can point to Nick Harbour, who is a wide receiver, who is the number one overall recruit, number one on Bruce Feldman's freak list.

I mean, he's just one of the most insane athletes I've ever seen. But he's a true freshman. You go watch Nick Harbour's reps, you go, this dude's got no idea what he's doing. No, they're just out there. They didn't know if Nick Harbour was going to play defensive end or wide receiver basically before this season. So there's no polish

to what he has going on so rattler not only did he have not have an offensive line in front of him he didn't really have anybody to throw to other than xavier laguette so all that is kind of context there because i know people kind of freak out when when you say spencer rattler's name when i look at the strengths and weaknesses a lot of them are kind of repeats from what you said and he's got really good footwork i think he's a really good fundamentally sound quarterback um there's not a ton that's like going on that's extracurricular or that's you know prohibiting him from getting the ball out cleanly and quickly uh i mentioned that he's not much of a rushing threat but he definitely has a good enough feel of the pocket to where like okay if this is a time if this is an area where i can pick up a couple yards of my legs he can do that his pocket presence definitely much improved from the

oklahoma days i think the feet are lighter i think he's constantly looking down the field but he does have a high sack rate you mentioned the fumbles something to be conscious of not afraid to attack over the middle of the field i had that noted as well and i think that's a huge plus yeah the weaknesses the accuracy is good but the ball placement definitely not at like an elite or special level he's almost exclusively a shotgun quarterback which is okay in today's nfl eat away a lot of these guys are basically shotgun players but worth noting i think the arm talent is adequate is good i don't think it's crazy special like some of the other guys that we're going to talk about. This is one area that I think that he needs to practically improve on. When he threw a lot of his turnover where he plays, it was because he struggled to see additional coverage defenders.

So like linebackers, safeties, beyond the primary defenders, he could see pre-snap. He could say, okay, I got my slot guy right here i know that he's running he's running somewhat of a slant or something over the middle the corners got outside leverage on him so now he's got a free release to the inside i'm gonna hit this guy because he's gonna get quick separation and he'll look he'll identify that and he'll throw the ball and oops the linebacker just undercut it there he he was. Didn't even see him. And I think that happened a couple of times where he is getting better at identifying coverages pre-snap, but he needs to continue to evolve to see the entire defensive picture,

and I think he could possibly get there. Overall, I think that I agree with you. This is a – I gave him a third-round grade because I think this is a player who is improving. Contextually, you can... I don't want to say make excuses for, but there's reasons why he struggled beyond just his limitations, though he has them.

And I think this is a player that has continued to get better. And he shows starting traits. I think that's just the easiest way to say it. I'd take him in the third round because I think he could potentially be an NFL starter. So that's probably where I would draft him. So that's Spencer Rattler for me. Yeah. Wild ride. Spencer Rattler's career. Um, wild ride. And it was definitely different than I expected when I watched him to be honest with you in a good, in a mostly good way. Yeah. Dude, Jim Nagy said this before the senior bowl. He's like Spencer Rattler's way higher on

team boards than I think a lot of media people are. And it seems like media people just said, oh yeah, Spencer Rattler, he's bad. Was bad at Oklahoma, got run out of Oklahoma. He's played at South Carolina. You look at the middling stats he's had over the last couple of years. And if you don't look at the context

and you don't really look at the film with him, it's understandable that everybody would come away with the same conclusion. But he's not just his statistics he's not the same quarterback he was at oklahoma and again i i think the nfl is going to draft him somewhere at the end of day two that's what i feel like i think so too i think yeah and that's and that's pretty parallel to where i have him film grade wise yeah me too what do you got a six do you want to uh do six since you already said oh yeah so do okay so i'm assuming you have bow i do okay all right all right sorry that i was

zoning out i got a call from my building to open the main entrance you know you get like a delivery and just you just you personally it's really weird it trips me up every time I think it's a spam call. I thought you were the overlord of the building. That would be sick. Yes, you may enter. No, you may not get your food. So do you have. Pennix at five.

No, no, no. You're going to be very I think you're going to be very surprised by my quarterback rankings. That's a teaser in the biz, folks. You got to stick around. All right. You got Pennix at one. Eight and seven was a pretty like soft landing. Yeah, it was.

I do have a Knicks at six. Okay. Should we talk about Pennix now then? Sure. We're talking about Knicks now. All right. We'll talk about Pennix now. It's fine.

So Michael Pennix Jr., who I'm going to sound like a massive hater, and I truly hate that this is the case because I love him. Like, even going back to the Indiana days, we've talked about him pretty highly on this podcast for what he can do as a passer. We do have some measurables for him. So he's a redshirt senior. He was a sixth-year player, right, this past year? Or fifth-year player? I believe he was a sixth-year. We do have some measurables for him. So he's a redshirt senior. He was a six year player,

right? This past year or fifth year player. I believe it was a sixth year, six year player. I think a lot of like him, Jaden and Bo, I think we're all in there. Yeah.

So he's, he's an older prospect. He's six foot, he's six foot two and a half, uh, 212 pounds. So that's 43rd percentile and 19th percentile, which is okay because his hands are fricking huge,

massive, uh, 10 inch third or yeah 10 inches wait okay come on now 10 5 8s oh it's 5 8s i think so trying to find it here no it's 10 and 3 8s 3 8s okay 93rd percentile it doesn't matter it's in the 90s and then uh 33rd and five eights uh arm length which is 94th percentile the guy's got vines put him in a dresser folks if it doesn't work out a quarterback there you go obviously this dude was a super productive player over the last couple years specifically this past year

um if you look at some of his pff statistics i mentioned that some of these guys have elite passing grades pennix is one of them. Clean pocket, 94.2 grade. Standard drop back, 93.0. Early downs, 91.3. No play action, 87.4. Under pressure, 65.1, which is fine. It's totally fine.

Adjusted completion percentage, 74.3. Those are all really great numbers for Michael Penix. I think over the middle of the field, he had 90 passing attempts over the middle of the field over the last two seasons, 87.7 grade over the middle, which is fine. It's on the lower end for some of these guys that we're going to talk about that are ahead of him.

45 first down throws over the middle, zero big time throws, but two turnover worthy plays. For Penix, I think that arm strength is a trump card for him. And it's not often when that, I don't put like every single strength as a trump card for a player. But when it is truly a major difference maker, I will highlight it. And I think that arm strength for Penix is a trump card.

He has NFL starting caliber, NFL arm strength in both distance and velocity, which is not always the case for guys. Sometimes they just have the ability to put a lot of air under it, really good understanding of trajectory to be able to get the ball downfield in rhythm and with good timing with his receivers. But that doesn't mean that you can rip it over the middle in between coverage. Penes can absolutely do both. He's got no hesitation to give his players a deep shot. in any sort of spread vertical offense this is somebody who coaches are going to love he is a very strong sideline thrower i think most of his production comes from throwing outside the numbers which again if you are in a spread out offense you're trying to get every single blade of grass covered by the other team you consistently being able to hit outside the numbers is important.

Now, so it's throwing over the middle. And I don't think he throws over the middle as well as some of these other guys, but that's something that we'll get to. Some of the negatives that I have with Penix, because what I mentioned is what made him one of the most productive receiver or sorry, quarterbacks in the country. It made him a Heisman Trophy finalist, and it is a baseline arm talent-wise to give him a shot as a starting quarterback in the NFL. But the long arms require a much longer sidearm windup when it comes to getting the ball out of his hand, just naturally from having longer arms. I also don't think that he always throws from his feet up. Sometimes his feet and his arms are not married together. And in fact, he has a lot of upper body that he relies on when

he is trying to put a ton of heat on these passes. So that is something that can get better, but definitely needs work. Their completion percentage for him is fine, but the true ball placement, I think, is the thing that is the most inconsistent for him. And I wonder, is this just something that is always going to elude him, that true ball placement i think is is the thing that is the most inconsistent for him and i wonder is this just something that is always going to elude him that true ball placement is it something gets better if he is able to hone in on his fundamentals and like i said marry those feet with his with his upper body make it more of a fluid throwing motion instead of just trying to shot put the ball as hard as he possibly can and then also throwing with touch i don't think pennix throws with touch nearly as well as some of the other quarterbacks that i have listed ahead of him so that then also goes into ball placement

you see so many great spectacular catches by guys like romo dunze and jalen polk and jalen mcmillan and you go wow those are phenomenal catches but you go back and you really put it under a microscope why were they having to do that so often i think that penix and some of these inconsistencies comes into play um he has flamethrower of arm strength but like i said it sometimes leads to him putting way too much on passes when he doesn't need to and sometimes i think it's a little bit of a crutch for him. Sometimes I think he knows he's got such a howitzer of an arm. He's a little bit later maybe to get to his progressions, but it's okay because he knows, all right, I'm going to come to this dude

and I'm already winding up. I'm firing it in there. And again, it's an impressive velocity. It's an impressive throw, and it works out for him sometimes. But I think that maybe has hindered his speed in going through his progressions also. Last thing I'll say about him is he is a really good pocket passer when it comes to having those tools that you would want.

Accuracy, like I mentioned, is still a work in progress for him, which is not always great going into the NFL as a sixth-year player. But the area that really worries me is the out of structure plays. Because when you look at his scramble grade, it is one of the lower scramble grades of any of these quarterbacks that we're going to talk about. He has a 49.1 passing grade when scrambling. He also has just a 50% completion percentage on scramble plays over the next two years so that is an issue when you talk about where the league is in its current form and it is a playmakers league the nfl is gravitating towards guys who are threats in multiple ways and penix breed is

almost a little bit of a dying breed if you can't make things happen out of structure there's too many other quarterbacks out there that can't so i wonder if that is also going to hold him back but i'll end on a positive we talk about wins above replacement pennix had one of the highest win above replacement averages over the last two years including this past season a 1.35 which might have been the highest over every quarterback uh over the last two years that we're going to talk about today i think the only one that might have been higher was drake may's 2022 season but other than that man penix brought a ton of value to his team despite some of the inconsistencies i I just wonder if at his age, and I don't really care about age,

but for as long as he's been playing college ball, are these inconsistencies and issues going to get better in the pros? Because if they don't, those are issues that can genuinely hold him back from being a long-term starter in the nfl like his arm talent tells you uh that he would be able to achieve so that's where i saw michael penix kind of gave him that early third late second round grade on film because of those inconsistencies that i saw from him okay uh so i had i had penix at number three all right in this draft let's all right let's talk about i think i think he's the best pocket passer in the draft. And I agree with you that the league has definitely migrated to dual threats.

But I don't think the pocket passer is lost. And I think you just have to be really, really good at it where you're not relying on out of structure very often. And I thought that was Penix. I do think that he's a better athlete than he gets credit for. I think that a lot of the out of the out of structure fell out of his game after he had significant injury history at Indiana. I mean, you watch those games.

He's moving around very, very differently. He was much more mobile when he was at Indiana I mean you watch those games he's moving around very very differently he was much more mobile he was in Indiana and that's a fair thing to factor in because the injury history is what it is like it exists it's a huge part of this process for him going into the NFL combine I wrote down throwing motion like this is in the negatives throwing motion is funky unorthodox we saw eye to eye on that um I think sometimes he took some unnecessary chances in the red zone when he changes arm angles the accuracy isn't the same and just that he's not going to factor in your run game very much but what he's good at just the howitzer of an arm the injuries have not impacted his unique tools that arm is every bit as good as it was before he got hurt.

And I think he knows how to reset the pocket. But I think with Penix, he's a guy that's only been sacked 16 times in the last two seasons total. His sack rate avoidance is 99th percentile, I think. He doesn't take sacks. It's him and Bo Nix that are is 99th percentile, I think. He doesn't take sacks. It's him and Bo Nix that are like 99th percentile. Him and Bo Nix are phenomenal at not taking sacks. And I think for a long time, the narrative was they both play in behind a good offensive line and a good offense.

Those numbers are too, too good for it to not be on the quarterback as well. It's just they're too low. That's insane. Yes. The offensive line will make mistakes. Yes. It is to their credit. It's how they see pressure before the snap.

It's how they react to pressure. Penix's field awareness on third and long is tremendous. He always knows where the ball has to be and when to get it out. I think that his ability to throw outside the numbers is a is elite like it's not good it's not a it's it's elite i mean this year 37 to 60 for 571 yards seven touchdowns and two picks where he's just driving the ball and i saw what grubb their offensive coordinator rubb, who's now the Seahawks offensive coordinator, what he was able to do in building this offense

was threaten the entire field in a way that not a lot of college programs can. The defense had to account for every blade of grass, whether it was the deep part of the field, whether it was the intermediate outside left, intermediate outside right. I think he's fine throwing in the middle of the field. I don't think it's the same as him throwing outside the numbers. But what he can do to pick you apart from the pocket is, I think it's the best in the draft.

I don't think he's the best quarterback in the draft. I don't think he has nearly the most upside. Obviously, I have him three. And when we get to number four, there's also areas in his game of why he could be ahead of Penix. But I just look at him and think he's so smart before the snap. He can make – I mean, he had 42 big – 43 big-time throws.

No, and – The tape is like – You can't – I am not trying to take anything away from him with those. I mean, it's – He just makes throws that guys cannot make consistently. The inconsistencies for him are clearly more of an issue for me of, I don't know if this changes with him. Because if you take him as he is, it's just my opinion,

if you take him as he is and put him in the NFL, I don't know how long he lasts right now. Like he has to get more consistent with ball placement and accuracy. And he can do like, he can read the field. He reads coverage. I think he's a smart quarterback. I really do. But it's simply just getting the ball exactly where it needs to go. Basically in a football size window, we've seen that To be the best, to be a top 15 quarterback, and that was kind of my bottom line. We're talking about him as a good quarterback, and I'm basically comparing it to if you are projecting him

as a potential top 15 quarterback. So top half quarterback of the NFL, right? That's what you want to have. I think those inconsistencies just need to get better, and I'm a little bit more worried about them than you are yeah however it will be very difficult to quit his arm like it would it will be like let's say let's say the world exists where pennix goes i don't know late first early second round right he's with the team for three four years um maybe he starts right away maybe he doesn't but let's say it does not work out with that team pennix is somebody who i will absolutely then get picked up very

quickly from another team because even if he was inconsistent at one spot you can't teach the arm strength that this dude has so he is somebody who will get multiple shots in the league if needed because of that but yeah i am uh like i said i, I'm a little bit worried about the inconsistencies for the reason. I think with Mike, I'm impressed with how he got his production. Like he's there. It's the NFL way. Pushing the ball. It's definitely, yes.

I mean, his pass the sticks rate and his air yardage rate, I think, is extremely impressive. 100%. I mean, his ADOT at pretty much every level. Obviously, a huge chunk of his yards is from 10-plus and 20-plus. I mean, he had, well, almost nearly 1,600, 1,700 yards on deep throws. He's just, it's a Nerf howler out there. But he's not going to be for everyone, and he can't be for everyone.

He can't go to a system that is built around the quarterback run threatening to open up the pass. I think he is a traditional drop back passer that can still make plays when he, when the platform moves, when he has to readjust and has to reset the pocket, but it's just a lot different than what we're accustomed to seeing right now.

I mean, you look at like Pennix, Pennix is going to fit to, in my opinion, with Kevin O'Connell, Sean Payton, obviously his offensive coordinator that had a ton of success with him in Seattle. Oh, yeah, Ryan Grubb in Seattle. Ryan Grubb in Seattle.

See, I would really like that. Yeah. I don't think he's going to go to the Vikings with a top 12 pick, but that's the spot where I would feel really good about him moving forward. Seahawks don't have their early second round pick because he traded it for Leonard. Leonard Williams? Yeah. It's going to be interesting.

I know I'm going to be higher on him than consensus, and I knew this a long time ago um oh you're high all right no for me my quarterback i had the tears as my qb1 is in a tier my qb2 is in a tier we'll do we can do tears at the end yeah so like So like there is a gap here, but yeah, he was QB three for me. Okay. And he's QB six for you. Yep. Um, but who, where's Nick's for you?

Six. Okay. Nick's is five for me. So we can have the bone X conversation here. So, um, yeah, you want to talk about next? Sure. I'll be a little quicker on him. Cause I, I would like to hear from you.

I know you've liked Bo for a while. Yeah. Nix is fascinating because he's really rebuilt himself at Oregon. And that's been the story of this quarterback class. This guy is rebuilding themselves through the transfer portal. He had just an incredibly efficient year. He had over 4,450 yards, 45 touchdowns, three picks, 20 big time throws, only five turnover worthy plays. Incredible ability to take care of the football.

Came up short against Washington in those two big games, which was frustrating, but he has an incredible ability to take care of the football. Was not the same runner this year he was in 2022. He had over 500 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns in 2022. This year he had 23 500 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns in 2022 this year he had 234 rushing yards six rushing touchdowns because they were just able to air it out more or i say air it out just throw more uh at a higher rate it felt like he's very in command of this offense he will nickel and dime defenses non-stop non-stop his internal clock is very very good once again him

and panics do not take sacks the internal clock was great the timing with his receivers was well seasoned he was very good against pressure this year i mean 43 of 64 dude 9.7 yards per attempt while under pressure nine touchdowns one pick He could throw a different arm angles. To me, he's just a guy that is physically limited. His arm does not drive the ball outside the numbers with high velocity. I think we saw that in Mobile. He just didn't have a good grip on the ball most of the week. In college, I mean, he had 900 passing yards

just off of throws behind the line of scrimmage this year. Like he is a next to me will be the classic case of a guy that you would love as your backup. He'll be drafted as a future starter. You can win games with him as a starter, but I never see him as a play driver. I see him truly as a point guard that needs those elite scoring threats around him where he's just commanding and not making the spectacular play. Pretty much ever, to be honest with you. I don't know about ever. But I like him more than you do.

There's some good deep throws. I'm really, I think the area, from listening to you, the area where we differ the most is I think his arm is better than you do. Apparently. I was really disappointed in mobile. I just didn't. It just felt like he never had a grip on the ball. And on tape,

I was like, okay, he makes throws, but it's just not the same as almost everyone else that I'm watching here. So there's a reason why I have him five. Now I like him and we'll get to the tears at the end of the show, like how we break this down. But there's a reason I I have him five. Now, I like him, and we'll get to the tears at the end of the show, like how we break this down. But there's a reason I have him at five.

It's because some of these guys above him, a little bit better with their arm. But I think his arm is adequate, man. I think that it is good. It is adequate. I don't think it's great. It's adequate. I don't draft adequate in the first round. No way.

So I didn't give him a first round grade. I gave him a second round. Okay. Okay. That changes things. I thought you were pretty high on him in the first round for a while. No. So look, there's, there's a little bit of a difference and I'm actually kind of just to give people a peer behind the curtain. Cause we do that a lot on the show where I have film grades for guys. And then we, I'm sort of using PFFs window of replacement metric. And I'm working with some people to also like come up with like a positional importance board,

like positional value board. Yeah. And so with a quarterback, if you have somebody who gets sort of a second round grade, they might get bumped up into the first round conversation just because it's a quarterback. You take a chance on them, right?

If there's, if the reasons why they might be a little bit limited or not seen as a first round pick if those are things that maybe can get better they tangibly could get better then you're probably going to draft that guy a little bit higher simply because if you hit on it you hit the jackpot so that's a little bit of why he has a second round team is trading into the back part of the first round to get the fifth year option on him like i don't i don't hate that at all whatsoever but he's not in the same conversation as some of these other dudes that we'll get to a little bit later in the show

i think my stance on nicks is he's i think he's gonna have a really long nfl career and i also don't think he'll ever be a top 12 quarterback it's like i love the floor with bone nicks i don't think he has the ceiling that you use first round capital on i get i i hear what you're saying i wonder if that's there for him so i like his arm a little bit more than you do his time in mobile was kind of confusing up until the last day like there were there were throws to me it was like okay very clearly you you have a good nfl arm like you sewed on tape and then there were the other ones where it just felt like he was being a little bit hesitant right i thought mobile is is almost like you got to throw it out but you can't i mean that's not you can't do that you're you're taking

the whole evaluation into account under pressure you mentioned it i'll just start with some of those strengths there and echo you dude under pressure passing grade over the last two years, 2022 and 2023, 89.7. Yeah, you've spent great. There's dudes who don't have that without pressure. Yeah, clean pocket. Like if you only look at clean pocket grades. Right.

Just under pressure plays has played well. And so that to me is such a reflection of his high understanding of defenses because something that as i was going through his film recently for all of this really impressed me is that when he was pressured it's like now we'll get to his progressions and his primary reads in a second but it's like he was looking at his primary read and pressure came a certain way and he immediately whips his head and goes okay if pressure's coming from this way they're weak here i'm immediately looking here i'm throw the ball is out and so

many times it was the right decision and that is very valuable to no one understand look at what happened now patrick mahomes cop wow look at that treb look at what patrick mahomes did in the sonics is patrick mahomes yeah you heard it yeah you heard it here first must credit nfl se when it's inevitably very wrong you goddamn aggregators you better credit us for that one you saw the 40 you saw the 49ers try to bring pressure like steve wilkes tried to bring pressure. There was one third down specifically where it was almost all out stuff. And Mahomes just very calmly went, okay, guess what?

If pressure's coming from one way, I'm throwing towards the pressure. Right. Because that's where now coverage is not. And I think it was a very, I call it simple because he made it look simple. Pop pass straight over where the blitz was. Oops, it's Isaiah Pacheco. Guess what? First down.

And it's like when you can have that understanding of a defense fundamentally pre-snap and post-snap, it's extremely valuable. It's what gives you a 98th percentile avoided negative percentage, a 99th percentile sack rate percentage. And those are good things, folks. You want to be high in the 98 99 percentile those it means you're avoiding the negatives often that is what Bo Nix does I think arm strength is adequate for the NFL level I think mobility is the definite plus to his game I think he's a really nice athlete despite going down in production his feel for the pocket is fantastic um I like I

mentioned the avoiding negatives I think is there here are the cons with Bo Nix and why all of that is still not making him a for sure take this guy in the first round type of quarterback I think he's got a bad habit of fading away from passes when he doesn't need to he's got the velocity to make up for it but I wonder if there's a little bit of he doesn't want to get hit he doesn't want to hang tough in the pocket and that's a little bit of he doesn't want to get hit. He doesn't want to hang tough in the pocket. And that's a little bit of an issue. People praise this dude's competitive toughness. So I wonder if it's just like bad habits.

But I see him fading away from passes way too much. Hang tough. Step in. Deliver that ball. Climb the pocket. Yeah. So I wanted to see that a little bit more for him. Here's another thing that I was not expecting to see that I definitely noticed.

The feet with him are not always married with his upper body. Sometimes his feet look too heavy. Like he'll start to play bouncing around on his feet. You know, he's ready to kind of go through, flip his hips a little bit. And then as the play goes on, the bounce gets a little bit lower and all of a sudden it gets a little bit heavy. And then that's when you start to see the accuracy really dip because the footwork is not married up with how the upper body is going. It's got to be all one fluid motion. It starts in your feet. People think about when throwing motion fundamentals, it starts in your feet. Your feet are where a good throw begins. And so for Nick's, I think there are times when his fundamentals look picture perfect, beautiful, but it's very inconsistent. I think that's where some of the inconsistent accuracy will come from

so he's got to figure that out he's got to get quicker on his feet um i don't mind the quick pass offense like a lot of people are saying like oh it's oregon like he's just running screens slants and shit like i don't really mind that he played in that offense with such a high completion percentage but the actual negative to that is i feel as though right now he is too first read reliant oregon's offense is very good it is very efficient so he is a very confident thrower when throwing to that first read he has the ability to be great on further reads, second, third reads. He just doesn't have a ton of experience doing it because Oregon's offense was that efficient.

The ball's out so fast in this offense. Right. And because it's right. Like they've got great play calls. They're identifying defenses. And it's hard to fault him for that when he completes those passes. And so I don't, I don't fault him for it. But a natural negative is he does not have as much experience getting to that second read.

And I think that that definitely shows up with how he goes about the pocket. So that's my bone X take. I like him. I like his arm more than you do, which is, I think makes sense why I'm a little bit higher on him than you are. He is somebody who I gave him a second round film grade, positional value included. You're probably talking about him as being worthy of a trade up to that late first round area to get that fifth year option. He's somebody who could start right away,

but I'd love to see his lower body fundamentals get fixed, get more consistent. And then maybe, you know, you're starting your second year third where you're something like that. If you, if you, if you plot Bo Nix in the NFL, though, right now, if he went to a team and had to start this next year, I think he'd be all right. I don't think he'd hit the ground running,

but second half of the season, I think that we would see a good player. I don't think he'd be— He wouldn't look lost. Right, right. So that's my Bo Nix take. I like him. I think he has starting skills in how he processes the game and in his arm talent. He's got added mobility.

But the inconsistencies are interesting, especially when it comes to those fadeaway passes and his footwork not being lined up the way that it needs to. So that's how I see him. So you had him at five, right? Yep. So at five, I had J.J.arthy all right i got mccarthy at four perfect so it's time to have the jj mccarthy conversation mccarthy got a lot better this year i want to make that really clear because we watched him this summer and i was like man he's got a long way to go. Everything felt chaotic to me. I thought he played slow. He didn't see the field well. I didn't think he was reading zone coverage very well.

He really struggled to distinguish when to take a sack or throw the ball away. I think this year there's a lot of things that are starting to trend in the right direction. I mean, he was a big-time recruit, and obviously Michigan wins the national title. Everybody knows the story of Michigan. They were led by their defense in their run game.

And there were times it felt like they were hiding McCarthy. But with McCarthy, there is no denying that he has traits. And at the quarterback position, that is so vital. He's tall, but he is not carrying a lot of mass. I mean, he's got to come into the combine over 200 pounds, but I don't think he played over 200 pounds, McCarthy. But he's tall. He's tall.

So I don't think he's a small quarterback at all. It's just that it feels like he hasn't physically matured yet. His arm strength, I think, is very good. I think you see the zip-on throws to the sideline. I think mechanically, he is very impressive. It's pretty clear that this has been Jim Harbaugh's project since he got to Michigan, where mechanically, it just looks like he's worked with a guy that understands quarterbacks right out of the gate and McCarthy comes from IMG Academy so he's he basically went from college to college is what I'm saying and you could tell he's been well coached and takes the coaching honestly there's times where him rolling out and throwing he makes spectacular throws on the run and he keeps every

out of structure out of structure like every the thing with McCarthy he's not constantly looking to play out of structure I thought he was a lot in 2022. I think he got a little bit better of when to distinguish that in 2023. The offense as a whole was better. That set him up for that. Everything mechanically, even on the run, is good. He's not one of these guys that the arm's just floppy. You can kind of see the hips and his lower body start to generate power as he drives through with his upper body even on the run I just like McCarthy mechanically a lot now the reality is

and nobody can even argue against this part Trevor he I mean he's just not overly productive because they haven't asked him to be he threw for 230 plus yards in four games this season. Four. It felt like Bo Nix and Pennix did that in the first half every week. Right. So, and Michigan won. Who cares? I'm not criticizing this idea or even saying McCarthy couldn't throw for 400 yards if he

had to drop back 60 times. I'm saying that we have not seen him do that yet. We have not seen them need to play that way. So he was not the driver of this offense. He did not push the ball vertically as at a high rate like the other guys did. He didn't have to. And 2022, I wrote down that I thought deep throws were inaccurate a lot. And then we didn't see him do a lot of that that I thought deep throws were inaccurate a lot and then we didn't see him do a lot of that in 2023 where I felt like I got an answer so in short McCarthy to me is a classic second round ish pick that you stash for literally maybe two years what you got to stash him for one you have to stash him for one he cannot play right away i

think he throws with really good velocity especially to the sideline i like his mobility he's a good athlete he could throw on the move he can run i think there's times where on third downs he can make something out of nothing he really really can but i think he is not physically matured i don't think he's had to be the guy in college so you can't ask him to be the guy in the nfl as a rookie that's utterly ridiculous right and i still think some of the decision making whether it's being a tick slow on things is just not up to speed he is your prototype as a day two developmental quarterback. I am terrified that he is going to be drafted as a top 10 pick savior.

I don't think that's fair to him unless you have a legitimate plan like the Chiefs did or like the Packers did when they took Jordan Love at the end of the first round. I we see him pretty eye to eye. I was very impressed with JJ McCarthy's 2023 film after going back to watch a handful more games this season. Because if you'll remember, when we did summer scouting, I think both of us were like, man, don't talk to me about McCarthy. Yeah, we were almost bothered by it. It was like you are projecting him to get so much better talking about him as a potential first round pick based off of what we just saw in 2022 he did get better in a lot of ways a lot better he really did and to and that's to his credit and i agree with you completely i see him the same way this is a

he got a second round film grade for me obviously nick's got that second round grade so mccarthy being right ahead of him he also gets that second round grade for me. And there are a lot of things that I like. You talked about him out of structure. I was way more impressed on what he was able to do on scrambles than I thought that I was going to be. He had a 76, sorry, a 67.8 passing grade when scrambling over the last two seasons and an adjusted completion percentage of 64.1 when scrambling so those are really good numbers those are very solid numbers under pressure 70.9 over the last two years so that also includes 2022 you know you you talked about processing and i think that his decision making got better and his ability to read progressions did get better

but his time to throw was 2.89 okay nicks was 2.44 in football that is literally an eternity difference only quarterback with a higher time to throw in this conversation that we're having from this class is caleb is caleb williams and i think there's wild there is caleb williams context that i will get to when we get to him in the show for time to throw. Because a lot of people like to look at the time to throw numbers. And I think there's some important context that is needed there for him. But when it comes to what he does well, really good clean throwing motion. I felt like the follow through was beautiful.

I thought the footwork was great. It generates that power through his feet and like you mentioned the more he puts on weight i think he's i think he's like 195 now i think he's listed 195 now i bet he played like 190 this dude's small he's slender this yeah this dude is skinny so i bet he played between like 185 and 190 i would agree he's got to play it he's got to play a lot closer to 210 in the nfl and that might take like you said that might take a red shirt nfl year you know beef this dude up yep peanut butter sandwiches at 3 a.m set the alarm buddy trevor's protein ice cream dude i'm i got the recipe working my guy we'll bunk up like in the movie warrior you

remember where it's tom hardy's character and his dad and he's just waking him up at 3 a.m to go train that'll be us protein mcflurry and a peanut butter shake get up we're going to train get in loser he's got really good arm talent but there's no question that he's got to get stronger in order to maximize that arm talent the game the gaining mass crossover with the mean girls reference really it really hits for this show that's what this podcast yes um he's got nice added mobility i don't think he's a blazer but again like this is somebody who can pick up those extra yards with

his legs something that i really really liked about this dude he is not afraid at all whatsoever to throw tight windows over the middle no you know like the ohio state throw is one of the best throws of the year and and it was and was that the throw where it was like okay if the defender turns around he probably picks it off and he didn't so instead it just looked like the greatest throw we've ever seen but you you got to know that as a quarterback. I don't know if he knew that. You think he got lucky on that throw? I think he's just whacking it, dude. Okay. Fair enough.

Because the defender's like looking straight at it. So when he releases it, it's almost like you're just daring fate. But even be, so that throw was super impressive. And I lost my shit when it happened because I watched it live. And I was like, did he really just do that? And from the all 22 angle, it's even even crazier but it's not just that throw there were a handful of throws that i watched throughout this season where he put his back foot in the ground and he let this bad boy go between two linebackers and his safety coming down and i'm

like holy cow this dude's got confidence that's what you love, man. That's what you want to build off of, especially when it comes to hitting over the middle of the field. Cause the better you are at hitting tight window throws over the middle, the more defenses have to collapse on you. Because if you hit over the middle and you don't defend it well, that is tons of yards after the catch. It is a defense's worst nightmare. And then the more guys collapse on the middle, then you can hit more towards the outside and you can get more vertical so when you were able to hit over the middle with the confidence that McCarthy was able to show in flashes this year oh you got something pretty special so I also love how he hangs tough in the pocket I think that

he was he when pressure was in his face he still was not afraid to stand where he needs he where he needed to stand and fire in a throw. I just feel like that mentality from him is something the NFL teams clearly are going to gravitate towards. Weaknesses, slender build, I mentioned, you mentioned. He can get locked into his primary reads a little bit too much, even in 2023, a little bit slower to get to that next progression. And I said the decision-making took a step in 2023 but it's got to be come more

consistent especially when it comes to pre-snap stuff i think that is the next big i don't want to say hurdle area to get better for mccarthy is hey start recognizing a lot of this stuff pre-snap because the reason why i think he might be locking on to his primary read is he can identify some things in the pre-snap, but if there's motion elsewhere, if the primary Reid's a little bit more covered than he thought, sometimes he'll just be like, okay, well, if I wait long enough, maybe he'll still get open. And instead it should be a, okay, coverage came down from an area where I didn't think it was going to come down from, let me pivot immediately. So that next progression will make him quite the quarterback that can attack

every single area of the field. So McCarthy, not a finished product, but he is a growing quarterback with experience in a pro style offense and a spread offense. He's got good physical tools, both physical and mental to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. I love the idea of a team drafting him back into the first round, early part of the second round, let him sit for a year, hit the mass gainer hard. You can start in your second season. So there we go. That's McCarthy.

All right, so you have him at four. I do have him at four. Before we get to our top three, though. I still have to do number four. I already said Penix was three, but that's all right. We're going to be here for an hour, another hour. If you've got a family out there, then you've got to get term life insurance to protect them. Plain and simple, folks. It's one of the smartest financial decisions that you can make,

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that's M-E-E-T Fabric.com slash StockExchange. Policies are issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Price is subject to underwriting and health questions. All right, so you got four. Who's it for? Jaden Daniels. If you said, Drake May, I was going to come through the camera

and just punch you straight in the kid. No, I didn't mean that to you. I would let you. I love Drake May. All right. So, Jaden, that actually came off as like Jaden Daniels slander, and I didn't mean for you to. Yeah, it really did.

Go ahead and tell me about Jaden Daniels. What do you think about him? You haven't met three? I do haven't met three. I mean, another success story from the transfer portal. This is a dude that he is absolutely electric with his mobility, and he uses that electric mobility to set up the passing attack. He's forced 101 missed tackles as a runner over the last two seasons. This isn't, you know, all the other guys we talked about or will talk about,

they are scramblers. Daniels is a runner when he wants to be a legit. I'm going to keep running. I'm going to make you miss. I am going to get the absolute snot knocked out of me, which is also an issue because you want to talk about slender. I think McCarthy ultimately is going to play it to 10. He's really light right now. I think this is who Daniels is.

I think he's very, very slender. Yeah. He's just a skinny quarterback. Not short, just a very skinny quarterback. And what you have to remember with Daniels, in a very different way than McCarthy, Daniels is already 23. So once again,

this is probably who he is. Um, mass wise. Now he, I mean, besides taking some massive hits and it, cause some people be like, Oh,

who cares? It was a problem at times. Right. I know that I think that he got flagged for this one, but he got knocked out of the Alabama game and they lost. And if he doesn't get knocked out of that game, maybe they win. So he's got to protect himself. And I understand that one specifically, I believe, was flagged.

So that's different. But as a runner, he needs to protect himself. As a passer, really interesting watch, Trevor. Compact and quick release when in structure. Like snappy, balls out. Above average touch thrower, just drops it in at different levels of the field. I think amongst the top group,

and this is counting Knicks and Rattler, I think he has the weakest arm overall. Like Bo, you're higher on Bo's arm. I thought Bo's arm was adequate, right? It's fine. And Daniel's arm is adequate. He does not have a, like he's not throwing with velocity. The velocity is more of an issue than the distance,

but I absolutely agree with you. He can hit different areas of the field with touch and drop it in the bucket. I mean, look at what Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas Jr. were able to do. It's not that he can't throw to different levels. It's, am I going to drive the ball in the middle of the field between two defenders with high velocity? That's not Daniel's game.

Now, why it's a little different for him is that he is such a good runner and creator that he doesn't have to play that way that a lot of other guys do. He can just make these ridiculous scrambles that he's not dropping back and driving outside the numbers of velocity all the time so I think he knows how to maximize his arm as well which is very important and that goes back to the bucket throws I mean 35 of 55 on 20 plus yard throws 22 touchdowns no picks in 2023. Now, let's be real. He undeniably had the best supporting cast at wide receiver.

I mean, Neighbors and Brian Thomas Jr. are going to be top 20 picks. I mean, Pennix is close, though, because Pennix also had... It was very good. I think Neighbors is better than Rome, and I don't have McMillan or Polk in the first round. Right? No,

no, no. I, I Thomas is going top 20, top 20. He should go top. I can't wait for Jaden Daniels being blown away by their receivers. No,

you're right. You're right. I didn't, I didn't mean to, but you're right. No. Pennix had really good supporting cast. I would,

I would still vote Daniels. You're right here. Yeah. I don't think it's, I think there's a gap now to Daniels credit. He also was a part of their success. I mean, a big thing for him. He got better under pressure in 2023. Before that, he was not a good quarterback under pressure. A lot of the numbers were not pretty. It's a small sample size in 2023, which you need to be very, you know, aware of. But he got a lot better under size in 2023, which you need to be very aware of.

But he got a lot better under pressure in 2023. He played faster. I think ultimately he is a guy that likes to see his receivers open rather than throw them open. That's just the kind of passer he is. It's not that he's a full field reader. He's all of those things. But he likes to see his guys open and throw the ball rather than throw with anticipation. I thought Penix did a lot of that I thought even at times McCarthy did that for a younger quarterback not all the time we'll get to Drake May and Caleb Williams here in a bit

it's weird with Daniels outside of the body type like injured potential future injuries he was a different prospect than I expected I think he's actually has a different prospect than I expected. I think he's actually has a higher floor than I thought. He's not this boomer, but I like his floor. I think he throws with touch. I think he's an excellent play creator that that will always throw. When you're that good of a creator as a runner and a scrambler, you'll always have a floor. And I love his touch throwing that's accurate that he has a floor as a passer but I don't see the same there are people that really like Jaden Daniels like over Drake May top two pick maybe he's Lamar Jackson-esque I am not there he's a really nice prospect

that can be a good middle of the pack quarterback in this league and one of the best runners in this league and a confident touch thrower. I don't see him just ripping up a defense through the air like a top, top, top quarterback does. So I liked him. He's a first-round player. There's no denying that. But it was funny what I thought I was getting,

which was a wide range of outcomes, boom or bust. And I was like, no, he's a nice prospect with a high floor. But he's got to protect himself. was funny what i thought i was getting which was a wide range of outcomes boom or bust and i was like no he's a nice prospect with a high floor but he's got to protect himself i am very concerned about him getting hurt and i'm not like not no jokes aside because we were like there's like the memes and he takes these wild hits where his like legs are up in the air but it's he's really got to learn how to protect himself. I agree. I thought Daniels had a way higher floor than I thought that I was going to see going into it. Like his fundamentals are pretty damn clean.

Love the release. You know, the release is really nice. The footwork is fast. It's light. Something I loved about him when he was in the pocket is it's not just that the feet were bouncing dude his hips are fine i mean like he's like he can truly move if he is scanned in the field which i think he needs to do a little bit better job of he needs to improve that processing but i agree with you man the fundamentals and the rushing ability from jayden

daniels make him a very high floor type of a player you know i talked about how i think penix is somebody who will get multiple shots being a starting quarterback in the league i think the same about daniels now his style is a little bit different so like if he fails is the league gonna say like oh here's a black quarterback who's a dual threat and he can't survive in the skinny runner like like not nonsense unfortunately we know that that can exist but it shouldn't for him like he did what he brings to the table as a rusher should always give him a chance to either be a high-end backup or get a starting shot on teams especially for how clean his fundamentals are so i was really impressed by how easily and fluidly the ball got out of his hands i agree i

agree with you though the big point that I wanted to bring up about Daniels is his arm is romanticized at this point. Like, he's got good distance. Clearly, he gets a lot of big shots to Brian Thomas Jr. and Malik Nabors, but a lot of that is just high trajectory. He's putting it in a basket on these dudes with distance. When it comes to velocity, it's adequate, I think, to be a starter at the NFL level, but it's not way more than adequate.

He's not somebody who, I'm not saying that he can't do it. It's just with regularity when it comes to off-platform stuff or seeing things a little bit late, can he really fire it in there with pinpoint accuracy the way that some of these top-tier guys are? I'm not so sure. I lied on the time to throw, accuracy the way that some of these top top tier guys are i'm not so sure i lied on the time to throw by the way daniels does have a longer time to throw than um who we just talking about mccarthy is that what we're talking about yeah that's that's what i thought you were going to say i was surprised when you said caleb no caleb's is obviously extremely

but so is daniels daniels is also 2.92. So that's a little bit open versus throw it open. Correct. Yes. And I think that goes into exactly what you said there with him. You know, something that worries me with Daniels and you highlighted a lot of what he does really well. And I think that what you said about what he does well and where he needs to get better or what you're worried about. I see a lot of that very similarly. The one year of production worries me.

And I don't want to take away from it too much because I don't want it to make it seem like I'm punishing a guy for getting better because I've gone on a lot of shows and said the opposite, where it's like, dude, look at what he was at Arizona State. He was barely even a draft eligible quarterback when he was putting out his tape at Arizona State. He was just a runner, primary read, throw it deep, and then just run again. At LSU, he honed in on being a much better decision maker, and he was last year, but he wasn't really pushing the ball nearly as far down the field as he needed to. And this year, he's put everything together really, really well and became an elite passer and an elite rusher and a Heisman Trophy winner. So I don't want to take that stuff away from him.

I really don't. He is one of those dudes who benefited from having that extra year, staying that extra year. And we're seeing that now. But the reality of it is he's never thrown for more than 17 touchdowns in a single season before this year. He threw 40 this year. Like it's not that it's just kind of like a one year of really great production.

It's one year of a major outlier of production from him, especially in the past. Right. Different human being. He's just a completely different quarterback. And that's why I gave him a late first, early second round grade on tape. Yeah. Because that's what I felt his film says i'm with you now again positional value positional importance and team scarcity of having quarterbacks

that they could go to naturally are going to pump him up the board if if what you're telling me we saw this past year from jayden daniels is simply the baseline of how he is going to get better how he's going to anticipate rather than react and all that stuff moving forward yeah i get it talk about him in the top 10 because there's teams in the top 10 that really desperately need quarterbacks and he's got the potential to be a starter i think he gives you a really high floor but he also gives you a pretty decent ceiling as well i say decent not great because i do think that that arm strength is just adequate it's not this crazy great arm like some people have talked about with him. I don't see him on Drake May's level very clearly, and we'll get to May in a second, but that's kind of how we see Jaden as well.

All right, so you had Jaden at three, I had him at four, I had Penix at three, so we can move to the top two. Top two, baby. Drake May and Caleb Williams. Yeah, but which one's first for you? Caleb Williams is number one overall in this. Not number one overall in the draft. Number one in the quarterback rankings. Did you land with Drake as your number one quarterback?

I did not. Okay. That was very suspenseful. No, I also have Drake at number two. So you want to take it away or you want me to talk about him? Sure. I'll start with Drake and then I'll let you start with Caleb when we get there. All right.

Sounds good. Yeah, it works for me. I mean, absolutely love both these players. With Drake, to me, he's obviously in my top 10 overall players. And the same will be for Caleb. Why the other quarterbacks weren't on my last big board. They actually weren't in my top 20. So there's a pretty big difference here.

The guys that we already named, are you talking about last year? Yeah, I had, I had, I'm ultimately probably going to have like panics. Daniels be hovering around the 20 area. And I haven't done a big board in a month or two. But Daniels is probably...

Yeah, Daniels will end up being top 20, I think. Eh, he'll be right around 20. I just think there's a big difference for me when you get up to May. I agree. I completely agree with you. It was a big difference. Big body. I mean, he's going to play around 230.

He's a big quarterback. he's a really good athlete he can move the pocket he can throw on the run i think he's excellent throwing in the middle of the field he was 28 to 48 in the middle of the field in that 10 to 19 yard range in 2023 he forced uh 26 missed tackles as a runner in 2022 like this dude can really make plays with his legs you look at this year the supporting cast in my opinion was not good and he still had 32 big time throws he only had nine turnover worthy plays so what was interesting to me Trevor his decision making is an issue right now with Drake May but the bad plays are so bad or like or just bad decisions they're like oh my god but then you look at the whole sample size like he only had nine turnover worthy plays so while they are bad he's not just throwing the ball to the other team non-stop it's just there's

a couple on film where you're like you just can't do that he's a really young quarterback he's forcing things he's playing behind a bad offensive line he doesn't have a ton of talent around him Devontae Walker was not able to play out of the gate this season because of the eligibility situation right and even when he came along it's I mean he's just not a polished player that was going to be able to step in and dominate. No. So, I mean, 16 rushing touchdowns over the last two seasons. Excellent touch thrower. I think he's really accurate vertically and in the intermediate middle of the field.

He can push the ball down the field, and he just understands the timing and how to drop it in. When he's protected, there's a lot of velocity on his throws. He operates from a very strong base. And this is a big quarterback, 6'3", 6'4", 225, 230, generates a lot of power from that lower body. He's very confident. And yes, the confidence leads to recklessness at times, but it wasn't recklessness where I'm like, this dude's going to be a disaster on an NFL field.

He has no idea what's going on. It's that he's like, we're not good enough. I need to make something happen right now. And I'm probably the best player on the field every time. So I'm going to try. I can live with that when you're 21, 20, 21 years old playmaking prowess. He's just so, so much to like about Drake May. It's really the classic young quarterback, make some bad decisions, needs more playing experience, needs to be careful with safety lurking over the top or throwing off his back foot while he's drifting.

But his ball security improved. He fumbled seven times in 2022. He only fumbled three times this year. He did get better at taking care of the football. I'm a big believer in him as a passer. I'm a big believer in him as a passer. I'm a big believer in him as a runner. I think he's a big bodied red zone threat. He's a dual. When you get inside the 10, it's like, damn, we got to worry about Drake May barreling into the end zone, or he could just lay one right into the back pylon. Perfect touch throw. He's an,

he's an excellent prospect. If I'm the commanders and it goes, Caleb Williams, number one overall, there's not even a conversation for me. I got Drake May number two. We've been waiting for this. We have been waiting for this. I was, I'm a really, really big fan. I think there's not much he can't do is my takeaway when watching him. I agree with you. What I was going to start this by saying is there should not be any debate at all whatsoever about who goes number two overall in this no and i wouldn't answer the phone to move the pick there there shouldn't be a debate for who goes number one i think personally just personally and i don't think that there should be a debate of who goes number two i think it's very clear one and two in this draft and like you, the commanders have been waiting for a player like this. Drake may is awesome. Um, you mentioned, you know, kind of the

speed, the mobility, the added mobility that he had. Remember this dude in high school, we talked about this over in summer scouting three-year basketball standout in high school who averaged 16.1 points and 11.3 rebounds per game as a junior and earned all conference as a basketball player. Okay. So he is, this dude is a true all around dude. And he's got a deep family history. It's it's that house must've been nuts. So here we go.

I mean, just the family basketball games at, at, at Christmas time. I mean, just must be absolute hell, but with how competitive they are. Okay.

His dad, Mark started quarterback at unc for two seasons in 98 and uh sorry 1987 and 1988 his brother luke luke bay if you recognize the name was a uh north carolina tarheel basketball great from 2015 to 2019 his brother cole won an ncaa title with Florida as a pitcher. And his brother Bo is currently a member of the UNC basketball team. Actually, I wrote that during the summer. I don't know if he's still on the team. Maybe he is. But anyways, it stands. Drake May is so good as a prospect. And after getting the chance to go through even more games of him this week, it makes it all the more puzzling why I've heard the NFL be like, eh, we weren't that impressed. Now, it's not perfect.

I'll get to that in a second. But over the last two years, so 2022 and 2023, this guy's played almost 2,000 snaps, over 1,900 snaps, so much football, okay? Clean pocket grade, 95.3. Standard dropbacks, 94.2.2 early downs 91.5 no play action 92.7

elite every single step of the way under pressure 61.4 when it comes to scrambles i actually thought it'd be a little bit better of this but that's all right scramble grade passing grade that is 55.3 adjusted completion percentage on scrambles, 58.9. His time to throw was 2.84, so it was sort of around the J.J. McCarthy area. So I was actually wrong earlier in the podcast as well. He has the single highest win above replacement score of any of the quarterbacks that we talked about today.

In 2022, he had a 1.65, which is just stupid high. Shows you how much he means to his team. Love how he throws over the middle of the field. He's light on his feet. The feet are always bouncing. They're ready to pivot to his progressions, to throw, to take off, anything. He has got a super powerful, super quick flick of the wrist. I mean, that ball is up near the shoulders and it is, boom, gone on a frozen rope straight to its target. The speed in which he gets the ball out of his hands, super impressive. Has that added mobility like you mentioned,

talked about over the middle of the field. Already very well versed to pump fake and fool defenders. You could tell that this guy's been watching some Drew Brees, right? He'll hike the ball very confidently. Boom, gets to move balls coming out the next second and it's just it's all predetermined because he knows what defense is going to do pre-snap so i think that's already a good fundamental um baseline for where his knowledge is and how he is reading coverage is pre-snap and how to me i think he's only going to get better. Now, here we go. There are times when he just misses. I don't really know why. Sometimes it's due to fundamentals. Like sometimes I can look at a

throw and be like, all right, you didn't like totally follow through there. Maybe the feet weren't exactly where they needed to be, but there are other times where he just misses. And I don't want to make it sound like it's a lot, but I think that's probably the root of where we get this, ah, the NFL didn't love him nearly as much this past year because it's kind of like unexplainable misses. It's just like he just, the ball doesn't go where it's supposed to go. And I don't really know why because he's excellent with touch. He's got pinpoint accuracy to the sideline.

His deep throw is beautiful. He can hit over the sideline with a fastball straight in between coverages. He shows everything. There are just some throws that he missed this year. And that's basically all I can say with him. Now, when it comes to full field reads he is capable of doing so I saw him do that multiple times on tape um but there are times when some I feel like he knows that he's got an incredible arm and he'll lock on a guy longer than he needs to or even just too

much in general like the coverage is very clearly dictating yeah I don't care who's down there hey get off this guy and he he'll be like, nah. And he'll just fire that bad boy. And he's had a couple of really impressive throws, but I think that's where you sometimes see some of the head scratchers as well. Overall, this is a franchise caliber player. I'd be taking him at number two overall. Wouldn't be thinking twice.

Drake Mays, awesome. With you all the way. All right, number one. Caleb. Caleb Williams. Just like we had it over summer. Just back where it all began. I wondered if I would watch Caleb Williams.

And again, through the lens of the draft guide and seeing everything and noticing everything, getting down to the details. I wondered if I'd watch Caleb Williams and I'd find something that's like, hey, you know what? Maybe I do see the hesitation. I don't. I'd find something that's like, Hey, you know what? Maybe I do see the hesitation. I don't, I really don't. This is very clearly a franchise caliber quarterback to me. Over 1700 snaps over the last two years, clean pocket grade,

94.7 standard drop back, 92.2 early downs, 90.7, no play action, 93.0. For people that want to talk about the gimmicky offense, it certainly isn't prohibiting him for playing well without play action. The offense almost hurt him at times when I watched the scene.

It did, you're right. And he plays in a, you know, Liggett Riley's spread air, like modern air raid system. So it's very strange with all of the RPOs and like screens that it has in there. But if you just watch the talent that this guy has when passing the football, it's so evident. Scramble grade, passing grade when he's scrambling, 77.8. So excellent there. Adjusted completion percentage on those scrambles, 60%, which is great. Throwing over the middle of the field. I thought that he was good over the middle of the

field as well. 87 attempts over the last two years 91.7 passing grade 49 first downs he had one big time throw and those three turnover worthy plays that were over the middle of the field but don't freak out about that folks like most actually every single quarterback other than drake may had more turnover worthy plays over the intermediate middle of the field than they did big time throws drake may is the only one he had five big time throws and three turnover worthy plays he's the only one who had more big time throws than turnover worthy plays in that category. So it's very common. So just so people know, don't forget about that. Caleb's time to throw is 3.21. Okay. Actually, you know what? I'm going to do strength and weaknesses. And then I'm going

to talk about that at the end. Cause it's, you know, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta build it up for the good people. The arm strength is well above average. The arm talent, well above average for NFL level. It's fantastic. I think he has the arm talent to hit throws at all different distances and velocities off and on platform. He's an incredible off-script passer and playmaker, I think is the important part. Some dudes, off-script, you don't become a playmaker. Caleb Williams becomes a true playmaker again i hate

to use the mahomes comp because it's the the easy one to make if people freak out about it but you know how like quarterbacks will do just like the dumb shit well they'll they'll underhanded like throw it flick it over the corner just because somebody's wide open in the end zone you go that should be illegal like caleb williams has that kind of mindset where he sees that kinds of stuff and that's the elite of the elite that a lot a lot of people have i think the footwork is good and the fundamentals of his base he's got excellent balance and body control as well to you know jump and turn and throw and stop on a dime and move and break tackles and force missed tackles all that super competitive player um turns into a backyard playmaker when he when he talks to run which i absolutely loved about him

and here's the thing he is a i want people to hear me when i say this he is a much better processor and somebody who goes through progressions than most people give him credit dude it's unbelievable they it's crazy they people talk about caleb williams like he is a one read run big time throw or turnover worthy play flip of the coin type like he's zach wilson at byu dude he is not about him at all like that he sees the field very well he goes through progressions when he is allowed to because of the offensive line and the defense he's going up against so i i had to make that known to the people and very clear to the people. I'm glad that you agree.

Completely. One of the top notes was full field reader that manipulates defenders with his eyes like a pro. 100%. So the time to throw thing. His time to throw is 3.21. That's not just like kind of high. That's you can't function in the NFL. If you do that. No, the only guy that even hovers near there is Justin Fields, right? So it's Justin Fields or

Lamar. Like Lamar is also consistently over three, but Lamar is an alien. He's throwing everything out with Lamar. He's a different category, but, but, and I want to bring this up. The reason why you look at lamar's time to throw and you just say we don't really care about that we don't care yeah we let me tell you we don't we don't care we don't care i'm not saying that you shouldn't care about caleb williams in that regard but if you take away the plays in which they fully broke down and he was moved off of his spot, if you take those away, his time to throw within structure is exactly like everybody else's. It's right around 2.5, 2.6. It is exactly like every other quarterback on this list.

Now, where you get the massive time to throw average as a whole is when the play breaks down, he is moved off his spot or he is scrambling. And the reason why he holds the ball longer than anybody else is because he knows, one, the ball is best in his hands. Two, like we've talked about on this show, if he does not score a touchdown on every single drive, his team probably is not winning the game because his defense is that bad. This is genuine context for him thinking he has to hold on to the ball to find the biggest throw, to push the ball, to get another first down. That context absolutely matters. So I wanted to make sure people knew that because you're going to hear about time to throw this entire offseason. And yes, it matters. Yes. He has to get a little bit better in

structure, but it's not this glaring thing. Like Caleb Williams has to get way better. And it's not like the same issue for Daniels to speed up his process for McCarthy to speed up his process for may to speed up his product. Like Williams, maybe a little bit more just because he's more unique, but it's basically the same category. And I don't think that I think that people are blowing it way out of proportion with Williams. So all that to say his arm talent is excellent. His core strength and body control are excellent. His ability as a runner, as a true playmaker, as a backyard football type of dude to make the plays that nobody else even thinks about

making excellent and i think within the structure he sees the field so much better than he has given credit for he can absolutely go through through progressions and he can absolutely be somebody who is an nfl franchise changing difference maker at that level chicago should take him number one overall i'm with everything you said and it's's, you know, going back to the, I got to score every drive or else we're going to lose. It's like LeBron, the first two years of the Cavs. Basically, it's like, I better do it. It's amazing.

I had to look back. He actually willed the Cavs to 42, a 42 and 40 record his second year. And I mean, he averaged over 27 points a game. The next two guys under him were averaging like 16 and 14. Like, it's just like LeBron just had to do everything. And it's not that USC was that, but USC has talent. But truly, Caleb was put in that kind of spot

that he was just playing in a program that the expectations of him were honestly not reachable. I don't think they were possible. It really didn't matter what he did. If you want me to nitpick problems with him, he had a drop off in his play against pressure this year compared to when he was phenomenal in 2022. The turnover worthy plays went up from four to 16, no nine to 16. Make sure I have that right. That's a, that's a big difference. 33, 33 33 fumbles in three seasons he's got to take care of the ball no question i'm glad that you brought that up the fumbles 100 i will say about the turnover really plays though he had a bad stretch of games what was it that arizona game notre dame and there was one more in there notre

dame was yeah it was a total outlier game where he looked like a totally different part like player than any other game and And here's the thing. I think a lot of people are going to harp on that, and that brings down some of the overall statistics. Like, his body of work is bigger than that. He had a couple of rough stretches that week. And I think that was probably part of the season where he was realizing, if I do not make the biggest play there is on every single play, then we're in trouble. And I think that really affected him.

I think he had a bad stretch, but to me, folks, that's all it was to me. I think he had a bad stretch. And quarterbacks in the league, great quarterbacks in the league, have bad stretches. The bar does not have to be perfection. And if there's anything that you could hear from me on this episode is that I feel like Calebaleb williams is measured against perfection and it's not and it's and it's and it's not fair to him because he does so many great things well and if you're measuring

him against perfection you're not going to give yourself the ability to see just how talented this dude is 100 go ahead keep going going back to your point about his body and the different movements it's almost like he's made of rubber at times it's really crazy how flexible he is and how twitchy he is and the head and shoulder fakes and the light feet the choppy feet um he just frustrates pass rushers over and over again yep i mean no arm angle is off the table he has no fear of getting hit he's what he doesn't get enough credit for besides the full field reading trevor is that he is very tough he's a very tough player like he does not care about getting the absolute shit knocked out of him to make a play and he carries a lot of mass he's not the tallest guy in the world he's not sure but he's big he's broad he can take the

hits he's kind of built like baker but in better shape oh yeah so i that same broad like wide build where i'm not i'm not six five but i like when you hit me it's not like hitting you know a small person so yeah i mean i think he's a good maker. He's got 10 picks on 896 pass attempts. Like that's not an accident. Yes. He could play hero ball. Yes. He could chase big plays and get home run swinging, but he doesn't make bad decisions often when he does that. Yeah. That's, that's eight picks while playing hero ball, right? Like that makes it even more impressive. I think it's insane. There's so much to like about him i thought you summed it up really really well he's got to be a little careful about just drifting backwards and sideways when that first read isn't open and he kind of starts to feel

like things are crumbling down on him but that's the case with a lot of young quarterbacks just what he can do with his arm talent his body mechanics and his toughness and his honestly processing speed i think is what makes him a very very special quarterback and i think that he in the nfl i think he'll be able to challenge as a runner too when teams start to sell out to cover because his arm's so lethal i think he'll understand how to get these free yards all the time like Mahomes does, like a lot of these guys do. I saw a lot of his play kind of a little reminiscent to Kyler Murray, but he's bigger than Kyler Murray.

And I think he throws with more confidence to different areas of the field than Kyler at times. I agree. I agree with you. We want to hear what you think about our takes of this quarterback class, about this quarterback class in general, whatever it is. There's a couple of guys that we didn't get to here on the show because we actually got a time crunch that we got to hit. We gave you almost a two-hour episode.

You can't get two hours. But I know there's other guys in this class, Joe Milton, Sam Hartman, Jordan Travis, guys like that who, if you've got questions about, hit us up in the comments or hit us up in the comments about anything else that you want to talk when it comes to quarterbacks in the 2024 nfl draft best way to do that of course youtube channel youtube.com backslash at nfl stock exchange if you are audio only you can hit us up on twitter slash x tampa bay trey at connor j rogers the same thing on instagram but we would love to hear from you quarterback everybody's got takes on quarterback so we would love to hear from you. Quarterback, everybody's got takes on quarterback. So we would love to hear from you. Do you have different rankings than us? Are we too high on

this guy? Too low on this guy? Do we see things similarly? Do you see them a little bit differently? Let's have a discussion here. This is a great space to have discussions about quarterbacks. So we'll go back and forth with as many of you guys as we possibly can. We have got a treat for you guys. Two more episodes this week week i recorded two episodes with brad spielberger of pff who is a free agency guru wizard if you will and i went down and in the span of two episodes asked him about every single team in the nfl and said okay let's talk about these team needs and identify if this team is going to hit them more in free agency and which ones they're going to hit more in the draft. So two really great discussions that I'm excited for you guys to hear

later in the week. But Connor, you got anything else before we get out of here? No, obviously a marathon show, and we knew that. We were excited to talk about these quarterbacks, man. And this is one I'll be excited to revisit as well. This is a really, really good group, and I can't wait to see their landing spots and how teams build around them

and hopefully set a lot of them up for success. And it's going to be a wild ride to kind of see ultimately how they come off the board and when they come off the board. The next time the good people hear from us as a duo will be in Indianapolis for the Combine. So we would love to hear from people. What do you want to hear from us during Combine week? We think it's going to be pretty reactionary. We're going to, what we're hearing at the combine,

obviously what we hear at the podium, you know, reactions to some of the athletic testing, things like that. But let us know how you would like this channel NFL SE to cover the combine. And we'll try to do our best for I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers. Thank you guys so much for watching and listening to the NFL stock exchange

podcast. See you guys next week. Bye.