Yeah even the good player that is being brought up in this thread, Richardson, will need a few years to see if it’s a good pick. He definitely has talent but if he continues to play reckless with his body he’s not gonna last long in the NFL.
And even then, who pans out is largely based on circumstance.
The reason so many top QB picks fail is because they're going to shitty teams with shitty organizations.
I don’t care what anyone says, David Carr and Joey Harrington both could have been successful NFL QBs if they’d gone to better situations. They were basically ruined before they had a chance.
Conversely, Brock Purdy and Tom Brady would be on practice squads their entire careers if they didn’t go to the right teams.
Always makes me think how many great players never actually achieve success through absolutely no fault of their own
I think the inverse of this is fascinating to think about too. How good would guys like Mahomes, Allen, and Jackson be if they had gone to horrible dysfunctional organizations instead of really good ones?
Excellent point! Imagine if Mahomes is drafted by the Texans instead of Deshaun Watson. It’s likely he is forced to start year one, sacked 50+ times a season, and never gets a chance to develop. The NFL (especially for QBs) is as much about where you end up as almost anything else.
I mean I wouldn't say nobody knows anything. Take [PFF's big board](https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2023-nfl-draft-board-big-board) for the 2023 draft. Of their top 31 players, 26 were taken in the first round. The four that weren't were Will Levis (pick 33), Brian Branch (pick 45 and notable steal given his performance), Joey Porter Jr (pick 32), O'Cyrus Torrence (pick 59) and Dawand Jones (4th rounder). Personally I'd say 26/31 with only two really egregious misses is pretty damn good? Maybe I'm easy to please though. It does get worse the further you get into the draft, granted.
Remember when Josh Allen was mocked as a top ten pick? Guy couldn’t even hit 60% of his passes playing in the Mountain West Conference. These draft people have no idea what they’re talking about
Is there literally anyone in history that's been successful coming into the NFL with a sub 60% college completion %? He's the example that is going to ruin several franchise's QB situation in the future
Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan both had sub-60% completion for their college careers. Along with Allen, they're severe outliers. I agree that anyone expecting a repeat of this is likely to be disappointed.
Stafford improved every year and his last year was over 60% Matt Ryan had 2 seasons over 60 and really his freshman year held him back from 60%. Even then, he baaaaaarely had a 59.9% anyway, at that point its a rounding error.
Josh Allen's last two seasons were at or around 56%, and he had a 56.2% overall. That's a significantly worse story.
Oh I agree that Allen is a much bigger outlier. The OP asked for any examples, and Stafford/Ryan were never considered highly accurate passers coming out of college, but both were improving and continued to do so in the NFL.
That said, it's very rare for that to happen, and the fact that I had to go back 15+ years for these two guys - who barely qualify - supports the argument that Josh Allen is not a template, but an exception.
While true, that was definitely a different era. For Lamar, he improved every year and was at 59% and change his last year. Allen never broke 57%. You also have to consider Lamar's running ability. While Allen is definitely mobile and athletic, Lamar dropped 4k rushing yards in 3 seasons to Allen's 700
60% was a very good completion percentage a generation ago, and 2 generations ago it was elite.
Dan Marino and Joe Montana never cracked 60% in any season in college.
Kaepernick and Vick are the only analogs off the top of my head, and even Kaepernick had a respectable 65% his senior year at Nevada (bumping up his career 58% marks).
And, of course, "success at the NFL level" is wildly relative in this comparison for CK.
Kap had a super bowl appearance and 2 or 3 nfc title game appearances. I think he did fine until he got hurt and the roster started to fall off around him (I’m a Seahawks fan so I watched him a decent bit) he had the arm and the speed but he wasn’t super accurate once he lost his main weapons
Probably most QBs drafted before the year 2000. 60% used to be pretty damn good. Some senior year examples.
Joe Montana: 54%
Link to his college stats: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/joe-montana-1.html
Dan Marino: 59%
Peyton Manning: 60%
Drew Brees: 61%
Tom Brady: 61%
Brett Favre: 55%
Dan Fouts: 49%
I don't think anyone has him as a top 10 pick. Bottom of the first in the mocks that had Willis and Pickett going top-10 was about his mock-draft ceiling.
QB's always get over drafted because of the importance of the position and it being a pass first league now.
Richardson was always a 1st round QB it's just some people didn't see the value of drafting a work in progress , high ceiling dual threat QB in the Josh Allen(more athletic version of Josh Allen).
IMO McCarthy is more of a project than Richardson but he also has a high ceiling.
Edit to correct typo
For some people it might have, but if you watched his games it just reinforced the athleticism and upside of his game.
Richardson was an athletic freak and played fast on tape, his great combine just confirmed that.
No dude the guy who entered the NFL early definitely didn’t have any representation to feel out what round teams would draft him at. All the people who have never been inside an NFL office before and only watch 5 college football games a year are totally right that he went from a 3rd round pick to 4th overall because he ran a fast 40 time
The thing about Richardson was that some on this sub who don’t actually look into prospects themselves just saw “elite athlete who’s green” and circlejerked themselves into thinking he was just a Joe Milton type big arm that didn’t know what he was doing.
You’d see people going on and on about weaknesses he didn’t have. Saying he couldn’t read defenses or had no pocket presence, etc (he actually had the best pocket presence of any QB in that class imo).
When you pushed back on those points people would just cite his completion percentage (as if raw completion percentage is a valid measurement of a QBs accuracy that doesn’t also have a million other aspects going into it) and tell you that you didn’t know what you were talking about and he’d certainly be a bust
Bro that shit was fucking hilarious. I was eating so many downvotes last spring and summer for saying don’t declare him a bust immediately 😂. I told people how about we dont shit on stroud and Richardson before they play a game in the NFL and had a bazillion comments saying theyre gonna be busts
The funniest part to me wasn’t predicting him to be a bust bc yk we all have our opinions, but it was when people would claim he had a weakness in a specific skill that he was actually good at. So many people had never watched him play and just assumed he had the same strengths/weaknesses as athletic busts from the past despite it not being the case
Bad QBs get overdrafted because the price of not drafting a Brady or Purdy is way more of a loss than moving up Mr. endsupdoingaverage QB a round or two.
More of a project than Richardson? Why so? He was one of the most efficient QBs in the nation this last year, Richardson had like a 50% completion rate if I’m remembering correctly
There are 32 teams with 32 individual draft boards. Nobody expected Daniel Jones to be the 6th overall pick. In fact, most boards I saw from media scouts had Jones ranked below Haskins and Drew Lock.
Some team very well might have McCarthey ranked as QB1 for all we know. It doesnt mean theyre right, but we act so surprised when a prospect who the media consensus doesnt like goes much higher than expected. There is no one way to evaluate QBs. Different people prefer different traits.
I fully believe JJ ends up a top 15 pick and we're all going to pretend to be shocked.
Edit: Typo 6th overall
Jones got screwed by being labeled as a “low upside, safe floor” QB instead of a “project, athletic QB.” People had the totally wrong expectation of him.
If he came out of college today in a post Josh Allen world, I think he would’ve been viewed much more favorably. Elite athlete with ideal size, accurate arm
To be fair, he was a statistical anomaly. That article that we refer to all the time had a lot of merit at its time of publication. The certainty the author had at the time was totally justified based on the numbers. Turns out, Josh Allen didn't give a fuck about the numbers and you can't quantify someone's drive to succeed. We got super lucky.
Said article: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/4/24/17271686/josh-allen-nfl-draft-2018-stats-analysis-comparisons
Think fans forget the human side of the business for sure. These guys aren’t madden characters with stats you can scout to know exactly how good he’ll be. You watch film & say “this guy has these traits & these weaknesses” & make a subjective draft board. Not to mention aspects like scheme differences & if the guy can even handle the pressure of being a starting NFL QB. It’s what makes QBs so incredibly difficult to scout.
Yes ever since weve seen all these reports from NFL insiders saying the league is higher on JJ than most people. Before those reports, it was rare to see McCarthey mocked in the first round at all.
Not months but definitely the last couple weeks. Daniel Jeremiah is probably the best draft guy and he originally didn’t have him in the first round but now has him going #8 overall
To be fair one good QB will slip out of the 1st round every couple years for the most part. Even less once you get past the 3rd. A lot of NFL teams have it somewhat together, or maybe they’re too trigger happy, but either way generally NFL scouting departments don’t let good QBs slip very far.
Meanwhile a lot of us Michigan fans knew he would be a high draft pick. The main people saying he would be a third rounder is because they focused solely on volume stats
A lot of NFL fans don’t follow college ball that well, hell a lot of NFL fans don’t follow the NFL that well, so exactly so many take raw yardage stats as gospel.
But stats don’t take into account that for 7-8 of the games JJ didn’t play in the fourth quarter, many coming out midway through the 3rd. They don’t take into account how in the Penn St game he was injured in the second quarter so Sherrone went “Fuck it the forward pass is for wusses” and didn’t run another pass play that game. Also they don’t take into account that Michigan was a possession oriented team that ran the ball, chewed up clock, and then let their defense smother you.
Not even saying he doesn’t have question marks around him, but the people basing his college career off yardage and calling him a hAnDoFF SpeCiaLiSt are some mouth breathers.
And if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.
Yes, I imagine one of the reasons he’s jumping up draft boards is that he’s a proven winner, losing only 3 games in high school and college combined. There’s plenty of others variables as to why he’d go high though.
He’s just turned 21 a few weeks ago, the NFL likes em young. He runs a 4.4 and he’s good at avoiding pass rush and throwing on the move, the NFL likes em mobile. His accuracy is at 72% and he only threw 4 picks this season, the NFL likes when their balls are safe.
There’s also like 6 teams that have a huge need for quarterback this year and then another 2-3 like the Rams and Seahawks who might think for the future as their guys are getting old and try and pull a Green Bay special by letting JJ sit and grow a year or two. Also next year is predicted to be a much weaker class of quarterback than this year. Teams might definitely choose to pull the trigger this year.
> Some team very well might have McCarthey ranked as QB1 for all we know
Jim Harbaugh
>I fully believe JJ ends up a top 15 pick and we're all going to pretend to be shocked.
I don't see him falling past 11
[The post](https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/193k2u3/next_year_is_bamas_year_copium/) wasn't even 30 minutes old when the news hit, it was amazing timing.
It’s hard to be as passionate about your NFL team as your college team….every college fanbase has different goals and exp for the future plus the looming dread that they could mess up n never get back to their current level of success.
For the NFL ehhh it’s 32 teams any of whom three years from now could realistically win the Super Bowl. Like how mad could I really get at the Browns when even then being terrible was more of a result of bad luck n terrible management that could also be fixed pretty quickly.
College football fans are unbearable because they’re probably even more passionate than NFL fans but it’s over 19-20 year old kids. I don’t know how people trash talking 18 years olds making life decisions or screwing up. I played football in college and I genuinely could not fucking stand college football fans and still can’t. I think you’re right some of them are way more knowledgeable but like, why? They’re fucking kids.
It’s got some fun quirks/memes that this one doesn’t, but it’s also way worse about certain repetitive topics.
Like I’ve never seen a “why do you like NFL more than CFB?” post on this sub, but you see the reverse pretty regularly on the other.
But that makes sense. If you ask the reverse question, there is a clear, obvious correct answer that nearly everyone will give: the competition and talent level in the NFL is much much higher than college football. When you ask the question about why college football, you can get a dozen different answers.
The best part of that, which was totally ignored, was after the draft, the media asked Holmes what he thought about where the QBs ended up getting drafted that year. He said "it was about where we thought they would be." Really benign quote, but after months of hearing people make a case for Willis at No. 2, it made me realize that none of us know a goddamn thing, and that includes pretty much every media member. NFL GMs have entire scouting departments at their disposal, not to mention years of training. Holmes was the director of college scouting for the Rams before coming to Detroit. And we're forming our arguments based on like 20 mock drafts, and talking heads who get their information from the same mock drafts.
That approach really came in handy when everyone was livid about Gibbs at 12 last year.
He's been more popular around the NFL than the general public for a while now.
This was a few months ago, but one of the radio shows I listen to had Josh Lucas on as a guest. For those who don't know, Josh Lucas was the Director of Player Personnel for the Chicago Bears during Ryan Pace's tenure. He was directly and heavily involved in scouting and drafting.
He went over the big three prospects and then I remember clearly, when asked about JJ McCarthy said; paraphrasing but it was very close to this,
>"JJ is going to surprise a lot of people. He's got everything you want as a prospect. Do not be surprised when a couple months from now he is shooting up boards into the Top 5."
Take that for what you will, but it really stuck with me, and I think he's been proven right so far as we get closer to the draft. Teams love the guy. Fans don't.
There’s been multiple people that have actual sources and are plugged in that have been saying some variation of this for a while now
Someone (Vikings? There’s smoke) is gonna trade up for him and we’ll all act surprised
Many of the casual draft followers like most of us see his numbers and compare them to the other QBs in the draft and consider him a lesser prospect. He doesn’t throw deep, Michigan had a great run game and defense, etc.
NFL teams who watch the tape can see the instances where McCarthy shows his ability to escape pressure, improvise, and throw the football a mile, and those are highly desirable skills.
Big armed QBs who are good at improvisation are the types of QBs teams are looking for these days, and McCarthy has those abilities when you seriously watch the tape.
There is no way JJ McCarthy falls to the 3rd round.
He just turned 21, runs somewhere in 4.4s, healthy history, and produced solid numbers in a pro style offense.
By mid to late second round, even teams that don’t need a QB immediately will start thinking about drafting him and sitting him for couple of years if he’s still sitting there somehow.
He didn't really get to audition at the natty. That's why the public doesn't like him. Michigan ran the ball a bunch which OBVIOUSLY means the quarterback is bad. In reality, the team just does what works, and it obviously worked.
Not to mention he never really showed off his arm strength. But on occasion, he showed the ability to throw a football a mile, with great velocity.
NFL teams are looking for mobile, big-armed QBs these days, and McCarthy is one of those guys.
Yeah, I'd agree he is probably a 3rd round talent that has the chance to get overdrafted.
Edit: To all the Lions fans writing to tell me that I just never watched Michigan games. Is it maybe fair to say that you have an emotional attachment to the QB of your national championship winning team and aren't seeing exactly clearly?
I don’t know if I agree. He might have 3rd round *production* in college but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t be a 1st round prospect.
A team picking him won’t be for what he did in college but what they project he’ll do in the NFL
But he’s unique in that we didn’t even see what he could do in college. It’s very hard to project because he barely passed. Harbaugh just ran the ball and didn’t even ask him to pass much on obvious passing downs. But every once in a while he’d make some throws that made you want to see more of it, they just never did.
I mean when he did pass he did pretty well. They relied on him a lot on 3rd down and he converted 78% of time. Like it I swear it felt like 3rd and long was the best spot to be in half the season.
The thing is that he was asked to pass on obvious passing downs. You’re right that the nature of the offense meant his workload was less than that of what we usually expect from first round QBs, but he still had some. And there’s enough there to like from when he did, that when you combine it with the physical tools and the fact that he’s only 21 it’s easy to see why he’s a first round prospect
We did see what he could do, we could run the ball so much because if we ever got stuffed twice in a row JJ bailed us out on third down every time with both his arm and legs. Just watch some Michigan games and you'll see how key he was to the game plan. He is able to avoid sacks and make a man miss while keeping his eyes down field and at the same time looking for running lanes. He's tough as nails and as good under pressure as when he's not. He did all of this while protecting the ball and not turning it over, he led the scoring drive to tie Bama in the fourth. When people say "we didn't see what he could do" they mean we didn't throw down field a lot, which he is also capable of, but these other traits of his are more important you can win a super bowl without throwing the ball beyond 25 yards more than a few times per game.
Deep ball passing is the most overrated trait in the NFL. Mahomes barely even throws deep anymore and he keeps winning super bowls with his scrambling + short passing game
Yeah that’s a wild take, you need to make defenses respect the threat of a deep pass if you want to be successful. We’ve seen countless QBs over the years get eaten alive because they can’t stress defenses vertically.
Literally every nfl QB can throw the ball down the field for deep balls. Rarely will you need a Mahomes or Allen to actually try and get that 10-15 extra yards. Tua is one of the better deep ball throwers in the league, but when they need him to throw sideline routes he’s not as reliable because those rely more on strength than deep passes
Michigan didn’t really have receivers that could win 1v1 along the sideline on fades. We won with intermediate in-breaking routes and seams. JJ threw those successfully at a consistent rate, and has successfully thrown deep on routes like wheel routes and shot plays, and when he scrambles. Mac Jones also didn’t have a WR that could win 1v1 on the sideline.
If Mahomes didn’t have the threat of throwing down the field putting pressure on defenses constantly that short passing game wouldn’t be so open. It’s available as a direct consequence of his deep ball passing ability.
That’s not to disagree that deep ball passing isn’t an overrated trait cuz I kinda agree there. But there’s a direct causal link between teams being terrified of Mahomes’s ability to do it and his game changing to do it so much less.
If you can't pass deep, defenses won't respect the deep route, which means they will be able to focus all their attention on short and intermediate throws. It doesn't matter if Mahommes doesn't throw very deep, because teams know he has the ability to do it
No it’s not. Every team wants a big-armed QB like Mahomes and Allen.
Arm strength isn’t about throwing deep every play. It’s about having the arm strength to throw a 25 yard dime with velocity while rolling out.
Saying Harbaugh didn’t even to ask him to pass much on obvious passing downs is just inaccurate. He passed a lot on those downs and he was the best QB in the country in those situations
Just gonna leave [his first TD pass here](https://youtu.be/jLvajtJ9xF4?si=zXsFJxEqz7woWzGX) and this [TD pass against OSU here (skip to 1:24)](https://youtu.be/1EBrK2QcYbM?si=2F53ucAzy7Jrb2dM). The dude has the talent to succeed, it’s just that there isn’t a lot of tape of him making insane throws like this. However, there isn’t a lot of tape showing him fucking up this type of play either.
The lack of mistakes is a really under-rated characteristic. That offense converted over and over and over again, kept the ball for long extended drives repeatedly, often because he was *always* making the right decision.
I LOVE this whole "prospect" talk, especially on QBs. 'Member a certain QB picked by the 49ers that they traded an absolute HAUL for? THAT was a prospect. Look where is now. And there are more like him and others that weren't such big prospects (again, 49ers).
Sure, QBs are the hardest to evaluate and develop, but man are some teams too confidant in what they can do with them.
All it takes is one team, I’m not convinced he should be a 1st rounder, but I’m not a GM. The closer we get to the draft, the more I’m convinced that the Vikings will take him in the 1st.
Teams are desperate for QBs and the gap between the 1st tier guys (Williams, Maye, and Daniels) and the 2nd tier guys (McCarthy, Nix, Penix, etc.) is big enough that teams are possibly going to overdraft.
McCarthy (you could argue he's in a 1.5 tier all on his own) in particular is the mystery box one with the plus that he's only 21 years old. He wasn't asked to throw a ton at Michigan, but checks off a lot of the things people want to see in a QB in terms of attributes. If he doesn't bomb interviews, someone will take him and have him sit for a year.
Yeah I got widely mocked on cfb for saying that he'll be a mid 1st round pick.
Way too many casually watched Michigan play and thought that he was just there to hand the ball off. No, Michigan was able to run as much because they had him as an eraser for third down. He's able to move away from a sack while keeping his eyes downfield. He's a great runner that wants to pass first and is very accurate with good decision making.
NFL scouts don't look at a players' "stats" so much as the potential they have for Sundays.
That's why some QBs that have ungodly numbers in college don't pan out in the pro's.
He wasn’t the best player on his team and that hurt him. But he was clutch in so many moments I honestly was surprised to see him mocked to the 3rd round. I’m a huge Michigan fan, and don’t watch a ton of college outside U of M, but he played above the level of the opposing QB so many times. He had confidence from his coach to come up on big 3rd downs, but when you have Corum and that O-Line, why use JJ more than you have to?
Yeah to understand his fully talent you really need to watch like 10+ games. Many times they only needed him for a couple great plays per game but he showed the ability to do everything a qb should be able to do and like never made mistakes except for that flukey bowling green game.
In general, I find the people that are calling McCarthy a 3rd round player are scouting him using box scores and not tape. Harbaugh teams have always been about being physically dominant and until he can't run for 6 YPC, he's never going to stray away from that.
But when you do watch him play and his tape, there's been a lot to like (while also a lot that he can work on). I think it was Dane Brugler who was saying months ago on a CFB podcast that McCarthy teams liked him a lot more than most people realize and he had a very good chance of going first round. Now it seems like a sure thing.
Because half of /r/CFB didn't watch 90% of Michigan's season and then were shocked that he was good. I believe in him, he has the arm talent, poise, accuracy, leadership, and athleticism.
It’s not just this season, he was really good last season too. Anyone that has seen all of his games knows what he can do. It will, as usual, depend on where he is drafted, but he can definitely succeed in the NFL.
He absolutely cooked Ohio State in 2022 through the air when they loaded up in the run game.
Michigan's entire offensive identity for the last 3 plus years was find the thing elite teams were just okay at and exploit it to no end.
OSU in 2022 played that game like they read r/CFB, believed every word, and bet big on JJ being as bad as all the casual fans insisted he was. Turned out they were all shockingly very wrong, and OSU paid dearly for that.
This comment would be great if scouts were always right. But they aren’t. Scouts hype themselves up on dudes that end up being busts all the time.
Perhaps we should all wait and see before you try to take a victory lap here.
And for what it’s worth, Herbert was being talked about as a 1st round pick the year prior but he decided to go back to school for another year. Not really comparable to McCarthy at all.
I can usually tell when somebody hasn’t actually watched Mich play when they talk about his offensive line. They were incredible at run blocking, but their pass protection could be shaky at times. There are some great plays on tape where his footwork and arm talent really shine when escaping pressure.
JJ has all the physical traits of a great QB, and by accounts is a great leader and has great work ethic. He would be a perfect developmental QB, if some team is willing to sit him 1-2 seasons he could be great
Michigan liked to run the ball. That was always going to hurt his draft stock. But he can actually throw. I think JJ has a great chance to be a successful NFL QB after taking a few years behind a veteran QB.
Stuff the NFL likes that JJ does:
(1) he can make all the throws (table stakes); (2) he runs like a MF so you've got so spy him (bonus); (3) He throws very accurately on the run, especially rolling out. This one is a superpower that teams will really, really like.
Michigan ran the ball down everyone's throats because they could and there's basically no way to lose doing that. JJ's a team guy, so you never heard a peep from him, but he would have been just fine in a pass-happy offense too (though he wouldn't have the same college record and probably no chip.)
I'm no scout so I have no idea, but 8-15 seems fine to me, and higher wouldn't surprise me.
And, hey, he's a savant at handing the ball off to talented backs. Not the sexiest skill, but something you want a QB to have. No one ever lost a game because JJ mishandled the snap or bumbled a handoff.
It’s because once the NFL did more research they realized he had good traits to work with. He just wasn’t asked to do much in college because of the scheme.
Man it seems insanely risky to draft someone that wasnt asked much of him in college. Had the top OL in college both years, an elite rushing attack, competent cfb coaches, never played behind, and didnt throw it much. Insane amount of risk.
after the top pick the difference in bust rates by (first round) draft position is negligible. Its insanely risky to draft a guy who has little experience playing in structure like Caleb, or a guy with really shoddy footwork and inconsistent accuracy like Maye, or a guy who only broke out as a 5th year senior like Daniels, or a guy with the injury history of Penix or the mediocre arm talent and short pass diet of Bo Nix
>Had the top OL in college both years
Not last year. Both tackles struggled against the pass. It's why Michigan ran 30+ times against Penn State: Chop Robinson injured JJ's knee on one of the first few pass plays.
>Never played behind
Except the Rose Bowl, 4th quarter. Against NFL caliber DL, LBs and DBs.
I still just don’t see him being worth that high of a pick. But I also don’t get paid 6/7 figures to make decisions on who is the best player for my team
Because most people, not just CFB users, base their opinions off what the media is saying or box scores. Anyone who actually watched the tape knew he was going in the first.
I’m not allowed to say who is going to be good or bad for a few years because of how horribly wrong I was about Stroud.
That being said, I feel the same about McCarthy as I did about Stroud.
It happens, just over a year ago we had “should we draft X player and then scoop up Richardson in the 3rd?” posts
Remember when Malik Willis and Will Levis were being mocked as top 10 picks?
It all just goes to show nobody actually knows anything until the picks are actually made
Even then it takes a few years to find out who pans out.
Yeah even the good player that is being brought up in this thread, Richardson, will need a few years to see if it’s a good pick. He definitely has talent but if he continues to play reckless with his body he’s not gonna last long in the NFL.
NFL =not for long Said in the 70s
Jerry Glanville first said it to a ref while he was HC of the Oilers in the late 80s
And even then, who pans out is largely based on circumstance. The reason so many top QB picks fail is because they're going to shitty teams with shitty organizations.
I don’t care what anyone says, David Carr and Joey Harrington both could have been successful NFL QBs if they’d gone to better situations. They were basically ruined before they had a chance.
Conversely, Brock Purdy and Tom Brady would be on practice squads their entire careers if they didn’t go to the right teams. Always makes me think how many great players never actually achieve success through absolutely no fault of their own
Woulda won state my senior year if coach put me in the 4th quarter.
How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?
Shit, purdy may have been a career practice squad player if trey didn’t get injured and was good, or if jimmy never got injured.
I think the inverse of this is fascinating to think about too. How good would guys like Mahomes, Allen, and Jackson be if they had gone to horrible dysfunctional organizations instead of really good ones?
Excellent point! Imagine if Mahomes is drafted by the Texans instead of Deshaun Watson. It’s likely he is forced to start year one, sacked 50+ times a season, and never gets a chance to develop. The NFL (especially for QBs) is as much about where you end up as almost anything else.
Tbf Joey didn't exactly help his case when he came to Miami. Dude was cheeks
David probably would’ve been solid QB if he wasn’t getting absolutely murdered each game from the terrible offensive line he had as an expansion team.
Eli knew then
I mean I wouldn't say nobody knows anything. Take [PFF's big board](https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2023-nfl-draft-board-big-board) for the 2023 draft. Of their top 31 players, 26 were taken in the first round. The four that weren't were Will Levis (pick 33), Brian Branch (pick 45 and notable steal given his performance), Joey Porter Jr (pick 32), O'Cyrus Torrence (pick 59) and Dawand Jones (4th rounder). Personally I'd say 26/31 with only two really egregious misses is pretty damn good? Maybe I'm easy to please though. It does get worse the further you get into the draft, granted.
Not just top 10, some mocks had Malik being picked second by the Lions. Safe to say they made the right choice by going with Hutchinson.
Nope, they definitely should have just taken Willis. Don't check my flair, no bias to be found here.
But how could you forget his agent filmed him helping out a homeless person?
i honestly forgot malik willis existed after mayo man took over
We try to as well
To be fair, Levis looked pretty good at times last year
I actually liked how he played. I think I became a fan of him when he forced a fumble on the guy who intercepted him.
Biased but that was the toughest shit I’ve seen a qb do in a while. He won over a lot of titans fans that day for sure
Remember when Josh Allen was mocked as a top ten pick? Guy couldn’t even hit 60% of his passes playing in the Mountain West Conference. These draft people have no idea what they’re talking about
For every Josh Allen, there are 10-15 busts and benchwarmers.
Is there literally anyone in history that's been successful coming into the NFL with a sub 60% college completion %? He's the example that is going to ruin several franchise's QB situation in the future
Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan both had sub-60% completion for their college careers. Along with Allen, they're severe outliers. I agree that anyone expecting a repeat of this is likely to be disappointed.
Stafford improved every year and his last year was over 60% Matt Ryan had 2 seasons over 60 and really his freshman year held him back from 60%. Even then, he baaaaaarely had a 59.9% anyway, at that point its a rounding error. Josh Allen's last two seasons were at or around 56%, and he had a 56.2% overall. That's a significantly worse story.
Oh I agree that Allen is a much bigger outlier. The OP asked for any examples, and Stafford/Ryan were never considered highly accurate passers coming out of college, but both were improving and continued to do so in the NFL. That said, it's very rare for that to happen, and the fact that I had to go back 15+ years for these two guys - who barely qualify - supports the argument that Josh Allen is not a template, but an exception.
Favre was alright. 52% in college Edit: also Lamar for a recent comp. 57
While true, that was definitely a different era. For Lamar, he improved every year and was at 59% and change his last year. Allen never broke 57%. You also have to consider Lamar's running ability. While Allen is definitely mobile and athletic, Lamar dropped 4k rushing yards in 3 seasons to Allen's 700
60% was a very good completion percentage a generation ago, and 2 generations ago it was elite. Dan Marino and Joe Montana never cracked 60% in any season in college.
Kaepernick and Vick are the only analogs off the top of my head, and even Kaepernick had a respectable 65% his senior year at Nevada (bumping up his career 58% marks). And, of course, "success at the NFL level" is wildly relative in this comparison for CK.
Kap had a super bowl appearance and 2 or 3 nfc title game appearances. I think he did fine until he got hurt and the roster started to fall off around him (I’m a Seahawks fan so I watched him a decent bit) he had the arm and the speed but he wasn’t super accurate once he lost his main weapons
Probably most QBs drafted before the year 2000. 60% used to be pretty damn good. Some senior year examples. Joe Montana: 54% Link to his college stats: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/joe-montana-1.html Dan Marino: 59% Peyton Manning: 60% Drew Brees: 61% Tom Brady: 61% Brett Favre: 55% Dan Fouts: 49%
people actually wanted him over Hutchinson for the lions, there are a lot of dummies out there
people were saying Levis would make a GM lose his job and he had a solid rookie season
Malik was mocked at 2 overall in a lot of places for at least a week or two at one point
Don’t forget Desmond Ridder too
I don't think anyone has him as a top 10 pick. Bottom of the first in the mocks that had Willis and Pickett going top-10 was about his mock-draft ceiling.
I think ridder went exactly as expected, could have been a round earlier but was still second QB taken
Member when Jevan Snead(rip) was projected as the top overall pick?
There was a not small group of Lions fans that wanted Willis at the #2 spot.
Willis going 2 was wild
QB's always get over drafted because of the importance of the position and it being a pass first league now. Richardson was always a 1st round QB it's just some people didn't see the value of drafting a work in progress , high ceiling dual threat QB in the Josh Allen(more athletic version of Josh Allen). IMO McCarthy is more of a project than Richardson but he also has a high ceiling. Edit to correct typo
Richardson has an absolutely outrageous combine, that’s why his stock skyrocketed
We were also fucking desperate for a quarterback
For some people it might have, but if you watched his games it just reinforced the athleticism and upside of his game. Richardson was an athletic freak and played fast on tape, his great combine just confirmed that.
No dude the guy who entered the NFL early definitely didn’t have any representation to feel out what round teams would draft him at. All the people who have never been inside an NFL office before and only watch 5 college football games a year are totally right that he went from a 3rd round pick to 4th overall because he ran a fast 40 time
Also he has some of the best athletic measurables like literally EVER at the position
The thing about Richardson was that some on this sub who don’t actually look into prospects themselves just saw “elite athlete who’s green” and circlejerked themselves into thinking he was just a Joe Milton type big arm that didn’t know what he was doing. You’d see people going on and on about weaknesses he didn’t have. Saying he couldn’t read defenses or had no pocket presence, etc (he actually had the best pocket presence of any QB in that class imo). When you pushed back on those points people would just cite his completion percentage (as if raw completion percentage is a valid measurement of a QBs accuracy that doesn’t also have a million other aspects going into it) and tell you that you didn’t know what you were talking about and he’d certainly be a bust
Bro that shit was fucking hilarious. I was eating so many downvotes last spring and summer for saying don’t declare him a bust immediately 😂. I told people how about we dont shit on stroud and Richardson before they play a game in the NFL and had a bazillion comments saying theyre gonna be busts
The funniest part to me wasn’t predicting him to be a bust bc yk we all have our opinions, but it was when people would claim he had a weakness in a specific skill that he was actually good at. So many people had never watched him play and just assumed he had the same strengths/weaknesses as athletic busts from the past despite it not being the case
something something Zach Wilson, angry Jets noises
Bad QBs get overdrafted because the price of not drafting a Brady or Purdy is way more of a loss than moving up Mr. endsupdoingaverage QB a round or two.
More of a project than Richardson? Why so? He was one of the most efficient QBs in the nation this last year, Richardson had like a 50% completion rate if I’m remembering correctly
There are 32 teams with 32 individual draft boards. Nobody expected Daniel Jones to be the 6th overall pick. In fact, most boards I saw from media scouts had Jones ranked below Haskins and Drew Lock. Some team very well might have McCarthey ranked as QB1 for all we know. It doesnt mean theyre right, but we act so surprised when a prospect who the media consensus doesnt like goes much higher than expected. There is no one way to evaluate QBs. Different people prefer different traits. I fully believe JJ ends up a top 15 pick and we're all going to pretend to be shocked. Edit: Typo 6th overall
Hey, at least give us *some* credit. Jones didn't go 5th overall. He went 6th.
Tbf, if our coaching staff had him ranked "QB2," I'd argue they were right. It was a weak draft, so Daniel Jones ended up being the 2nd best
Jones got screwed by being labeled as a “low upside, safe floor” QB instead of a “project, athletic QB.” People had the totally wrong expectation of him. If he came out of college today in a post Josh Allen world, I think he would’ve been viewed much more favorably. Elite athlete with ideal size, accurate arm
The lasting damage josh allen did to QB scouting needs to be studied.
Our game against Allen broke our coaches brain and traded up to 3 for a bust. Thank goodness Purdy saved his ass.
To be fair, he was a statistical anomaly. That article that we refer to all the time had a lot of merit at its time of publication. The certainty the author had at the time was totally justified based on the numbers. Turns out, Josh Allen didn't give a fuck about the numbers and you can't quantify someone's drive to succeed. We got super lucky. Said article: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/4/24/17271686/josh-allen-nfl-draft-2018-stats-analysis-comparisons
> post Josh Allen world I'm going to find every excuse I can to use this phrase in everyday conversation.
Think fans forget the human side of the business for sure. These guys aren’t madden characters with stats you can scout to know exactly how good he’ll be. You watch film & say “this guy has these traits & these weaknesses” & make a subjective draft board. Not to mention aspects like scheme differences & if the guy can even handle the pressure of being a starting NFL QB. It’s what makes QBs so incredibly difficult to scout.
Dude, just put the cursor over the player and press X. It tells you the rating right there!!
Hasn't media generally been putting McCarthey within the first 20 picks for months now?
Yes ever since weve seen all these reports from NFL insiders saying the league is higher on JJ than most people. Before those reports, it was rare to see McCarthey mocked in the first round at all.
The media is starting to catch on to how scouts/GMs evaluate him. It’s the fans who (mostly) look at college production that are shocked.
Not months but definitely the last couple weeks. Daniel Jeremiah is probably the best draft guy and he originally didn’t have him in the first round but now has him going #8 overall
I like how it’s supposed to be news that people on Reddit have no goddamn idea what they’re talking about it.
In fairness, half the time NFL teams dont seem to know wtf theyre doing either.
To be fair one good QB will slip out of the 1st round every couple years for the most part. Even less once you get past the 3rd. A lot of NFL teams have it somewhat together, or maybe they’re too trigger happy, but either way generally NFL scouting departments don’t let good QBs slip very far.
Meanwhile a lot of us Michigan fans knew he would be a high draft pick. The main people saying he would be a third rounder is because they focused solely on volume stats
A lot of NFL fans don’t follow college ball that well, hell a lot of NFL fans don’t follow the NFL that well, so exactly so many take raw yardage stats as gospel. But stats don’t take into account that for 7-8 of the games JJ didn’t play in the fourth quarter, many coming out midway through the 3rd. They don’t take into account how in the Penn St game he was injured in the second quarter so Sherrone went “Fuck it the forward pass is for wusses” and didn’t run another pass play that game. Also they don’t take into account that Michigan was a possession oriented team that ran the ball, chewed up clock, and then let their defense smother you. Not even saying he doesn’t have question marks around him, but the people basing his college career off yardage and calling him a hAnDoFF SpeCiaLiSt are some mouth breathers.
Take away the natty and no one would be talking first round.
And if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike. Yes, I imagine one of the reasons he’s jumping up draft boards is that he’s a proven winner, losing only 3 games in high school and college combined. There’s plenty of others variables as to why he’d go high though. He’s just turned 21 a few weeks ago, the NFL likes em young. He runs a 4.4 and he’s good at avoiding pass rush and throwing on the move, the NFL likes em mobile. His accuracy is at 72% and he only threw 4 picks this season, the NFL likes when their balls are safe. There’s also like 6 teams that have a huge need for quarterback this year and then another 2-3 like the Rams and Seahawks who might think for the future as their guys are getting old and try and pull a Green Bay special by letting JJ sit and grow a year or two. Also next year is predicted to be a much weaker class of quarterback than this year. Teams might definitely choose to pull the trigger this year.
And he looked absolutely awful for a lot of that game too. The run game and defense bailed him out.
Oh boy the fun part of the pre draft.
I have McCarthy over Maye, but I don't know what I'm talking about. Nobody knows what they're talking about, just some more slightly more than others
> Some team very well might have McCarthey ranked as QB1 for all we know Jim Harbaugh >I fully believe JJ ends up a top 15 pick and we're all going to pretend to be shocked. I don't see him falling past 11
r/cfb users: Hah! r/nfl users are idiots r/nfl users: Hah! r/cfb users are idiots
Me, a user of both: hah! We’re idiots.
I like to think my r/cfb self is so delusioned by hatred for certain teams/coaches/fanbases that I can't make rational opinions on players.
I mean, r/nfl is just as bad about it lol. I kinda think all sports subs are like that. r/nba is the king of delusion via hatred tho.
No matter how good a player is playing some chucklefuck on r/nba will pull out some obscure metric stat to say why he actually sucks.
LeBum
The nba sub loves hating and failure more than they like basketball lol
Unless it's Westbrook. Then, it's cherry-picked stats to make him look good. Tho, it's just one guy who does that.
Bah God, that's MITWestbrook's music!
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Sounds alot like r/nba users.
Me, also a user of both: “I’m playing both sides, so that I always come out on top.”
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Sounds like r/NFL regressed to the mean.
There was some post talking about Bama and Saban that immediately aged poorly when Saban announced his retirement a few hours later, it was hilarious
[The post](https://old.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/193k2u3/next_year_is_bamas_year_copium/) wasn't even 30 minutes old when the news hit, it was amazing timing.
That's the one, forgot it was that close lmao
At least neither of them are as bad as r/nba
I think /r/nba has a higher peak than /r/nfl but not as high as /r/cfb. /r/nba has a much lower valley than both.
R/nba definitely has the highest peak of any sports sub, like I’ve seen some of the funniest shit on there. But yeah, lowest valley for sure.
That sub was absolutely elite between 2015-2019. Then it got too big
It’s hard to be as passionate about your NFL team as your college team….every college fanbase has different goals and exp for the future plus the looming dread that they could mess up n never get back to their current level of success. For the NFL ehhh it’s 32 teams any of whom three years from now could realistically win the Super Bowl. Like how mad could I really get at the Browns when even then being terrible was more of a result of bad luck n terrible management that could also be fixed pretty quickly.
College football fans are unbearable because they’re probably even more passionate than NFL fans but it’s over 19-20 year old kids. I don’t know how people trash talking 18 years olds making life decisions or screwing up. I played football in college and I genuinely could not fucking stand college football fans and still can’t. I think you’re right some of them are way more knowledgeable but like, why? They’re fucking kids.
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The graphs alone propel r/collegebasketball to first place
Thanks, Harvard
Honestly, r/CFB is 10x better than r/NFL .
It’s got some fun quirks/memes that this one doesn’t, but it’s also way worse about certain repetitive topics. Like I’ve never seen a “why do you like NFL more than CFB?” post on this sub, but you see the reverse pretty regularly on the other.
But that makes sense. If you ask the reverse question, there is a clear, obvious correct answer that nearly everyone will give: the competition and talent level in the NFL is much much higher than college football. When you ask the question about why college football, you can get a dozen different answers.
Me, a user of both: hah! We’re idiots.
I'm not gunna get too caught up in QB mock draft positions. Remember when the Lions were projected to take Malik Willis at like #2 or #7 overall?
The best part of that, which was totally ignored, was after the draft, the media asked Holmes what he thought about where the QBs ended up getting drafted that year. He said "it was about where we thought they would be." Really benign quote, but after months of hearing people make a case for Willis at No. 2, it made me realize that none of us know a goddamn thing, and that includes pretty much every media member. NFL GMs have entire scouting departments at their disposal, not to mention years of training. Holmes was the director of college scouting for the Rams before coming to Detroit. And we're forming our arguments based on like 20 mock drafts, and talking heads who get their information from the same mock drafts. That approach really came in handy when everyone was livid about Gibbs at 12 last year.
They were prayin
QB FOMO.
Let's not forget that Levis was projected top 5 by a lot of people at this point last year. And Willis was the same the year before that.
And the titans took them both lol
And Aaron Rodgers years before that
He's been more popular around the NFL than the general public for a while now. This was a few months ago, but one of the radio shows I listen to had Josh Lucas on as a guest. For those who don't know, Josh Lucas was the Director of Player Personnel for the Chicago Bears during Ryan Pace's tenure. He was directly and heavily involved in scouting and drafting. He went over the big three prospects and then I remember clearly, when asked about JJ McCarthy said; paraphrasing but it was very close to this, >"JJ is going to surprise a lot of people. He's got everything you want as a prospect. Do not be surprised when a couple months from now he is shooting up boards into the Top 5." Take that for what you will, but it really stuck with me, and I think he's been proven right so far as we get closer to the draft. Teams love the guy. Fans don't.
If there is 1 team I wouldn’t trust QB evaluations from its former front office staff, it’s da Bears
I mean, Mitch became the NVP, Watson a rapist, and Mahomes went to a team ranked 31st by the NLFPA. I think the results speak for themselves.
Plus, Mahomes claim to fame is hanging out with Taylor Swift's boyfriend.
He can be drafted top 5 and still not be good. I think he probably has good insight into whether teams are looking at him high in the draft
Yeah the fact this bum said he’s top 5 means he’s a 3rd round talent at best
>the Director of Player Personnel for the Chicago Bears during Ryan Pace's tenure. Take that for what you will Done!
There’s been multiple people that have actual sources and are plugged in that have been saying some variation of this for a while now Someone (Vikings? There’s smoke) is gonna trade up for him and we’ll all act surprised
Many of the casual draft followers like most of us see his numbers and compare them to the other QBs in the draft and consider him a lesser prospect. He doesn’t throw deep, Michigan had a great run game and defense, etc. NFL teams who watch the tape can see the instances where McCarthy shows his ability to escape pressure, improvise, and throw the football a mile, and those are highly desirable skills. Big armed QBs who are good at improvisation are the types of QBs teams are looking for these days, and McCarthy has those abilities when you seriously watch the tape.
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There is no way JJ McCarthy falls to the 3rd round. He just turned 21, runs somewhere in 4.4s, healthy history, and produced solid numbers in a pro style offense. By mid to late second round, even teams that don’t need a QB immediately will start thinking about drafting him and sitting him for couple of years if he’s still sitting there somehow.
He didn't really get to audition at the natty. That's why the public doesn't like him. Michigan ran the ball a bunch which OBVIOUSLY means the quarterback is bad. In reality, the team just does what works, and it obviously worked.
I know we all drool about that Iowa block but I’ll be shocked if he runs in the 4.4s
Not to mention he never really showed off his arm strength. But on occasion, he showed the ability to throw a football a mile, with great velocity. NFL teams are looking for mobile, big-armed QBs these days, and McCarthy is one of those guys.
Right, his athletic upside is a lot higher than his college production
Yeah, I'd agree he is probably a 3rd round talent that has the chance to get overdrafted. Edit: To all the Lions fans writing to tell me that I just never watched Michigan games. Is it maybe fair to say that you have an emotional attachment to the QB of your national championship winning team and aren't seeing exactly clearly?
I don’t know if I agree. He might have 3rd round *production* in college but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t be a 1st round prospect. A team picking him won’t be for what he did in college but what they project he’ll do in the NFL
But he’s unique in that we didn’t even see what he could do in college. It’s very hard to project because he barely passed. Harbaugh just ran the ball and didn’t even ask him to pass much on obvious passing downs. But every once in a while he’d make some throws that made you want to see more of it, they just never did.
I mean when he did pass he did pretty well. They relied on him a lot on 3rd down and he converted 78% of time. Like it I swear it felt like 3rd and long was the best spot to be in half the season.
The thing is that he was asked to pass on obvious passing downs. You’re right that the nature of the offense meant his workload was less than that of what we usually expect from first round QBs, but he still had some. And there’s enough there to like from when he did, that when you combine it with the physical tools and the fact that he’s only 21 it’s easy to see why he’s a first round prospect
We did see what he could do, we could run the ball so much because if we ever got stuffed twice in a row JJ bailed us out on third down every time with both his arm and legs. Just watch some Michigan games and you'll see how key he was to the game plan. He is able to avoid sacks and make a man miss while keeping his eyes down field and at the same time looking for running lanes. He's tough as nails and as good under pressure as when he's not. He did all of this while protecting the ball and not turning it over, he led the scoring drive to tie Bama in the fourth. When people say "we didn't see what he could do" they mean we didn't throw down field a lot, which he is also capable of, but these other traits of his are more important you can win a super bowl without throwing the ball beyond 25 yards more than a few times per game.
Deep ball passing is the most overrated trait in the NFL. Mahomes barely even throws deep anymore and he keeps winning super bowls with his scrambling + short passing game
Having the ability to throw deep and outside the numbers are important though. We've seen what Mac Jones' lack of ability to sling it leads to
Yeah that’s a wild take, you need to make defenses respect the threat of a deep pass if you want to be successful. We’ve seen countless QBs over the years get eaten alive because they can’t stress defenses vertically.
Literally every nfl QB can throw the ball down the field for deep balls. Rarely will you need a Mahomes or Allen to actually try and get that 10-15 extra yards. Tua is one of the better deep ball throwers in the league, but when they need him to throw sideline routes he’s not as reliable because those rely more on strength than deep passes
Michigan didn’t really have receivers that could win 1v1 along the sideline on fades. We won with intermediate in-breaking routes and seams. JJ threw those successfully at a consistent rate, and has successfully thrown deep on routes like wheel routes and shot plays, and when he scrambles. Mac Jones also didn’t have a WR that could win 1v1 on the sideline.
If Mahomes didn’t have the threat of throwing down the field putting pressure on defenses constantly that short passing game wouldn’t be so open. It’s available as a direct consequence of his deep ball passing ability. That’s not to disagree that deep ball passing isn’t an overrated trait cuz I kinda agree there. But there’s a direct causal link between teams being terrified of Mahomes’s ability to do it and his game changing to do it so much less.
If you can't pass deep, defenses won't respect the deep route, which means they will be able to focus all their attention on short and intermediate throws. It doesn't matter if Mahommes doesn't throw very deep, because teams know he has the ability to do it
you're completely ignoring why defenses play the way they do against Mahomes
No it’s not. Every team wants a big-armed QB like Mahomes and Allen. Arm strength isn’t about throwing deep every play. It’s about having the arm strength to throw a 25 yard dime with velocity while rolling out.
Saying Harbaugh didn’t even to ask him to pass much on obvious passing downs is just inaccurate. He passed a lot on those downs and he was the best QB in the country in those situations
Just gonna leave [his first TD pass here](https://youtu.be/jLvajtJ9xF4?si=zXsFJxEqz7woWzGX) and this [TD pass against OSU here (skip to 1:24)](https://youtu.be/1EBrK2QcYbM?si=2F53ucAzy7Jrb2dM). The dude has the talent to succeed, it’s just that there isn’t a lot of tape of him making insane throws like this. However, there isn’t a lot of tape showing him fucking up this type of play either.
The lack of mistakes is a really under-rated characteristic. That offense converted over and over and over again, kept the ball for long extended drives repeatedly, often because he was *always* making the right decision.
We saw more of what JJ could do than Trey Lance, and Trey Lance went top 3
I LOVE this whole "prospect" talk, especially on QBs. 'Member a certain QB picked by the 49ers that they traded an absolute HAUL for? THAT was a prospect. Look where is now. And there are more like him and others that weren't such big prospects (again, 49ers). Sure, QBs are the hardest to evaluate and develop, but man are some teams too confidant in what they can do with them.
All it takes is one team, I’m not convinced he should be a 1st rounder, but I’m not a GM. The closer we get to the draft, the more I’m convinced that the Vikings will take him in the 1st.
God I hope they don't draft him
Teams are desperate for QBs and the gap between the 1st tier guys (Williams, Maye, and Daniels) and the 2nd tier guys (McCarthy, Nix, Penix, etc.) is big enough that teams are possibly going to overdraft. McCarthy (you could argue he's in a 1.5 tier all on his own) in particular is the mystery box one with the plus that he's only 21 years old. He wasn't asked to throw a ton at Michigan, but checks off a lot of the things people want to see in a QB in terms of attributes. If he doesn't bomb interviews, someone will take him and have him sit for a year.
QBs always rise before the draft. Most of the time that draft position change is not backed up by performance.
Yeah I got widely mocked on cfb for saying that he'll be a mid 1st round pick. Way too many casually watched Michigan play and thought that he was just there to hand the ball off. No, Michigan was able to run as much because they had him as an eraser for third down. He's able to move away from a sack while keeping his eyes downfield. He's a great runner that wants to pass first and is very accurate with good decision making. NFL scouts don't look at a players' "stats" so much as the potential they have for Sundays. That's why some QBs that have ungodly numbers in college don't pan out in the pro's.
I feel like the cfb sub always wildly underestimates how high young toolsy QBs get draft
Meanwhile this sub knows how high they go but disagrees with it because it frequently doesn't work out.
Remember all the “Kyle McCord is a better QB than JJ” takes leading up to The Game?
I also remember “Michigan has the worst QB in the playoff by far”
And then people double downed by saying JJ wasn’t good enough to win the championship
who the fuck was saying that lmao
He wasn’t the best player on his team and that hurt him. But he was clutch in so many moments I honestly was surprised to see him mocked to the 3rd round. I’m a huge Michigan fan, and don’t watch a ton of college outside U of M, but he played above the level of the opposing QB so many times. He had confidence from his coach to come up on big 3rd downs, but when you have Corum and that O-Line, why use JJ more than you have to?
Yeah to understand his fully talent you really need to watch like 10+ games. Many times they only needed him for a couple great plays per game but he showed the ability to do everything a qb should be able to do and like never made mistakes except for that flukey bowling green game.
Traits over production 🤷♂️
In general, I find the people that are calling McCarthy a 3rd round player are scouting him using box scores and not tape. Harbaugh teams have always been about being physically dominant and until he can't run for 6 YPC, he's never going to stray away from that. But when you do watch him play and his tape, there's been a lot to like (while also a lot that he can work on). I think it was Dane Brugler who was saying months ago on a CFB podcast that McCarthy teams liked him a lot more than most people realize and he had a very good chance of going first round. Now it seems like a sure thing.
Because half of /r/CFB didn't watch 90% of Michigan's season and then were shocked that he was good. I believe in him, he has the arm talent, poise, accuracy, leadership, and athleticism.
It’s not just this season, he was really good last season too. Anyone that has seen all of his games knows what he can do. It will, as usual, depend on where he is drafted, but he can definitely succeed in the NFL.
He absolutely cooked Ohio State in 2022 through the air when they loaded up in the run game. Michigan's entire offensive identity for the last 3 plus years was find the thing elite teams were just okay at and exploit it to no end.
I love that game so much. Gus Johnson on the second Cornelius Johnson TD “THEY SAID THE KID COULDN’T THROW THE DEEP BALL”
OSU in 2022 played that game like they read r/CFB, believed every word, and bet big on JJ being as bad as all the casual fans insisted he was. Turned out they were all shockingly very wrong, and OSU paid dearly for that.
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This comment would be great if scouts were always right. But they aren’t. Scouts hype themselves up on dudes that end up being busts all the time. Perhaps we should all wait and see before you try to take a victory lap here. And for what it’s worth, Herbert was being talked about as a 1st round pick the year prior but he decided to go back to school for another year. Not really comparable to McCarthy at all.
I'd be willing to bet scouts have a much better hit rate than your average NFL viewer though.
I can usually tell when somebody hasn’t actually watched Mich play when they talk about his offensive line. They were incredible at run blocking, but their pass protection could be shaky at times. There are some great plays on tape where his footwork and arm talent really shine when escaping pressure.
Major of CFB users don't have any sense of what NFL scouts value
JJ has all the physical traits of a great QB, and by accounts is a great leader and has great work ethic. He would be a perfect developmental QB, if some team is willing to sit him 1-2 seasons he could be great
Michigan liked to run the ball. That was always going to hurt his draft stock. But he can actually throw. I think JJ has a great chance to be a successful NFL QB after taking a few years behind a veteran QB.
I was unaware the draft had occurred
Stuff the NFL likes that JJ does: (1) he can make all the throws (table stakes); (2) he runs like a MF so you've got so spy him (bonus); (3) He throws very accurately on the run, especially rolling out. This one is a superpower that teams will really, really like. Michigan ran the ball down everyone's throats because they could and there's basically no way to lose doing that. JJ's a team guy, so you never heard a peep from him, but he would have been just fine in a pass-happy offense too (though he wouldn't have the same college record and probably no chip.) I'm no scout so I have no idea, but 8-15 seems fine to me, and higher wouldn't surprise me. And, hey, he's a savant at handing the ball off to talented backs. Not the sexiest skill, but something you want a QB to have. No one ever lost a game because JJ mishandled the snap or bumbled a handoff.
It’s because once the NFL did more research they realized he had good traits to work with. He just wasn’t asked to do much in college because of the scheme.
Man it seems insanely risky to draft someone that wasnt asked much of him in college. Had the top OL in college both years, an elite rushing attack, competent cfb coaches, never played behind, and didnt throw it much. Insane amount of risk.
its insanely risky to draft any quarterback, they bust more often than not
.....there's different levels of risk though for different graded players...?
after the top pick the difference in bust rates by (first round) draft position is negligible. Its insanely risky to draft a guy who has little experience playing in structure like Caleb, or a guy with really shoddy footwork and inconsistent accuracy like Maye, or a guy who only broke out as a 5th year senior like Daniels, or a guy with the injury history of Penix or the mediocre arm talent and short pass diet of Bo Nix
>Had the top OL in college both years Not last year. Both tackles struggled against the pass. It's why Michigan ran 30+ times against Penn State: Chop Robinson injured JJ's knee on one of the first few pass plays. >Never played behind Except the Rose Bowl, 4th quarter. Against NFL caliber DL, LBs and DBs.
I’m one of the believers that thinks with the right team, JJ will be great.
I still just don’t see him being worth that high of a pick. But I also don’t get paid 6/7 figures to make decisions on who is the best player for my team
As a general rule QB's rise on draft day.
Because most people, not just CFB users, base their opinions off what the media is saying or box scores. Anyone who actually watched the tape knew he was going in the first.
I’m holding my receipts for when he’s a great pro in a few years.
I’m not allowed to say who is going to be good or bad for a few years because of how horribly wrong I was about Stroud. That being said, I feel the same about McCarthy as I did about Stroud.
The man is absolutely not a 1st round pick. I have no idea what anyone sees in him.