Hard to say that a 5th round pick will be an NFL star or even an NFL starter, but I will say this, once it was clear we would go for a Day 2 QB, this was the kid that I wanted. I saw him lots of times in college and he always excelled with his all-around skills. May well have been a first rounder or at worst second rounder if not for the injury. Now in terms of my track record on wanting QBs - I will give myself plus grades for wanting Mayfield and Smith, though it took both of those guys awhile to pan out. I also did NOT want Darnold so I get a plus grade there. I definitely was part of the F- group that wanted Zach, though I did eventually realize the truth sooner than many others on this forum Just a FWIW, not that anybody cares.
There is absolutely no way he would have gone top two rounds. This is not Jalen Hurts. The arm talent is simply not there. He doesn't have the size either. Even before the injury he was in the same tier as Rattler. Rattler has much better arm talent, but has other problems. Maybe Travis could have gone in the 4th if he were not injured and had good showing in Sr Bowl, Pro Day, etc... But his injury is not so devastating that teams would think he is a second round talent but not draft him because of it. He is already ahead of where Hendon Hooker was last year, who had ACL tear, and went 3d round still. Travis is a smart player, takes care of the ball, knows his arm limitations, and a great leader. I have no problem taking a chance on a guy like that in later rounds, injury or not. But I would not spend a premium pick, and I doubt any GMs would. Perhaps if Travis improves his mechanics (Saleh referenced that during his interview) to get the most out of his arm and it becomes average, plus develop everywhere else like any rookie, he could be a real find in the later rounds. Maybe even like a more athletic version of Pennington. I like the pick, though I probably would have gone with Rattler, but definitely worth a shot in later rounds, and I am rooting for him.
On the contrary, they should stop drafting quarterbacks ONLY BECAUSE they have good arms. EDIT: Sorry, haven't been around for a few days, didn't even remember that I posted something almost identical already. Duh.
The following info comes from The Jets Way. I found it very interesting, and contains some stats for QB that I had never heard of before. There are three main knocks on Jordan Travis. He’s on the smaller side at 6’1, his follow-through mechanics are wild, and not in a good way and he doesn’t have the biggest arm. But what he does do is lead and win games. He has elite athleticism, a good feel for the position and he attacks the middle of the field. The Jets coaching staff believe they have someone who can develop into the natural successor to Aaron Rodgers. To do that they’ll need to clean up the fundamentals, but with Aaron wanting to play another 2-4 years, and Tyrod Taylor in the building as the veteran backup, the Jets have something they’ve rarely had with a rookie QB. Time. "I think he hasn't even scratched the surface," Saleh said. "He was winning games, doing things that were just pure athleticism. If we could tie in the football part to it, I think we've got ourselves a pretty damn good football player." Travis has spoken about taking over from Aaron when the time is right, but right now the focus is on getting back onto the field. After a serious leg injury derailed his final season at Florida State, Travis is looking to bounce back quickly and he said he never thought that the injury would impact his ability to make the jump to the NFL and continue his football career. "Never," he said. "I mean, I love adversity. I love waking up every single day and having to make a choice. It just makes the story a whole lot cooler. I've always had that from the day I broke my leg until now. So I love it. So there's never been a doubt." Looking at his time at Florida State you can see why the Jets were interested. Travis lasting until day three wasn’t a surprise, most expected him to be a 5th round pick. His injury coupled with his limitations and mechanical flaws almost guaranteed that, but that also reduces the pressure on his shoulders. It reduces the spotlight, at least a little bit. I took a look at some of the metrics for Travis and found some interesting things from PFF. Including this trait chart in stable metrics. None of this will blow you away, but it does indicate how effective he can be when kept clean. This is further enhanced by his comparables which had him at a 90.8 grade when no pressure was generated by the defence, which drops to 50.6 when pressured. If you’ve read TJW since it started, you’ll know that I firmly believe that performance under pressure is a good indicator of success in this league, if you struggle under pressure then carving out a starting role for yourself in the NFL is tough. It’s not impossible and some players like Josh Allen can significantly improve as they develop. But that’s not the norm. In 2018 Allen completed 28.3% of his passes under pressure, which jumped up to 41.9% the next season, and in 2022 he completed 51.3% with 14 touchdowns to 5 interceptions. So improvement can happen. For Travis, there have been encouraging signs over the last two years. In 2023 he completed 44.6% of passes under pressure with 4 touchdowns to 1 interception and in 2022 he completed 46.7% with 4 touchdowns to 2 interceptions. So the numbers are not awful, but the decision-making is a little erratic. What happens when you get pressured as a rookie is your internal clocks speeds up and you tend to make poor decisions. For example in 2023 Jorda Travis had a 1.1% turnover-worthy play rate when kept clean, that’s ridiculously good. So on his 251 attempts when kept clean, just 1.1% were deemed worthy of a turnover, when pressured that number more than tripled to 4.8%. So while the base numbers don’t look bad, there is something to be cleaned up there. Travis had to work with a lot of pressure while at Florida State and his ability to extend plays is pretty remarkable. Players who can extend plays sometimes tend to be their worst enemy, running into sacks and negative plays. I took a look at the allowed pressure numbers are was pretty impressed. That 14.1% number is pretty good for any QB, let alone a QB who extends plays with his legs. There were 102 college QBs who were responsible for more of their own sacks than Travis. That includes QBs like Caleb Williams who was responsible for 30% of his own pressures and a whopping 15 sacks. That first number is the 8th highest and the second is the joint highest, and you don’t want to be in the top 10 for either of these numbers. Bo Nix (28.6%), Drake Maye (25.6%) and Michael Penix Jr (21.4%) are all high on that list as well. So while Travis needs to improve, these numbers tell me he doesn’t create his own problems, and that’s part of the battle. Here is his passing chart for 2023 which shows where his accuracy excels and where it needs improvement. His deep accuracy sits at just 31% which is a poor number in comparison to his peers. That number would actually put him 96th/130 qualified college QBs last season (min 25 attempts), and while he didn’t throw an interception (he had a 0.0% turnover-worthy rate at 20+ yards), he also only threw 3 touchdowns. His mechanics on those deep throws are all over the place largely due to the lack of arm strength, he has to really put everything into that throw with a pitchers leg kick to try and generate enough velocity to push the ball 30+ yards. Compare that to someone like Jayden Daniels who completed 63.6% of his deep passes for 22 touchdowns and 0 interceptions, but that’s the difference between a first-round prospect and a 5th round prospect. The difference between a guy expected to start straight away and a guy who’s expected to sit and learn.
I am an OU Sooner fan. I went to Syracuse (who plays FSU annually) and live in Florida, so I have seen lots of both Rattler and Travis. There is no comparison - Travis is better. Rattler gets rattled when the going gets tough - Travis remains cool as a cucumber under pressure and makes the plays. Travis can run - Rattler cant. Yes, Rattler may have a bigger arm, but he panics and he lacks pocket presence awareness - things that cannot be taught. Rattler's arm is overrated - he is good on the mid-range throw - no special accuracy on bombs. Between the two - Travis is a no brainer.
lots of great insight here…but my stance is still kind of the same…in general I feel that Day 3 picks on QBs are almost always not worth it and most of the time they don’t amount to much. That being said, a 5th round pick is not a premium asset by any means and so I’m ok with the pick, just not expecting much out of the player. With Travis specifically, very easy to root for the kid and I love the intangibles. I’ll be cheering for him. Also he’s coming into a good situation where he’ll have a couple years most likely to just sit so it’s not like we need him to be ready this year or even next year. He has time. He’s got the moxie and the leadership. All good. But I keep hearing how his size is on the small side and his arm is average at best. Not great. Some QBs can overcome size, most notably Drew Brees I guess but he’s one in a million really. Kyler Murry is small and was highly drafted and hasn’t elevated his team much at all and hasn’t proven anything. So not too many precedents there. And then when you look at our team specifically, we have failed at EVERY QB drafted after the first round. We got duds in the 2nd round (Clemens, Hack, Geno who I know did well like 10 years later on a different team with an all time great coach, so that doesn’t count for much for us), 4th round (Petty, Morgan), 5th round (Bollinger, Ainge I think was 5th), etc….it’s a pretty long list of duds. So our track record just blows chunks. Face it, the odds of Travis becoming an above average starter for us are pretty low, due to both our own track record of incompetency in developing QBs (and I get all those were different coaching staffs and GMS, but shit, does ANYONE have ANY confidence in Saleh and Hackett developing a QB?) as well as his particular attributes in small size, average arm, etc. So I’m not expecting much. Which of course means I won’t be too disappointed if he never develops, and I will be super happy if he does develop into a decent starter or even a good backup.
No doubt Travis is a better player now, and it is not even close. I am just looking at future potential. It does take arm talent to make these mid range throws to the outside hash, threading the needle there for 15-20 yards. Rattler has the arm to do that, and Travis I am not sure. Again I am very happy with the pick - it's a 5th rounder, and there is a lot of good with Travis and hopefully he can improve mechanics enough to make up for lack of arm and be able to make these types of throws consistently too. If he develops and has average arm, good mechanics, smart decision making, can run when needed, good processor, he might end up starting a lot of games. I am not sure if he has the ceiling to be anything more than average starter, but if he reaches that ceiling, that's a really great 5th round pick and he will probably be here for a long time.
I think you have to figure that its a little easier sledding for Florida State in the ACC than it is with South Carolina in the SEC. Travis had clean pockets and better athletes than his opponents. Rattler did not. Travis should've looked better and I'm not sure he did. I think Rattler is a better prospect but I understand how a OU sooner fan may feel differently. By the way, when Rattler was getting "rattled" as a freshman at OU, Travis was a backup, just chillin on the bench. No wonder he was cool as a cucumber!
rattler was a backup as a freshman too. they were both born in the year 2000 and neither started games until the 2020 season. travis and fsu were 3-1 against the sec (1-1 vs florida and 2-0 vs lsu) when he started, including 3-0 his final two seasons.
alright well we will see. I think Travis is a 5th round talent drafted accordingly but at this point I hope you are right about him
man i have no clue if hes gonna be good. ive only seen each of them play a handful of times and neither one blew me away.
I admit I was ignorant of FSU football for the past few years (and Jordan Travis by extension), so I didn't have reason to expect much, but the more I watch of him, the more impressed I am with the kind of football player he is. Really instinctive and sometimes unorthodox but not in a flashy off-platform whatever, he just gets the ball there. Hopefully he gets most the way back from that injury.
Hope he becomes our Kirk Cousins after Rodgers. Not in terms of playing style but in terms of a 4th round QB to become a franchise QB
