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Slimm's 2017 Quarterbacks (Underclassman)

I only watched it at the end, he did a good Job feeling the pressure and using his feet to get first downs. And he also barely missed on big play 3rd down, but a NFL level WR probably would of caught it, and than on the last pay of the game delivered a dime which the WR dropped, wasn't his fault though.

I think he's a good qb, instincts are good, he's built well, feels the game well, but arm talent doesn't stand out. I do think he's a starter in the NFL though, but he's not a carry the team with his arm qb. IMO he's kind of in the Dalton/Prescott mold. Somewhere between those 2.

I could see him going #1 though, IMO CLE clearly bombed the season on purpose for Watson. I can't Blame them either, but Watson is clearly IMO not the guy we thought he was. Trubby is going to make CLE have a tough decision ahead of them.

Neither IMO are guys your excited about attaching your career to if your a GM or coach, but I don't see how CLE has a choice.


Not sure what you mean by that. That kinda depends on who is "we" and what guy "we" thought Watson was.

Watson is very much the quarterback I've always thought he was. He's pretty darn good. He's a top 10 talent. Furthermore, he's basically having an identical season to the one he had last year, he's just running a lot less and doing it against a tougher Strength of Schedule this year. Not perfect and not flawless, but neither is anybody else. I think people overreact too much from week to week about these players. One week they're trash and the next week they're incredible.

I've always liked to evaluate player's based on their careers. Look at the entire picture. You'll get a much more accurate assessment of what you're dealing with. What's correctable and what isn't. What's worth actually being concerned with and what isn't. I mean, are you really going to knock a quarterback for a 3 INT game when he threw it 70 times? And completely overlook 580 yards passing and 3 scores? I don't understand that line of thinking. The majority of Clemson's games for the past 2 years are over at halftime because of Deshaun Watson. Again, he's only a Junior. But he's as good as Marcus Mariota was coming out of Oregon. I think their skillset is nearly identical.

Last year you overreacted to Jared Goff's 5 INT game vs. Utah. Yet he still went #1 overall. The reason is because once you've seen enough of a kid to establish that he's a top talent at his position, that won't change based on one game. Ever. If Mitch Trubisky or Kizer go out and throw 5 INT's in their next start, they're still two of the three best quarterbacks in this draft. Period. We've seen enough at this point to know that. I have anyway. Based on their careers. Trubisky with the smallest sample size, but shows such great feel in the pocket, and displays such maturity in his decision making to be that inexperienced.

For me the bottom line is this, I don't think there's a nickel's worth of difference between the three of em'.... Kizer, Watson, and Trubisky. All three have the talent and ability to play at the next level and develop into franchise caliber quarterbacks. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, so it comes down to a system and personality fit. I'm honestly not sure which order I like them in at this point, which is a rather rare situation for me. There's one thing I don't like being and that's indecisive. But I simply can't separate Watson, Kizer, or Trubisky enough in terms of grade to put them in any particular order and feel good about it. I like all three.

Mahomes looked completely undraftable vs. Iowa St. Following up horrible lob passes in the middle of the field into triple coverages with pick six's due to inaccurate passes and brutal decision making. Texas Tech got blown out 66-10 by a team that came into that game with only 2 wins all season. Because Mahomes was so terrible. By far the worse performance I watched any of these quarterbacks put up that wasn't played in a hurricane. But again, you have to evaluate players based on their careers if in order to get an accurate assessment of what you're dealing with. Mahomes is a little more physically talented than Kizer, Watson, or Trubisky....but he's also the least polished mentally, mechanically, and the most risky for several reasons.

I think any team should be excited about attaching their career to any of these quarterbacks if they're a GM or coach. Especially if they need a quarterback. But I wouldn't do it #1 overall with Myles Garrett sitting there. Not me. Also, Cody Kessler has played pretty well for Cleveland. Better than I've seen any quarterback play for them in a long time. I believe Kessler was my #2 or #3 Senior quarterback prospect last year.
 
Without Watson Clemson is a .500 team IMO.

He's been that good.

Before the season started, you knew people would find reasons to bash Watson, and you knew that narrative would grow legs. I still think he's the favorite to go #1 and that he's comfortably better than any of the QB prospects from the 2015 class.
 
Before the season started, you knew people would find reasons to bash Watson, and you knew that narrative would grow legs. I still think he's the favorite to go #1 and that he's comfortably better than any of the QB prospects from the 2015 class.

Of course I agree :lol:
 
I guess technically Josh Allen of Wyoming is draft eligible but I doubt he comes out.

Either way this is a QB we will be talking about a year from now. Incredible, incredible potential. If he were to come out in THIS year's draft I might (depending on my need) draft him #1 overall. He's the best NFL quarterback currently playing in college football, IMO.

Big frame at 6'5" and 230 lbs. Fast feet. Great scrambler/runner (has 110 runs for 674 yards and 7 TDs once you strip out the 26 sacks for -189 yards). He has one hell of an arm, and he's more accurate than his 56% completion lets on. He has an 8.8 yards per attempt figure despite that 56%, which means he's at 15.6 yards per completion. He pushes and challenges the defense downfield and with big plays, and he's also often trying to place the football somewhere the receiver can make a play. He's got some big guys in that TE of his Jacob Hollister (6'4" & 239 lbs) and that WR Jake Maulhardt (6'5" & 230 lbs), plus WR Tanner Gentry is 6'2". So he throws a lot of high balls around trying to get those guys to make a play, sometimes it doesn't work out. I've seen two pop-up interceptions, one by a DL and the other by his own guy off the face mask.

He'll also throw a little too shallow at times trying to get a guy to come back for the football. And then he throws the ball away when the play just doesn't make sense to him anymore.

He is definitely one of those guys that will make a few reads and then try and scramble. But that's not the bad thing it used to be. NFL coaches are now trying to coach that tendency INTO players that don't naturally have it (e.g. Ryan Tannehill).

This is a Cam Newton level talent.
 
I guess technically Josh Allen of Wyoming is draft eligible but I doubt he comes out.

Either way this is a QB we will be talking about a year from now. Incredible, incredible potential. If he were to come out in THIS year's draft I might (depending on my need) draft him #1 overall. He's the best NFL quarterback currently playing in college football, IMO.

Big frame at 6'5" and 230 lbs. Fast feet. Great scrambler/runner (has 110 runs for 674 yards and 7 TDs once you strip out the 26 sacks for -189 yards). He has one hell of an arm, and he's more accurate than his 56% completion lets on. He has an 8.8 yards per attempt figure despite that 56%, which means he's at 15.6 yards per completion. He pushes and challenges the defense downfield and with big plays, and he's also often trying to place the football somewhere the receiver can make a play. He's got some big guys in that TE of his Jacob Hollister (6'4" & 239 lbs) and that WR Jake Maulhardt (6'5" & 230 lbs), plus WR Tanner Gentry is 6'2". So he throws a lot of high balls around trying to get those guys to make a play, sometimes it doesn't work out. I've seen two pop-up interceptions, one by a DL and the other by his own guy off the face mask.

He'll also throw a little too shallow at times trying to get a guy to come back for the football. And then he throws the ball away when the play just doesn't make sense to him anymore.

He is definitely one of those guys that will make a few reads and then try and scramble. But that's not the bad thing it used to be. NFL coaches are now trying to coach that tendency INTO players that don't naturally have it (e.g. Ryan Tannehill).

This is a Cam Newton level talent.


Yep. He is a unique talent.
 
Anyone think Baker Mayfield declares? If I'm looking for a fill-in QB that I don't have to draft in the 1st, he's my top choice.
 
Anyone think Baker Mayfield declares? If I'm looking for a fill-in QB that I don't have to draft in the 1st, he's my top choice.


A few days ago said he was coming back for his Senior year. I'd say he's probably 90% certain on that. He's a 3rd/4th rounder whether it's this year or next so really doesn't matter one way or the other in terms of his grade. One more year at Oklahoma can't hurt him, it can only help him be more ready to play in my opinion. I like Baker Mayfield. Really like how gritty and competitive he is. Quick release.
 
A few days ago said he was coming back for his Senior year. I'd say he's probably 90% certain on that. He's a 3rd/4th rounder whether it's this year or next so really doesn't matter one way or the other in terms of his grade. One more year at Oklahoma can't hurt him, it can only help him be more ready to play in my opinion. I like Baker Mayfield. Really like how gritty and competitive he is. Quick release.

Agree on all counts Slimm. His limitations are his limitations, so it's not like another monster season is going to help. Outside of his limitations, though, I think you have a guy that does enough things well to make plays in the NFL. For Miami, who NEEDS to draft D early, he'd be a good fit. It's too bad that he probably won't declare.
 
Northwestern QB Clayton Thorson is another guy that I'm going to have to pay close attention to going forward, along with Wyoming's Josh Allen.

Thorson isn't as uniquely talented as Allen but he does give the scouts a lot of things to like, and a lot of things to translate to the pro game. You'd just like Thorson to be more accurate. His low completion percentage is partly a function of the offense, partly a function of the offensive line (Thorson throws the football away more than I've probably seen any other QB do it this year), but also partly just Clayton being inaccurate. I won't pretend to be able to diagnose his accuracy issues so I'll just prefer to wait and see if they get better over time. I like the way he operates in the pocket, his footwork and pressure sense. He's among the better quarterbacks out there that way. He throws into tight windows without hesitation. He throws into anticipated windows. He's got a nice arm. He's got great size. He's got good feet and athletic ability. He compares well in all these ways to a Blake Bortles coming out of UCF, except perhaps not quite the same tackle breaking or make you miss ability that Bortles had.

Northwestern is an offense that produced a guy in Trevor Siemian that you'd never have thought would be an NFL quarterback but he's starting (and winning) games in the NFL this year, with an 88 passer rating that is quite frankly better than quite a few guys that are much much much better regarded. So there may well be something about Mike McCall's offense that prepares a guy like Clayton Thorson for the NFL better than you'd expect, similar to how Tom Savage had lots of NFL scouts as fans despite statistical production (and tape) that wasn't 100% flattering. I think Thorson may actually compare with Savage though he's more talented than Siemian. And that said, his statistical production is not bad for a sophomore. It wasn't tragic. He threw only 8 picks on 442 attempts, threw 21 touchdowns and ran for 5 more. And the guy went 10-3 as a freshman in 2015. He knows how to win, they just ran up against some good teams this year, losing to #12 Western Michigan, #24 Nebraska, #8 Wisconsin, #2 Ohio State, Minnesota. They also lost to Illinois State which is just weird.

Anyway I'm not saying, like I am with Josh Allen, that if this guy were available right here in the 2017 NFL Draft that I would be all over him like white on rice. I'm saying that I'm going to be watching him in future years to see if he can clean up some accuracy issues and perhaps a little bit of decision making, take the next step and be a genuinely compelling NFL prospect. He's already nearly there as an NFL prospect, but he's young so I'd like to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
 
Kaaya is turning pro. Officially announced tonight. Months ago I didn't think there was much chance of this, but in recent weeks it seemed inevitable. After the bowl game last week Canes fans stayed in the stands and chanted, "One more year...one more year," before Kaaya approached the podium to accept the MVP award. When Tom Luginbill mentioned the chant to Kaaya minutes later I expected a light moment. Instead, Kaaya's facial expression was very awkward, along with his words. He clearly didn't like the topic. No hint of a smile or any encouragement to the Canes fans who offered the chant. At that point I assumed he was as good as gone.

I can't imagine he'll be a high pick, given how poorly he'll test in several categories. The weak crop undoubtedly played a major role in his decision.

The Canes could have another freshman quarterback next season, like Kaaya in 2014.
 
Patrick Mahomes came out too. That's the top QB in the class, for me.

I get the critiques for Mahomes, regarding the offense and the footwork in the pocket (which is a derivative of the offense). Those offensive translation critiques can be turned on pretty much every QB in the class save perhaps Cooper Rush, who has "meh" talent. College football has just changed and we're going to have to get used to it.

At least Mahomes combines EVERY BIT of the play-making ability of Johnny Manziel with a better arm, better size, and a pristine background/character grade. Probably better accuracy as well. I believe Mahomes was playing with an AC joint sprain this year and his accuracy in the first five games was off the charts.

You can't ask for much better until Josh Allen polishes up a bit more and then declares. Possibly Sam Darnold when he gets pubes.
 
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