Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Friday roundtable: Derrik Klassen of NBC Edge talks about why the Vikings should run away from mid-round QBs

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom are joined by Derrik Klassen, who spent his last few months compiling a massive amount of tracking data on all the top projected quarterbacks in the draft. Does he see any potential hits in the middle rounds with Davis Mills, Jamie Newman or Kellen Mond? Would Derrik be interested in Mac Jones at No. 14 if he were available? Also which unproven quarterbacks are frauds? Does he think Jalen Hurts will be good? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Welcome to another Friday Roundtable. Matthew Collar, Sam Ekstrom here on Purple Insider, presented by Scout Logistics and Symbol, your stock market for sports. And this week, our guest on the show, he does a lot of awesome work. Football Outsiders, NBC Sports Edge, which used to be Roto World, Derek Klass, and a regular guest on the show, the QB Klass.

What is up, Derek? Not too much, man. Nothing crazy on the schedule today now that all the quarterback charting is out of the way. So doing good not not only that but all the insider reporting has now suddenly shifted to justin fields being the number three pick which is how weird since justin fields is way better of a football player than mac jones so we'll get into that but let me start you off here with this question um any is there anybody else that we should care about? Because you tweeted

out your data, and I've been poking around your data that you do incredible charting. You've done this for a while, and you create cool charts that show the accuracy, that show how many times there were adjustments even that needed to be made from wide receivers. It's very detailed and super good. And I'm looking at Davis Mills, Kellen Mahn, and Jamie Newman, and I'm just looking for anything in green that might stand out and make me think that the Vikings should pick one of those guys. Whose dog is that? That would be mine.

It's usually mine, I feel like. It's usually mine as well. Yeah, I was going to say, I have my dog in the other room, and she's not a Barker. So I was like, wait, which one of you's dog is that? mine as well yeah i was gonna say i i have my dog in the other room and she's not a barker so i was like wait which one of you is dog is that uh okay so jamie newman davis mills kellen mond your dog who should be the highest on the board i mean realistically it should be my dog but i mean of those actual quarterbacks of people we've seen throw uh footballs at the college level to me it's

it's mond um i think anyone who's seen my Twitter feed knows I don't like Davis Mills at all. Even though his numbers turned out, like, fine and not really any worse than the guys like Mond and Newman or whatever. But Mond, to me, like, Jimbo Fisher deserves a lot of crap for, like, a number of reasons. But that's a real NFL offense that they're running. And Mond did not run it, like, spectacularly. But you could see that he could handle an NFL offense on some level. And I think, especially in a weird offseason like this,

where you're not really going to be able to get guys on the board with meetings and stuff like that, I think having a guy who can, like, immediately, like, slot in as a decent backup for you, both because he has the arm talent, like I said, he can kind of handle an NFL offense. And he's a good athlete, so I think he kind of has enough that he can immediately slot in as a good backup.

And maybe if for some reason he's this late bloomer that can develop, he can maybe get him in to be like a low-level starter down the line. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I still think he can be like a pretty good backup and has a better chance of delivering some valuable football over the other guys, I think. Since we're asking about more obscure quarterbacks, I've had a question burning for a while that I want to ask somebody who's seasoned like you, who charts the QBs and isn't sort of just high-level college football guy like I am. A couple big names in college football, Sam Ellinger and Ian Book, big-name programs, multi-year starters.

Was there a time when they were projected to go more highly in the draft than they are now, which is probably like late day three? I mean, did people ever think that Ellinger and Book were going to be like day two, maybe even day one picks based on their early trajectory? What did 2020 kind of do for them? So I think with Book, probably not, because I think he just straight up does not have the arm talent to be like an intriguing NFL quarterback.

And I'll get to Ellinger in a second, and his arm's not that much better, but it is like some degree of better, I think. But Book just doesn't have, I think, the kind of arm talent that you would want to draft a guy in the top 100, barring him having some just unbelievable level of processing, poise, accuracy. And he's fine in those areas. But if he's only fine in some of those areas and doesn't have an NFL arm, then he's kind of just screwed. So personally, I didn't really ever have intrigue in book in that way. Ellinger, I had some intrigue in because, like, what I'll do is over the summer,

I will chart, like, a small sample of whatever is supposed to be a guy's second to last season, and then I'll chart their full season when they play it. But I did chart some of Ellinger over the summer because I thought he was going to maybe get into that top 100 range. Obviously, he didn't. But I think he's a good athlete. Not so much straight line speed, but more of just like he's kind of elusive and he's like a really good power runner kind of along the lines of like a lesser Jalen Hurts, which is kind of my comp for him overall, because I think his accuracy was like fine, but not really intriguing.

His arm is also fine, but not particularly intriguing. And then he was a guy who can run and make some plays outside of the pocket. And I was hoping maybe he could take a little bit of a next step. He never really did, especially in terms of his processing. I think he's very much a guy who likes to go one, maybe get to two and then just bail. And I think that's probably not going to work for him in the NFL. So I was hoping he could take a step there. He didn't. But so to answer the question, I think Ellinger had a chance and just didn't deliver on it. Book, I think just never, it just was never on my radar like that. Because when you have Ellinger's size, he's like Trey Lance's size, but not like a fraction of

Lance's arm strength, right? Exactly. I think that was one of the bigger problems for him, for sure. I think you missed some opportunities for puns there with Ian Book. You could say, you know, the book is closed, or talk about a guy who shouldn't struggle with his reads as much as he does. Am I right? Maybe that'll be, by the way, with the dogs barking, maybe that will be like our new rule on the show, is that if you have a dog bark in the background,

you have to fit in a dog pun in your next answer. Let me circle back to, so you mentioned that you are a Davis Mills hater, but I saw Daniel Jeremiah make the comparison with Davis Mills and Kirk Cousins. Now, I actually like this one more than I like the Mac Jones one. The Mac Jones one sort of annoyed me, and we talked about that on the show. You're making a face that people can't see so like but he he's this sort of uh him and Jamie Newman are kind of these like well you know they didn't play and there's some intrigue here so let's go through both of those

guys um Newman didn't play didn't look good in the senior bowl but people talked about you know some of his athletic skills and things like that I don't have a great feel for either one of the guys so so break those down for me are those either one of those guys worth a third round pick if the Vikings were looking in the middle rounds to get someone some upside I mean I think absolutely not with mill like so Mills I think one people are overestimating his arm talent a little bit I I think people, I've seen people call it like above average. I think it's probably average, which can be fine if you're good at other stuff, but I don't think that he is.

I think his pocket management was mostly middling. He's not a particularly interesting athlete. His accuracy beyond the 1 to 10 area, and really his ability to read the field beyond the 1 to 10 area was kind of questionable to me. I think when he was just operating off of pre-snap and was maybe operating off of leverage or very basic coverage shells, he could kind of work the quick game decent, or at least in a way that he could be baseline NFL quarterback or whatever. But I think everything after that, both in terms of how he read the field and how he actually placed the ball was mostly uninspiring, especially

beyond 20 yards. Like, he just does not have a deep ball to speak of, which is really, really bad when you don't have other traits that can help create explosive plays for you. Like Kellen Mond, for example. Kellen Mond also had a bad deep ball per my charting, but he's at least a good athlete and I've seen him make plays outside the pocket. So you can make plays in some other ways at least. Mills just doesn't have that.

He's, to me, mostly like a pure pocket guy who's not going to give you a whole lot outside the pocket, and I don't think any of what he does is particularly interesting. To me, it's insane that he's supposed to be like a top three-round guy. I'm not sure when or if I would even draft him. Like, I really don't like him. So I think, you know, I'm sure Jeremiah is hearing the right things where someone is going to take him. I just don't get it.

Newman is also not particularly interesting to me, but kind of along the lines of Mond, he's at least a really good athlete. Newman actually has a decent deep ball. And at least with Newman, you can kind of make the argument that well the Wake Forest offense was kind of BS and it was hard to gauge exactly how good or bad his processing was because so much of what they did just doesn't look like an NFL offense where like it with Mills in my opinion they ran a lot of NFL stuff and he didn't handle it particularly well so that to me is like I don't really want it but at least with, there's some ambiguity that you could sell me on the tools. I guess with Mills,

the upside would be how many games does he have under his belt, right? I mean, there's such a limited sample that you try to unlock that potential there. But when I look at the pro football focus draft guide, and I see that the NFL player comparison is Matt Castle. Alarm bells, right? I mean, that's not really inspiring. It's tough, though, to evaluate these Pac-12 guys, is it not? Because they played such a short season. You kind of have to take the first couple games with a grain of salt because they took, like, four months off.

And Mills kind of suffered from that and then, you know, jumped right into it against Colorado, which is a tough game, and Washington, tough game. He didn't have a lot of opportunities in 2020 to really make a name for himself. I mean, I think that's pretty fair. And my opinion of Mills might be slightly soured on the first game that I watched for him was the 2020 Colorado game, which usually I try to go in chronological order of when I'm charting. So for him, I would have tried to start with some 2019 stuff, but I was like running low on time and the Colorado game was the easiest one to find.

So that's what I started with. But to me, the first half of that game was so bad. I thought I was being pranked. Like I thought all of draft Twitter had conspired to make me watch this quarterback. That was actually terrible. And he did have some better games other than that. So, I mean, credit to him. But I think the idea that the 2020 Pac-12 schedule actually hurt some guys,

Mills in particular, is probably fair. The problem, at least for me, is I didn't find his 2019 that much more inspiring, which is why it's kind of hard for me to give him benefit of the doubt. Okay, so before I move on to some other quarterback questions for you, is there a sleeper? There usually isn't. I mean, once upon a time, Kirk was kind of the sleeper, and Dak Prescott was the sleeper, and so you'll hear that, oh, well, you know, this guy, that guy was drafted not in the first round but I mean odds are usually pretty strongly against that is there anyone that you saw that you thought

well maybe because I mean your responses to the guys who are going to be picked in the third or fourth round they to me they just match up with history of like the Garrett Grayson's and the Sean Mannion's who is here as a backup quarterback, they usually get taken in the third round. Yeah, I think the idea of a sleeper quarterback is like they don't really exist. The NFL is kind of obviously hit or miss at picking guys at the top who are actually going to be good, but they're pretty good at not letting the actual good quarterbacks fall out of the first round, you know what I mean? Or at least maybe outside of the top 50,

because sometimes you get an Andy Dalton or Derek Carr in the second round, whatever. But I think as far as like, you know, third to sixth round goes, like it just really doesn't happen that often. Yeah. You raise a great point there because, you know, for every Gardner Minshew, I think I pointed this out on previous shows,

maybe it was last week's round table. There's like six other rookies that played and were not good, you know, that season. So let me ask you kind of the opposite question, because I think Collar probably wants to pivot to some of the bigger names here eventually. We posed this on a YouTube video yesterday. Who is one of the big-name quarterbacks that you think might be a bust?

Maybe it's Mac Jones. Maybe we can just get into the Mac Jones savagery right now um like I personally don't consider Mac Jones in that top category like to me it's only the top four guys of Lawrence Fields uh Lance and Wilson that I would even like want to talk about as a bust and for me of that group it's probably Wilson like he's my quarterback want to talk about as a bus. And for me of that group, it's probably Wilson. Like he's my quarterback for, and I know for a lot of people, he's probably too, he's one for some people, which doesn't make any sense to me.

But I think there's just so, it seems like the discussion about Zach Wilson has actually become more about like, oh, well, if you don't get Lawrence, you have this guy Wilson who is actually like closer to the sure thing and some of the other guys. And it's like, why are we saying that? Like his accuracy was good. He's a good athlete. He's a really interesting playmaker, but he played a fake schedule, was not particularly good before that. I think, especially if you watch a lot of the 2019 games against legitimate competition, like Washington, Utah, USC, stuff like that. He wasn't bad, but he was more of the up-and-down guy

that I think he should be viewed as. Like there were a lot of plays where he didn't really know what he was looking at, tried to bail, and then a legitimately good, you know, four-star athlete ran him down and made him make a bad play. And I think we just didn't see a lot of that in 2020 because the BYU offense was just so astronomically better than everyone that they played, especially along the offensive line. Like, Wilson got so many free pockets that, like, he was almost playing seven on seven in some of these games. And then when you watch some of the games

that he didn't get that in 2020, like Houston, Houston kind of is not a particularly flattering game for him. It's obviously his worst, and you could look at any prospect's worst game and be like, oh, he's actually not very good. But when Zach Wilson had very few other legitimate games to look at in 2020, it's really weird putting his Houston game in context because there were a lot of plays that he just wasn't doing the right thing, and it just didn't matter because the good plays worked out because they're still just significantly better. So this has been a question. This is an important question, Collar. This has to get out right now.

So his best game arguably was against North Alabama last year. I'd like to quiz you on what the mascot of North Alabama is. Does anyone know? Is it not? Isn't it like the Hornets or something? Okay, so your guess is the Hornets. I'm going Terriers. I'm still trying to verify it.

It's like not even accessible. Maybe we're all right. I believe it's the Lions. I think it's the Lions. The Hornet Terriers. Not close. So I was going to say that Sam has had the take, Derek, that Justin Fields is going to go number two,

that all of this stuff with Jack Wilson and all of this, you know, conversations about Mac Jones, that it's all been smokescreen-y and that it's going to be the same thing we thought it was going to be for one and two. I'm glad to see Las Vegas is coming around on Justin Fields being a top three pick because it just hasn't made sense to me in any world that Justin Fields would not be a better prospect. But let me ask you more of a broad, like philosophical question here, because something that is brought up constantly now with this draft class is,

hey, you got to have your Josh Allen or your Justin Herbert, your big arm, your Mahomes, you're somebody who can, you know, be mobile and athletic and everything else. And I think that there's truth to that. And I of course think that if it's an athlete like Justin Fields, who runs a four, four and is accurate, you want that guy. But I wonder if you think we're overrating it a little bit because, you know, a year ago, Josh Allen was terrible.

And now he's considered like an elite quarterback. And, you know, a year ago, Josh Allen was terrible. And now he's considered like an elite quarterback. And, you know, for a minute there, Carson Wentz was the big guy with the big arm and then terrible. Like, I don't know how you're sort of managing these things, that there seems to be a lot of ups and downs. And some of the more pocket quarterbacks like Goff, like Garoppolo, they have had success. I think the way the NFL is trending, you do kind of have to be a playmaker and have this kind of arm talent. What I will say is that I think even though I'm probably a little bit more willing now to invest in those, like, toolsy project guys,

I still want to see, like, a baseline level of competency and accuracy because I think having, like like a baseline level of competency and accuracy, because I think having like a decent level of competence in terms of mental processing, along with accuracy are going to keep you on the field, and like warrant you being developed further. And so even like, even though Josh Allen worked out, and even though now I'm more willing to invest and believe in these project guys, like, I probably still would not have liked Allen coming out because he was terribly inaccurate. And so much of what he did did not make any sense. I think he was like a worse processor than Wilson was. And I mean, credit to him.

He's he's it's worked out for him. It took a while, but it's worked out for him um but I I do think kind of to your point like the idea that all of these guys can be Josh Allen now is like it's really it feels like you're dreaming for this thing that just that like Josh Allen is is why you have the rule because that just doesn't happen very often that guy doesn't happen very often um and if if teams all of a sudden think that they can just turn any guy who has a strong arm into that I think they're probably going to be looking for the wrong thing. It's just, like I said, I think having that athleticism and ability to move outside of the pocket is necessary. But you still have to have a baseline of like processing and ability to understand the game, which is actually why I have the guys like Fields and Lance over Wilson, because I think all of them are obviously toolsy.

But I think those two guys have shown more mental competency than a guy like Wilson has. Derek, I assume you had an opinion on Dwayne Haskins a couple of years ago, and his traditional statistics are pretty similar to Justin Fields. Fields was 63 TDs, nine picks over two years. Haskins was 54-9. Fields obviously can run a little bit better, though. But what do you think are the major differences that will make Fields more successful than Haskins obviously has been in the NFL?

I think there's a lot of reasons. One, if you just look at what the Ohio State offense was trying to do with Haskins versus what it was trying to do with Fields. It was just dramatically different. I think in college, this obviously didn't really hold true in the NFL, but in college, Haskins was a good processor in the sense, it's kind of what we say about Mac Jones. Like he could get you to one to two and check down and he's going to keep the train on schedule and he's going to do what you need him to do.

And he was relatively accurate in college. Fields, when Fields came on to be the starter, they like completely scrapped what they were doing. And they were like, hmm, we have the best passer in college football past 10 yards. Why don't we just make the entire offense vertical? And they did. And they didn't even need to add very many checkdowns. One, because Fields is not particularly willing to get to them because he's just confident enough he can make the throws down the field. But even if there is no check down, he's obviously, he runs a 4-4, and he doesn't need a check down if his legs can be his own check down.

So I think just the way that they were willing to open up the offense to be something entirely different and really bank on Fields' ability as a passer and ability to read things down the field, I think was really impressive to me. On top of that, I think Fields is more accurate just overall. Haskins was decently accurate in college, but I think Fields is the best I've ever charted, so he's obviously on a different level. And then I think Fields' pocket management, not pocket management necessarily,

but his confidence and coolness in the pocket. Because Fields does have the tendency to sit in there a little bit too long and kind of disrespect pass rushers. But Haskins had the opposite problem where he would kind of get too antsy and his footwork would get out of whack and he would just throw an inaccurate pass. Fields, he proved in the Clemson game, he will take a shot to the chest if it means getting the right throw out.

And he'll do that time and time again. So I think for all those reasons, he's just a completely different caliber of prospect um than haskins was the one thing that you also can't really project is if a guy's going to be a jackass and right i mean i mean it's really true like a lot of times it's not you mentioned the nfl is good at scouting They are absolutely fantastic at scouting. They scout the best quarterbacks all the time. And it's just which guy ends up being unable to figure out how to do it, which would be Josh Rosen.

He just looks scared. And what do you do with scared? I don't know how you're supposed to coach that or whatever. He wasn't scared at UCLA. He was scared in the NFL and just slow. But Haskins was a jackass. And this is the thing that they always seem to try to push with certain guys like, Oh, I'll just, the fields doesn't show up at the facility, you know, early enough or whatever

nonsense like that. And I, but I remember that about like Gino Smith and Gino Smith has turned into a long time backup, which tells me that that was not the case. Cause normally you'd be out of the league if you are a jackass, if you were, you know, Gino Smith. So, um, I guess what I'm getting at is with these guys who are at the top and let's leave Mac Jones out of this conversation for now, the athletic guys, like what will separate them aside from, we don't know which guy could be a jackass, but like what, what will separate these guys who could go number one two three and four for who ultimately works out like is there one thing that comes to mind for you um I mean I don't know if there's one thing because I I it sounds like you know people could say this about

or people want to say this about every quarterback class but I legitimately think this quarterback class at the top is actually insane, and I don't think that there's a whole lot separating a lot of these guys. I guess the one thing that would kind of worry me with Trey Lance compared to some of the other guys is his accuracy is not quite up to par. I actually don't think he's terrible, but he's probably going to be more along the lines of like a Colin Kaepernick level of accuracy where like he was fine and he wasn't completely tanking your offense but there were throws that he would make it in a game where you knew it was there and

he could get there by reading the field but he just would miss it and I think maybe Lance can figure that out because he's had so few reps and maybe with more reps that that will kind of iron itself out. But that's, I think, definitely the biggest worry there. And then I think maybe for a guy like Zach Wilson, the thing is actually probably going to be pocket management compared to the rest of these guys. I think Lawrence is one of the best pocket movers I've ever seen. Like he solves problems before they're even there. Fields can move in the pocket. Obviously, sometimes he's just late because he just loves holding out for the deep ball and will kind of disrespect pass rushers. And then Lance, I think

even Lance for a 19-year-old was just fantastic at handling the pocket, whereas Wilson, Wilson got basically like these seven-on-seven pockets where he never has to step up, doesn't have to evade pass rushers, and when he did have to evade pass rushers, he didn't do anything in the pocket. He just bailed, which to his credit, he did pretty well. But you're going to have to stay in the pocket and manage the pocket a little bit more in the NFL. And that was just not something he did very much. Derek, you mentioned the quote unquote fake schedule with Zach Wilson. To you, is that an equal concern or more of a concern with Lance? Because I assume when you watch Lance film, you know, you're not watching,

it's not even FBS. So you're probably seeing a lot of subpar competition at that level. It definitely does bring some of the same concerns. I think particularly with what they both got in terms of offensive line play, like the North Dakota State offensive line is obviously ridiculous. And I think Lance was one of my lowest if not my lowest in terms of pressure rate on on attempted throws for my charting Wilson was higher but that was more on his own volition because he would just hold the ball and like get pressured even though he could

have gotten the ball out earlier but Wilson was not facing a lot of early pressure so I think in that sense that's probably where it's most comparable. I will say, I think the BYU receivers and pass catchers helped Wilson a lot more than Lance's did, which is not to say that Lance had like bad wide receivers relative to the level of play. But I think Wilson definitely got a lot of help. I think Wilson threw a lot of balls that required adjustments from the receivers for my charting. And he had the fewest amount of drops, I think, for my charting. So he got a lot of help from his guys in a way that Lance didn't quite get. So that would probably be where I think the schedule thing is slightly different. But I think to your point, it definitely raises a little bit

of concern with both guys because they're obviously going to make a huge jump in level of competition when they get to the NFL. Hey everyone anybody who listens to the show knows that sam and i may not be scratch golfers but we love to have a great time playing golf and that's why we have partnered with birdie golf in woodbury birdie golf is hands down the best indoor golf experience you will ever have there are eight of the world's best golf simulators where you can sharpen your swing, and luckily for us, never lose a ball. But it's not just for hardcore golfers. Birdie Golf is for everyone.

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I'll see you there. Hey, everyone. We have a new special offer to tell you Insider written content at PurpleInsider.substack.com. So go to SimBull.app, deposit $20 if you're a first-time user, six months free of our premium written content at Purple Insider. If you are not familiar yet with SimBull, it is a new sports marketplace where you can trade shares of professional teams like stocks. So as we are fully into draft season, you're going to want to get in now with your team before their stock rises.

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Is Christensen a fraud because of how good at Wilson was at navigating that pocket? Do you have any inclination there? I mean, I haven't really watched Christensen all that much. I will say it's very nice that I don't hate him because it obviously means he wasn't messing up enough for me to hate him when watching Zach Wilson. But I think it's probably fair a little bit to guess about whether, you know, Wilson's ability to just leave the pocket and not really have Christensen do anything on certain plays was nice, but I unfortunately cannot offer a whole lot more than that. You know, it is fun to call someone a fraud though it's like one of the it just feels good to be like that guy's a fraud uh that maybe that'll be a new game on the show like fraud friday like uh our friday roundtable guest has to call someone a fraud um speaking of which mac jones uh derrick uh sam and i have been talking about this a little bit, that if Mac Jones is the guy who drops out of the top 10,

which I think he will be, should the Vikings consider that at 14? And I'll just give you my case because Sam is not into this. My case would be, look, history kind of tells us that we don't really know. No matter how confident we are, you mentioned the Josh Allen thing. I was so down on Josh Allen. And even for him to have one year that was great, it is like, well, I guess a lot of us were wrong on that, even if our thought process was good with Josh Allen. And who would have had like Derek Carr being the best quarterback in a QB class, right? So sometimes it's the fifth guy. And going with

my own confidence that I don't know, I would still take him if he's considered a first-round prospect, Mac Jones at 14, and because of the Vikings' future quarterback situation, agree or disagree? I am not the biggest fan because I pretty much wrote that he's like a second-round prospect that is going to get a half-round bump, which I guess would be around like 14th, is, like, but I don't know. I still don't love it because I think if you're picking high enough to where you are really desiring a quarterback like that, I think you kind of need somebody who's going to have some amount of upside, and I think Jones very clearly doesn't have that.

I think his arm is maybe on the NFL baseline. Like I'm not confident that it's over it. And he's obviously not a very good athlete. He's not going to do anything outside the pocket, outside of, I mean, he can do some rollout stuff. But if that's design, that's not quite the same as like what Zach Wilson's doing. So I think he could offer some of the same things that Kirk Cousins does. And if they want to keep that sort of like archetypal continuity then he's a fine pick and to your point I guess we just don't know with a lot of these guys but I mean I

personally just don't love it the only thing I will say is that I think a guy like Jones is probably best one of the best suited to like instantly step into a team or an offense that is like ready-made and be good obviously the offensive line needs work but like there's pass catchers there and I think he he could play fairly well um early on especially if they can get some other help along the offensive line but overall wouldn't be the worst thing that they could do but I'm not a huge fan is there is there validity to sort of the notion that Alabama and Ohio State, two powerhouse programs, struggle to produce good NFL pros? I mean, like Ohio State's had some huge box scores over the years, right, that kind of come up empty.

Alabama just hasn't had like a lot of arm talent. I think Mac Jones is probably better than a lot of quarterbacks they've had in there. Obviously, Jalen Hurts kind of like turned a corner when he went to Oklahoma. But do you think Jones like separates himself from other Bama quarterbacks of the past that have been a little more kind of game manager-y, who just like handed the ball off to Trent Richardson and TJ Yeldon? I mean, it's hard to say because obviously those Alabama offenses weren't even trying to do the same things that they're doing now. Who's to say that A.J. McCarron would look strikingly different from Mac Jones if he got to play in this offense with this many first-round

receivers? I don't know. I will say Mac Jones's accuracy for the most part is fantastic, and the Alabama offense did have a lot of open throws and made it easy on him to some degree. But I do think his accuracy was really better than a lot of the Alabama quarterbacks that we've seen. I think it was probably even better than Tua's overall accuracy. The thing I will say about Tua and why I thought Tua was overall a better prospect was there was some degree of like dynamicness to,

to his game. Like he could get outside the pocket. He could make moves inside the pocket that I think Mac Jones doesn't really make. I think his arm was maybe slightly better, not necessarily like in a meaningful way, but it was probably slightly better. And yeah,

I think that there were, there were some creative stuff that Tua could do that Jones just doesn't provide. But I'm not sure Mac Jones is like meaningfully different than past Alabama quarterbacks outside of his accuracy is clearly fantastic. But in terms of the way he processes and stuff, like I said, I don't know if A.J. McCarron would have been all that different. Okay.

I want to wrap up by playing a game here that I just invented because of what I said a few minutes ago, which is fraud or not a fraud. Okay. So I'm going to throw out some quarterbacks who I feel like the book is not written on yet. That's not an in book pun, but just that we're not really sure on. And I want you guys both to tell me fraud or not a fraud. Let's start with Sam Darnold in Carolina. This is the one I would strongly vote fraud, but tell me if you feel differently, fraud or not a fraud, Sam Darnold in Carolina. That's fraud to me. Like, I do think he's going to be better than he was in New York because I think Joe Brady, there is something to him having a little bit of magic. The problem is Joe Brady is really, really good at creating yards after the catch

and space within the like one to ten-ish yard area, that is where Sam Darnold sucks. So I think it's going to be really – it's like a really weird fit in that sense, and I don't think the like Joe Brady magic works as much if you can't operate in the particular part of the field that Joe Brady is going to make his magic. So I would say fraud. Yeah, I would too. I tend to look at kind of that third year for these young quarterbacks like I'll allow for a sophomore slump but if you don't start improving by year

three I'm I'm gonna have serious concerns and and he really dropped off considerably from a slight improvement actually in year two and then and then the sack rate goes up the yards per attempt goes way down obviously the record was bad and the weapons were bad too like that that has to be part of it but you know you don't see a lot of quarterbacks go from like you know 28th up to like upper tier in their fourth year that's pretty rare so I'm going to say fraud well he did have mono or whatever other childhood disease that he had uh also thrown in there no I I just I don't get it I really honestly don't understand why you would give up this many draft assets for Sam Darnold the funny thing is someone in my

mentions because I tweeted something about it when he got traded but someone in in my mentions on Twitter was like it seems like the worse he, the more people are convinced that he can actually be good. That's right. That's right. Well, you know, once upon a time, Chicago thought Rick Meyer just needed a new place to play. So Tannehill at least showed something in Miami way before. Darnold has shown, to me, nothing.

How about we'll just pair these together. Jalen Hurts and Daniel Jones, the NFC East quarterbacks, frauds or nots of frauds? I would probably roll with frauds on both. I didn't really like Daniel Jones coming out, and I don't think he's shown. I think he's proven to be a top 32 quarterback and someone who is probably going to start a lot of games for a long time,

but I just don't think he's ever going to be somebody who does anything meaningful for you, really. Jalen Hurts, I think probably along the same lines. I think I get why Philadelphia is giving him a second year, especially if they can maybe shore up some of the weapons. I understand some of the intrigue with his athletic tools and stuff like that, but I'm probably going to roll fraud on both of them. I just have a hard time seeing either of them becoming, like, consistent Pro Bowl-type players. You don't think that Kyle Rudolph is going to revolutionize that Giants offense?

I mean, I don't know what you're thinking here. But I know that QB touchdown-to-interception ratio is, like, one kind of basic stat. But 11 touchdowns and 10 picks in 14 games, that's kind of concerning to me. And I know the cupboard's bare, like I said with Darnold too, you have to take that into account. There wasn't a lot of talent just in the state of New York last year, except for Stephon Diggs and the Bills. But I think Jones is a little more likely to not be a fraud than Darnold,

but I still think he's a fraud. With Hurts, I'm going to say not a fraud. I think Hurts just is kind of – he's a little bit of a late bloomer. As we saw in college, I think that he, like, does enough to keep you in games. So we're going to need to see if he can, like, make an improvement in his reading, like in his ability to make throws consistently for all four quarters, and not just sort of start freelancing late in games to make crazy comebacks. But I'm optimistic on Hurts.

I also like Hurts, but it's mostly based on his athleticism, of course, but also just his character. What he went through in college to still come out on top as he did and then even last year like you're thrown into a garbage situation and yet I mean did not look in over his head won a couple of games played well in a couple of other games and showed some toughness there I feel like you can work on other things but that's something that you need you you just need or you're not going to survive and what I will say about Hurts is like I've started to value this a little bit more with quarterback prospects but he very clearly

got better from when he was first starting games at Alabama to even the end of his tenure in Alabama and then his final year at Oklahoma I think he very clearly progressed as a player and how much more progression he's going to have this next year in the NFL who knows how much more progression he's going to have this next year in the NFL, who knows, but I do believe he's going to get some degree of better. It's just, I'm not fully confident that it's going to be enough to make him like this true franchise quarterback or whatever.

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stick-to-itiveness or something, like his dedication, the fact that he didn't let that situation get him down and kept plowing through. And I loved when Tua got hurt in the game and he came in and he was prepared and went and won the game. I mean, to me, that said, this guy truly cares.

And so, you know, and then showing that in Philadelphia, you can do more with the talent that you have if you have those things. So I'm going to buy Jalen Hurts for that reason. That might be completely wrong. Daniel Jones throws way too many picks and fumbles way too often. I'm sorry. You just can't stop that. Jameis Winston has shown us everyone thought, oh, well,

if he just stops giving the team the ball, well, he won't ever because that's how this works. All right, last one is last year's draft class. Who is the fraud of last year's draft class or fraud-za? Let's see. What is it? Joe Burrow, Tua, Justin Herbert. I mean, I actually buy the Justin Herbert.

I'm kind of in on Justin Herbert because I think I liked him slightly more as a prospect than some people seem to. I still have him QB3 behind Tua. But it just seemed like the Oregon offense was such BS that I could kind of buy the instances where he did look like a legitimate quarterback and he could kind of go 1-2-3, hit like a backside cross or a dig, and it was like, okay, I kind of see how this is supposed to work. And it seemed like some of his earlier film too earlier film, too, in college was, like, he had some of the injuries, and I think you could tell that it affected

his pocket management. But then by his senior year, I think he had kind of fixed some of that stuff. And I think now that he's getting a little bit more removed from all those injuries, I think we're maybe starting to see a truer version of Justin Herbert. Still not sure that this necessarily means he's going to be a top five quarterback, but I do buy him. And I think that he's a legit guy for the chargers. Burrow, I think was exactly what we thought he was going to be.

The deep ball. I think you are just kind of hoping for a little bit of positive progression. I don't really, or positive regression. I don't think it was that bad. And I expect it to get better just because he was so good at it in college. But I think in terms of all the processing, pocket management, stuff outside the pocket, Burrow pretty much looked like what we thought he was going to be, and I think he's still going to be the guy in Cincinnati, assuming that the knee stuff doesn't just completely tank his game. Tua is probably the closest, would say to being a fraud, um, which is weird because

a lot of rookie quarterbacks, like, you know, they'll, they'll obviously struggle early on and then kind of iron stuff out as the season goes along. Tua was the opposite. I thought when he was actually first starting to play, he had some really decent play. And then it seemed like the more he was in games, he just was not getting things or defenses were figuring him out. I don't know exactly what it was. I would be lying if I said I did, but he just started playing worse. And I'm a little bit worried that that's going to continue into next season.

So this is a very easy take to have and Vikings fans will also love it. So I'm pandering a little bit, but Jordan Love, I mean, number one, there's only five quarterbacks taken in the first two rounds, right? And I love Burrow. I like Herbert. I got to stick up for my left-handed guy, Tua, and I've already established that Jalen Hurts is not a fraud. So I have to go with Love by default. But, I mean, we're in a situation now where he probably sits for, I'm guessing,

three years at least. Like, Rodgers is coming back this year. I can't see how he doesn't come back the year after that. Like, I think that Love is going to be, like, three years removed from playing football, and he just may never get a chance. So I think you have to say it's Jordan Love, who didn't seem to really be even, like,

threatening to be the backup last year. Am I right? I mean, he was the third-string guy on that team. Yeah. I mean, I honestly totally forgot about Jordan Love because he didn't play, but I would definitely roll fraud on that, which I guess is just entirely based off of what we saw as prospects, but I did not love them picking Jordan Love. I was even kind of iffy on him as like a second round guy, because I think, you know, we've talked about it earlier in the show. Like I think all the NFL quarterbacks now, all the NFL quarterback prospects need to have some degree of making plays outside the pocket, having arm talent and athleticism. Jordan Love checks those boxes.

But also, like I said, I think you needed to have some degree of mental competency where you didn't need your entire game to be stripped down and like reconstruction reconstructed the problem is Jordan Love's entire mental game needed to be just stripped away and reconstructed he's going to get that time in Green Bay thankfully so maybe he figures it out but like his entire way that he processed the game needed to just be completely scrapped and redone and I just have a very hard time seeing those guys work out because it's kind of in the Josh Allen, you know, archetype of guy. And, like, sure, Josh Allen worked out. But for every Josh Allen, there's going to be six guys who don't work out. And I think Jordan Lowe is one of them.

Maybe Rodgers leaves for Jeopardy, though. And maybe he opens the door for Jordan Lowe to take Trebek's job. Look, I think that most of us wouldn't expect a first-round quarterback to beat out Tim Boyle for a backup job. I mean, come on, right? Like, sets the bar high. That, to me, said exactly what you're talking about, Derek, with the processing and how he understands the game mentally.

If you can't even be the backup, that means they literally don't trust you at all. So, let's see, Jake Browning, Nate Stanley. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, God. I was considering throwing in Kirk Cousins for fraud. To be kidding, to joke, okay. Derek, you do terrific work. You tweeted out all your data, which is awesome.

So people should follow you at QBKLASS. Your written work, NBC Sports, Edge, College Football, and Football Outsiders. Always great to connect with you, man. Great conversation. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me on. I always appreciate getting to shoot it around for a little bit. Thanks, Derek.