You know, I’ll say this kind of tongue in cheek but there is a big part of me that says we should just watch the games and ignore all the pro day, individual workouts, and combine stuff. Those things don’t tell you the real key important stuff…sure those will tell you this kid has the right size, or a strong arm, or can run really fast, but they tell you absolutely nothing about the most important part of the game…the mental stuff…the ability to process a D in real time, to anticipate a route, to feel the pocket pressure and take one step forward, or back, or sideways, etc. Look, at this point, if the kids are in a big time college program, most likely they will have most of the physical stuff down…they don’t all have cannon arms or they don’t all measure at 6’4” and 230…but you can kind of see that anyway. I would try to not get overly excited by a guy who rises up the board coming out of the offseason stuff… I’m no scout or GM, but if it were my call, I’d try and take an approach of kind of giving a grade to a guy based on the actual games, and then you can use the combine to sort of massage that grade up or down….kind of like ok I had this kid rated a B at the end of the season, a good post season maybe raises that to a B+ while a bad one lowers it to a B-. But if they are like wow man this kid is a B but now I think he’s an A, that’s going to fail more often than not. The QB position needs the physical traits, yes, but more than any other position probably in all of the major sports, the mental is SO much a factor of success, and you can’t really get that from workouts…any of these kids will look great throwing passes in shorts with no pass rush and no game pressure on the line. It’s night and day different. I am always wary of these “late risers”…if they weren’t a first round top QB after the last game played, then they should not be elevated to that status afterwards. My two cents…
This is how much money these guys are making on NIL. Estimated NIL Value (Millions) Arch Manning Texas $3.6M Carson Beck Miami (FL) $3.1M Bryce Underwood Michigan $3.0M LaNorris Sellers South Carolina $2.8M Fernando Mendoza Cal $2.6M Ty Simpson Tennessee $2.5M Dante Moore UCLA $2.4M Julian Sayin Georgia $2.4M Jayden Maiava USC $2.3M There is even potential to make more. So, I can definitely see them staying in school. If they love it so much, young, heroes on campus, having the time of their lives AND still get paid millions. On the other hand, if they go top 5, that's roughly 10 mil per year instead of 2.5-3. That decreases the later you get picked. What's more, it will allow them to get to free agency sooner. If they bet on themselves, that could mean 30+ mil per year from there on out. Meaning, instead of one of your prime years being at 2.5, you will have it at 15-20 times more. So, there are definitely pros and cons of declaring now. Moore probably goes top 3, and Sellers will also get pushed up. But there are also reasons to stay, which really were not there before NIL. I do hope in Moore's case it makes more sense to declare, though reports are saying he is leaning no. But if the guy knows he will be picked top 3 this year, while next year probably not, there are good reasons to declare. We will just have to wait and see, but if we have Moore, Mendoza, and Simpson as 3 in 2026, this does not seem like a terrible class. Add Sellers to that and might be even a good one.
There is a gut feeling from me that says Moore will be the best of the bunch. You show him as UCLA but actually is Oregon correct?
That's correct, a mistake in AI aggregation as he transferred to Oregon of course. But the NIL number looks correct. I am wondering, if Moore and Sellers do declare, is all of the sudden this QB class actually as good or better than the 2027 one?
My man, from your lips to the fools that "over think" this shit! Just absolutely sick of these kids that do "just enough" ON THE FIELD but then go into these dumb ass workouts and now you are drafting a kid like Anthony Richardson at the top of the draft. ANYONE with $.02 of football knowledge knew that kid was going to crash and burn....HARD! Trey Lance comes to mind, as well. I can't remember if it was Lance or Richardson but one of them started all of FIFTEEN games from high school on before being drafted. Are you kidding me? Personally, if Mendoza wants to impress me, he better flush all that "hype" down the shitter, finish the season winning the national title AND drag his ass to whichever all star game he can get in to and then DOMINATE! I want to see that kid playing against an entire defense of counterparts who will be going to the NFL before I, personally, would put my ass on the line (are you listening Moogy?) drafting him anywhere near 20 or higher. I don't want to hear all that prima donna "hot air" about hurting his draft position or worrying about getting hurt...yada yada yada. BULLSHIT. I MUST see him playing against an entire side of the ball that is as close to similar as to what he's going to face in the NFL. Full stop. It's that or let Cleveland roll the dice, again, on a "maybe" QB. Edit: let me be clear, it's not the kid's fault. Should have worded that differently. The kid does what the kid does. It's these foolish "know it all" NFL types that throw miles of tape worth of mediocre to O.K. performances, on the field, in the trash and draft some kid that was able to jump out of a building. Forgetting that "touch" on an NFL pass is a lot more important than jump 100 feet high. Take McCarthy in Minny. Was listening to Brian Hoyer, on Sirius NFL, this morning talk about McCarthy and him throwing lasers on every passing down. I went and did a quick look and that's how he played college, too. No touch, just lasers all over the place. Could that be WHY he wasn't asked to do "too much" at Michigan?
nah dude that's way incorrect. Wherever you got that from is just estimating NIL value, it is incorrect to say thats "what they are making." Big difference to begin with but NIL doesn't work like that anyway. You dont make less if you throw 3 interceptions a game, for example. but on this list you do or you would. Recently Sellers' "NIL value" went down because he's having a down year. Which is just silly, if he was a "free agent" on the market right now he would kill it in NIL. I even saw a headline "Sellers takes $600K setback amid calls to transfer" which was the dumbest headline I read all year -- I dont know how much Sellers is making at South Carolina but I bet you it is a lot less than that estimate there. His father mentioned an offer from Auburn to the tune of $8 million over 2 years, that Sellers turned down to come back to SC. They acted liked that Auburn number was astronomical. If he was making close to $3 million this season it wouldn't be also, there's no way Indiana is paying Mendoza that kind of dough. Indiana is rumored to only have $2million in NIL funds to pay for their entire roster. Their coach is doing a phenomenal job. Although I'm sure this great season is helping with fundraising haha
@Jets79 @mezzavo There is still games left for the guys to make an impression. 2 games left, conference championships, play-offs, Sr Bowl, it's not just combine and workouts. Agreed that for a QB combine is less important. Richardson went up the draft boards for the wrong reasons. But also Nix and Dart went up as well. The teams ask questions during the interview about some of the plays they made, how they think, etc, which can add more data points. Also, data shows QBs below 6-2 are less likely to succeed. Maybe because there are bigger guys in NFL, harder to see or whatever else. But if Simpson measures a little over 6-0 for instance, I think it is going to make some impact. EDIT: another recent example is Sanders. The guy took a dive when he completely failed interview process, according to the reports citing multiple coaches. The guy was right there with Ward considered as a top prospect, and tumbled to mid rounds. The point is that there is still time and meaningful data points to evaluate. https://www.on3.com/nil/rankings/player/nil-valuations/ This seems to support this. I think if we want to generalize and say top ones make 2-3 mil, give or take, it's pretty accurate for the purposes of the conversation. And if Sellers/Moore make less, more of a reason to declare now!
One more thing I want to remind. When we had similar conversation last year, the sentiment was that 2026 QB draft was going to be great. Same exact points as now: Arch will come out, a few others, etc... And yet here we are in 2026 saying 2027 will be great. Who knows if Arch will even come out then as well as a few others. And if he does come out after playing well, he is going #1 overall, which we will not be able to get unless we win 1-2 games next year. We don't really know what 2027 QB draft will look like. I still have hopes for the 2026 one. And if that doesn't work, we can still be in on the 2027. But I would prefer to start top QB search in this draft.
So far, only a handful of people are saying 2027 will be great. I have no way of knowing. To your point in the post just above, there's still a little bit of football to be played at the college level. Unfortunately, for me, the college game is so watered down these days and the NIL has exasperated that problem. I'm all for a college player making a bit of scratch but, because of that, I get NO idea of continuity. How does a kid play in a system? How does that kid bounce back from a bad year? Do they regress after a GOOD year? For a young QB, it's ALL about the continuity and generating a timeline of "tape" for teams to draw from. These days, when a kid has a "good" year they bounce to a different team. Only the rare players stay. That's great if you are on your 5th year in the NFL. You play great you get paid or move on and get paid. When you are a 19 year old kid, just learning the position, I feel, in general, it does more harm than good. However, who am I to argue such a point. You also mentioned Sanders and then Dart and Nix. Nix isn't Nix if he's on the Jets or Browns. He's got Sean Payton. Dart hasn't started/finished an NFL season and the Giants suck whether he was playing or not. Yeah, he looked a lot better than Wilson but anyone would when you are comparing a 20 something rookie to a man nearly 20 years in the league on his last legs. Talk to me when Dart has made it to the playoffs. Time will tell. All I'm saying is these kids, who are "fringe" QB's, in my opinion, need to show up at the all-star games etc. The playoffs don't amount to jack for me. They are still playing teams where 90% of the defenses they are going against have 9 or 10 players that will never sniff the NFL thus inferior talent. Again, it's easy to light it up against college level players. Let me see what guys like Mendoza look like when they are slinging the rock against a full 11 that are NFL caliber/worthy people.
I say if it pans out that way it would be heaven for us and we should strike with one this year, AND keep all our options open for next year as well. I’m just objecting to trading up and loose critical picks. Next year draft is pretty formidable as well in many areas other than QB from what I read.
Bro, this is getting like borderline insane and I don’t even know what this means? You don’t care how they do in virtually any college game but you just want to see them perform well in an “all-star game?” Kyle Lauletta was the 2018 Senior Bowl MVP. What were your thoughts on him?
Fields wasn't a bad prospect. Consensus top 5 (https://www.nflmockdraftdatabase.com/big-boards/2021/consensus-big-board-2021), ended up #11. Not all of them work out, but you gotta keep trying until you hit. It does matter how these guys play in games, that's the largest part of evaluation. That year Fields played great in the semifinal, but then laid an egg in the final and they lost. It was actually an inconsistent year for him. Something that we have seen his entire career in the NFL until he finally broke and became completely unplayable with us.
I actually feel real good about Tanner Engstrand. Guys are being schemed open weekly, I think he is a smart dude who knows what he is doing. Its Charles London who I have a major issue with being the QB coach.
Is it possible for a top prospect, like some of these QBs, to stay in school and buy an insurance policy in case of a career-ending injury? Maybe Lloyd's can broker something like this. I work in insurance so that's why I think this way.
This is part of what makes QB prospects so tricky. Fields looked great on paper - high completion %, good TD:INT ratio, high level of competition. Meanwhile, he's completely unable to pass in the NFL. I think what it comes down to is scheme and surrounding talent. There are massive gaps in coaching and surrounding talent in college. Fields played against good competition, but Ohio State still had a huge talent and scheme advantage vs. most of their opponents. Fields didn't have to make multiple reads very often, and when he did, his 2nd read was generally wide open. The next person who solves QB prospect analysis will be the first. There are just so many things that are hard to project. The ideal QB prospect probably looks something like a guy who plays against good competition, isn't surrounded by a ton of talent relative to his opponents, doesn't have an offensive wizard as head coach, and still puts up pretty good numbers.
You know, I disagree on him being a good prospect…I agree with your comments on college coaching and talent, etc., and I know he was considered a top prospect, but even at the time, I wanted no part of him. Firstly, at the time I was saying that Ohio State had never produced a top NFL QB, and that was true then. Since then, only CJ Stroud has come out of there and been a good NFL QB. That’s it. So not sure why that is because they tend to have consistently great receivers, but something there exists that is affecting QBs such that they just don’t produce NFL talent at that position. Not sure why, but it is what it is. That being said, even at the time, whatever tape I watched of Fields was not promising for an NFL career…he had such a good OL and such great receivers (including our own GW, Olave, etc.), that almost all of his highlights were him holding the ball forever (he had the time because his OL was good, and he was able to run around if needed), and then flinging balls deep to receivers who were wide open. None of that translated to the NFL on any consistent basis….yes sure sometimes you’ll get a blown coverage, but for the most part, that doesn’t happen in the NFL very often. But he hadn’t really needed to read a defense, go through progressions, throw with anticipation etc. No, all he had to do was buy enough time behind a great OL and then use his strong arm to find open receivers downfield. As we have seen, none of that translated to the NFL in any consistent kind of way.
To me, the entire college football landscape has changed to the point where it's nearly impossible to judge these guys. You know, if you wanted to really challenge these kids the power 5 conferences should only play each other. No Big "Ten" (that's a laugh) teams pounding the hell out of schools like Temple and "Johnny Go Lucky State" to pad their records. Make the Georgia's of the world beat up on and play only the LSU's and USC's of the world. You'll find out about these kids with a lot more thorough information than the stat padding that goes on. Another thing, if they're going to pay these kids then the NIL need to start cutting contracts. No more of this mercenary bullshit where a kid bounces from school to school. You sign a 3 or 4 year CONTRACT and have verbiage that can trigger a move to another school. Just some thoughts... Seriously, it's getting a lot harder to judge the "talent." Something needs to change seeing as it's now all about the money.
I thought you just said the playoffs mean nothing to you? That’s 11 power four teams and the best G5 team. You get to see the QB’s that get in play only the “best” in a single elimination tournament. The contraction of the PAC-12 and Texas/Oklahoma going to the SEC has now created basically two super conferences as well. Some SEC schools play 4-5 ranked opponents in a row. It’s as close to what you’re describing you want as it can possibly be right now.
