In part 2 of my (somewhat late: my girlfriend was sick of hearing about football and suggested that I start a blog recently) NFL draft analysis, we're going to look at the winners and losers of the quarterback class.
One of the challenges of quarterbacks transitioning from college is that the spread offense (or it's logical progression: the run-and-shoot or air raid) and the option offense don't work quite as well in the NFL on account of the size, speed, and smarts of the NFL defensive players. As a result, many extraordinarily successful college quarterbacks, who dominated by virtue of their incredible athleticism, have faced significant challenges in the NFL: Tim Tebow (Florida), RG3 (Baylor), and Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M) just to name a few recent Heisman winners. The modern successful NFL quarterback needs to have excellent accuracy, impeccable timing, and solid decision making. While the pundits and talking heads continue to obsess over the athleticism and arm strength, pocket presence, field vision, and accuracy are almost definitely more important.
I'd like to talk a little about this year's draft class. Later this spring, I'll be reviewing a variety of Spring Games in which we will also check out next year's draft eligible quarterbacks.
Deshaun Watson, QB (Clemson) As the quarterback of the recently crowned College Football Playoff National Champion Clemson Tigers who also played in the previous year's championship game, Deshaun Watson probably has the best pedigree of the bunch. There aren't many players who have demonstrated the ability to handle pressure on the big stage. The game winning drive in the most recent CFP championship game was a thing of beauty; however, the threat of the read-sweep/QB power being augmented by the fake-toss/QB counter was not only a show of unique athleticism on the part of Deshaun Watson but also brilliant preparation by Dabo Swinney.
However, is he worth trading this year's first round pick and next year's first round pick to nab him as the 12th overall? As demonstrated by the 1:2 TD to interception ratio and modest 64% completions (admittedly one of his worse games this year against a talented secondary), there may be two issues with his passing game. Firstly, his decision making in throwing into double coverage (Cover-1/man with the deep safety helping out) is a mild problem. But more importantly, some moderate issues with accuracy. These accuracy issues appear slightly more pronounced when throwing to his left as evidenced by his interception reel gelow. The leftward thrown interceptions seem to be more commonly overthrown or off target while the rightward thrown interceptions look more like they are just thrown into coverage (bad decision).
Interestingly, though, these problems are less prominent at the Combine.
What it comes down to is the challenge that running quarterbacks who rely on the inside/outside zone read schemes and power-read concepts face when entering the NFL. On the one hand, there's Chip Kelly, who brought the Oregon Ducks to prominence with the inside/outside zone read, experiencing severe difficulties with the 49ers; on the other side, there's Carolina's varying success with the QB Counter Read, Power Read/Inverted Veer, and QB Buck Sweep: 15-1 in 2015 vs. 6-10 in 2016. While Deshaun Watson is a terrific athlete, only time will tell if he will be able to develop as a pocket passer and whether the read-option will be effective for the Houston Texans. I specifically mention read-option as compared to the zone-read (note Chip Kelly's differentiation between Zone-Read and Read-Option), because the athleticism and strength of the NFL defensive linemen and outside linebackers is such that reading the defensive end or outside linebacker may not be an effective means of getting him out of the play.
Pat Mahomes II, QB (Texas Tech) When it comes to Pat Mahomes, people have a tendency to use
germs like "gunslinger" and "cowboy." While I do like cowboy boots (I'm
wearing a pair of lucchese Ostrich boots this very second), I don't
know how well it pays off at the professional level where the matchups
really are not as favorable as they were in college. Especially when
college was in the "defense optional" BIG-12: Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech was 66 - 59. That's pretty close to the Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech basketball game (69 - 77). In that game, Mahomes threw for 734 yards, and if you watch the game tape, he looked exceedingly good rolling out of the pocket to the left, turning quickly, and throwing both intermediate and long balls. The ease with which he opens up the left hip to throw left even under pressure is very impressive. On top of that his accuracy is excellent. Some of this probably comes from being a pitcher with a 96mph fastball in high school who was also clocked at 62mph to beat David Carr (57mph) in a throw off.
The thing I don't like as much about him is that he's coming out of an air raid
offense that focuses less on play calling and more on pace and matchups. This eliminates a lot of the tactical cognitive component that is so necessary in the NFL. While it's apparent that he has the physical talents, who knows how he'll develop as a play caller in the League? He's definitely not the next Andrew Luck (Stanford), who was a 3x pro-bowler in his first 3
years and took the Colts from 2-14 to back-to-back-to-back 11 win regular
seasons. It's obvious that the Kansas City Chiefs felt that his coachability and the opportunity to develop under the wing of Alex Smith overcame this deficiency, though I find it exceedingly curious that the Chiefs picked him 10th overall by trading their 2017 first and third round picks and their 2018 first round pick. I had him on my board as a 2nd rounder and likely the best long term developmental prospect.
Mitchell Trubisky, QB (UNC) No one has experienced as much hype in this year's
NFL draft as Mitchell trubisky. Epic poems in iambic hexameter have been
written about his athleticism and accuracy, and I believe as much of
that as I do the Odyssey. Much like Odysseus faced Scylla and Charybdis,
Mitchell Trubisky will be facing defensive linemen on one side and
judgmental Chicago fans on the other. There was nobody in this draft who
was worth trading the 3rd overall pick, a 3rd and 4th round pick, a
3rd round 2018 pick, naming rights to the owner's grandchildren, and all the brick and wood in Settlers of Catan... and the bears did this for Mitchell Trubisky, who they
almost definitely would have gotten unless someone else traded the 49ers
for that spot and also had not watched any of the guy's game tape. This
is also in the face of paying Mile Glennon a truckload of money: a stack of 100 bills is 2.6" x 6.14" x 0.43. Assuming that we're paying in $20 bills, that's $2,000 per stack and 9250 stacks, which comes out to 63,500 cubic inches, which is a 10+" tall stack of money in the bed of a 6.5' box Ford F150.
Don't get me wrong. I do think his arm is good. His TD-to-interception
ratio (30:6) speaks well to his decision making and accuracy. His size and
athleticism is appropriate. Having said that, he has only ever started
13 games, and played in a handful more. He is still learning a nuanced and complicated game that has as much strategy as tactics. Indeed, when he was pressured in the
Sun Bowl, he faltered again and again. This loss was against a Stanford
team that was hobbled by Christian McCaffrey electing to sit out, and
Keller Chryst getting injured.
Unfortunately, this is likely another case of one stellar game deciding
a player's reputation. Playing against a very strong Florida State team
(a team that made Michigan look pretty silly for 3 quarters). His passing was stellar (81% completion for 405 yards, 3 TD and no interceptions). No one will
ever be able to take that away from him. But one good game doesn't make a
#2 draft pick, and looking deeper into the FSU and virginia tech games, he had negative yards in both and had 3 and 2 sacks in each game, respectively. In both games, it seems he either held onto the ball too long or was rattled when flushed out of the pocket.
On a separate note, I also don't like his face. He kinda looks like every kid who beat me up and took my lunch money in grade school. And middle school. Pretty much through medical school.
;
On the one hand, I think another year of ACC play would have told the
world a lot more about his skillset. He would have been able to learn
more about directing a team. He would have been able to develop his
field vision. On the other hand, his draft stock could never possibly be
any higher than the #2 pick, and the prospect of going into the 2018
draft against some stellar quarterbacks (a topic for my spring game
analyses in the next series of posts) was no doubt daunting. The
possibility of losing that by putting more football on tape or worse...
getting injured (think: Jake Butts, Chad Kelly) would push anyone to
declare early for the draft. Very clever, Team Trubisky. Very clever.
I think everyone is going to be watching the development of these 3 players with great interest over the next few years given how much draft-capital was expended.
Coming up on Draft Analysis...
NFL Draft Analysis: Part 3 -- Running backs
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