The 2024 QB Class

[Ed Vette]

I remember several drafts where there were 4+ QB prospects that all had the look and potential to be be a Franchise QB, but I don't remember agreeing with almost the entire class. This class has at least six QBs and possibly seven who could emerge as outstanding QBs. Of course history shows that's very unlikely. I do believe the destination is one of the determining factors.

There will likely be six QBs taken in the first round and it sounds unprecedented. Penix is going to be one of them. Just where, remains to be seen.

I don't believe I can rank them. I will say that if I had my druthers I would hope the Giants draft Drake Maye and sit him a year. I would not be disappointed in McCarthy or Nix. The best talent is Calib Williams but I don't see him as a fit in NY. I also would be intrigued to see Daniels in Blue.

I would be shocked if the Giants didn't come away with one of the top six QBs in this draft.

[Bob In PA]

Ed: Nice post. You may have been the most accurate among all of us in assessing (or predicting) these types of QB draft issues over the years, so I do hope you're correct for two reasons:

(1) if Giants want a QB, it's IMO more likely than in an ordinary year that they'll hit rather than miss.
(2) if Giants are just bluffing (or just doing their "due diligence" at a very important position) there IMO will be almost all QB's taken ahead of them, which gives them essentially a higher first-round draft pick, which cannot prove to be a bad thing.

I don't think I've done badly either, but this year we're (in a few respects) at odds, because I'm sticking with my view that only one (at most) of the current grab-bag of potential high first-rounders will turn out to be better than a backup QB over the long haul.

Bob

[londonblue]

Ed, I made my pitch for Maye and sitting him a year in another thread so you get my vote!

[MightyGiants]

Historically, the hit rate is a bit less than 50%, so it's likely only 2 or 3 of the six will actually be successful.  3 to 4 teams will come away disappointed.

[sooners56]

I hope Maye falls to the Giants. I see him succeeding in New York after a year to sit.

[Jclayton92]

1. Daniels
2. Williams
3. McCarthy
4. Maye
5. Penix
6. Nix

Current rankings at least for me.

[Ed Vette]

Anyone agree with these  comparisons?

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/espn-data-driven-comparisons-drake-maye-jayden-daniels-nfl-draft/

[MightyGiants]

Anyone agree with these  comparisons?

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/espn-data-driven-comparisons-drake-maye-jayden-daniels-nfl-draft/

I went to the original ESPN article that is much more than just a comparison.   Here are a few of the QBs we have been discussing.

Drake Maye, North Carolina Tar Heels
Ranking from Kiper: No. 7 overall


Maye is a far less unique prospect than Daniels, for all reasons better and worse. He stays in the pocket more, and his career stats have very few extremes: His 64.9% completion rate ranks 60th out of the 331 QBR eligible college quarterbacks dating back to 2016, his 7.5 yards per dropback ranks 62nd, and his 3.9 TD-to-INT ratio ranks 38th. That isn't necessarily elite, and his highs weren't nearly as high as Daniels', but if you're a scout or offensive coach, you're looking at the combination of stats and stature -- 6-foot-4, 223 pounds, two years of starting experience (not too many, not too few), built to star in a "prospect's pro day" environment -- and you're seeing one hell of a lump of clay to mold.

Most unique traits: Maye's overall stats grow more impressive when you consider that opponents blitzed him 32% of the time (44th-highest), and he was pressured on 34% of dropbacks (75th highest). That's far more than most other top prospects, and it forced him to prove his mobility at times. He scrambled on 11% of dropbacks (22nd) and averaged a solid 7.5 yards per scramble (97th), and unlike other prospects who trust their legs a little too much, his 20.6% sacks-to-pressures ratio was solid (145th). His mobility helps him buy time and avoid contact in a very helpful way.

His other unique trait, one that might not help him all that much in the pros: He is far more effective against zone defenses than against man. His career raw QBR against zone was 86.9 (11th overall), but his QBR against man was just 63.1 (107th). He wasn't blessed with USC's or LSU's receiving corps -- and obviously you need man-beating receivers to beat man coverage -- but with players like Josh Downs (in 2022) and Tez Walker (in 2023) he wasn't exactly lacking options either.


Among 126 QBR-eligible quarterbacks in 2023, Maye ranked 10th against zone and 105th against man. That is a unique and, considering he'll face more man coverage in the pros, not entirely encouraging combination.

Best prospect comps: Jake Browning and Jordan Ta'amu. As a prospect, he obviously grades out better than both of these players -- he is far more athletic than Browning, and Ta'amu was far more of a statue in the pocket -- but from a purely statistical standpoint, these are the guys who most closely match Maye's combination of efficiency, pressure avoidance and zone over man preferences. This is discouraging in one way -- if you're drafting a guy with a top-five pick, you'd like a higher ceiling than this. However, Browning was successful filling in for Joe Burrow with the Bengals in 2023, and Ta'amu has seen success in both the XFL and USFL. If Maye is a much more high-ceilinged version of that QB profile, there are worse comps in the world.

Best pro comps: Russell Wilson and Jalen Hurts. That's what you get when you filter for (a) a scramble rate of 7% or higher, (b) a pressure rate of 25% or higher, (c) a completion rate of 60% or higher, (d) 11.5 yards per completion or higher and (e) a better QBR against zone than man. If "Browning and Ta'amu" threw you off the scent, I'd say "Wilson and Hurts" should put you right back on it.


J.J. McCarthy, Michigan Wolverines
Ranking from Kiper: No. 14 overall


McCarthy is the Rorschach test of the 2024 draft. When you look at him, do you see a QB with absurd efficiency levels (68% career completion rate, the 15th-best career Total QBR dating back to 2016) and elite decision-making (4.5 TD-to-INT ratio, 23rd)? Or do you see a game manager who was barely asked to do anything for a team with an elite defense and brilliant run game? Whatever you see, you might be right.

Most unique traits: McCarthy was outstanding at virtually everything he was asked to do, and he had one of the easiest jobs in college football. His completion rate ranks 24th in this 331-QB sample, his Total QBR was indeed elite, and he proved extremely mobile when asked to do so (9.0 yards per scramble, 7.3 yards per non-sack carry and a well-above-average 16.6% sacks-to-pressures ratio). But he also averaged a paltry 25.8 dropbacks per start, 312th among 331 QBs.


McCarthy ran only about three times per game, and his blocking was so good that it took opponents an average of 2.95 seconds to generate pressure, just about the lowest you'll ever see for a pro prospect. None of this has to be damning, mind you -- it just results in an incomplete picture. He finished his career with 791 career dropbacks; Bo Nix had 2,115.


Best prospect comps: Stetson Bennett and Tua Tagovailoa. I wasn't looking specifically for players with great defenses (and big leads) at their disposal, but Tagovailoa and Bennett are excellent versions of guys who produced massive efficiency numbers (they're second and eighth out of 331, respectively, in Total QBR in this sample) from fewer than 29 dropbacks per game. McCarthy was basically a lower-risk version of these two, averaging fewer yards per completion but with lower interception rates and better rushing averages. His physical traits (6-foot-2, 219 pounds) are much closer to Tagovailoa's than Bennett's, and he'll be a first-round pick because of it, though the lower-risk stats perhaps suggest a higher floor and lower ceiling than what Tagovailoa brought to the table.

Best pro comps: Indeed, we'll see if higher risk and higher pressure look good on McCarthy, but a safe profile can work in the pros. What happens when you filter for (a) a 2.5 TD-to-INT ratio or higher, (b) a scramble rate under 5% and (c) a completion rate over 65%, all from (d) fewer than 35 dropbacks per game? You get Brock Purdy and a late-career Tony Romo. You can obviously win games with such a QB, at least as long as you surround him with the type of quality he had at Michigan. What happens if McCarthy lands on a bad team that asks him to throw 40-plus times per game? We have absolutely no idea.


Bo Nix, Oregon Ducks
Ranking from Kiper: No. 5 QB


From a prospect with an incomplete sample, we now move to two of the prospects with the largest samples imaginable. Oregon's Bo Nix and Washington's Michael Penix Jr., threw 3,621 combined passes for 29,093 yards and 209 touchdowns in college, each changing their career trajectories with instant-impact transfers out west.

Nix played almost two completely different careers. In three years at Auburn, Nix was a bit of a YOLO-ball specialist, throwing 23% of his passes outside the pocket, averaging a relatively aggressive 8.2 air yards per pass attempt and 2.8 seconds to throw. He completed only 59% of his passes with a decent-not-great 69.1 Total QBR. He was capable of pretty moribund droughts. He was also capable of, well, this.

In two years at Oregon, everything was different. In an efficiency-heavy system (with a great run game at his disposal), Nix became the best nibbler in college football.



Nix averaged just 6.4 air yards per attempt and 2.6 seconds per pass in 2022-23, and he completed 75% of his passes with an outstanding 87.3 Total QBR. The combination of a new offensive system and further maturation made him a completely different quarterback. Nix's career numbers, then, will only tell so much of a tale.

Most unique traits: Nix's Oregon numbers were extreme enough that, in terms of career averages, he ended up with particularly low figures in terms of average air yardage (7.4, 300th out of 331) and downfield pass attempts (12.4% thrown 20 or more yards downfield, 269th), average pressure (24.0%, 69th) and sack rates (3.0%, 25th), and especially average interception rate (1.3%, 10th). The hero ball side never goes away, but this is most likely what you're going to get at the pro level, too.

Best prospect comps: Bailey Zappe and Trevor Lawrence. Heh, I would say that describes Nix's range pretty appropriately. Both threw at least 29% of their passes at or behind the line of scrimmage (Nix was at 31%), both got the ball out of their hands quickly (like Nix at Oregon), both escaped pressure with quick passing, and both were safe from an interceptions perspective. The difference between those two, of course, is upside. Nix's measurables aren't Lawrence's (6-2 vs. 6-6), but they're better than Zappe's, so we'll see if there's a high ceiling to match the likely high floor.

Best pro comps: Mike White and Tyson Bagent. Yeah, you need upside to survive in the pros -- you can't just nibble -- so in looking for players with Nix's profile, we don't find much. White and Bagent were the two players who came up when looking for QBs with (a) under 7.0 air yards per attempt, (b) a 62% completion rate or higher, (c) a 4.0% interception rate or lower and (d) solid escapability numbers in the form of a 20% sacks-to-pressures ratio. Again, it will come down to whether Nix can be safe and steady most of the time but deliver raw upside on occasion.



https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/39838352/2024-nfl-draft-qb-stat-comps-caleb-williams-patrick-mahomes-jayden-daniels-drake-maye

[Ed Vette]

 His other unique trait, one that might not help him all that much in the pros: He is far more effective against zone defenses than against man. His career raw QBR against zone was 86.9 (11th overall), but his QBR against man was just 63.1 (107th). He wasn't blessed with USC's or LSU's receiving corps -- and obviously you need man-beating receivers to beat man coverage -- but with players like Josh Downs (in 2022) and Tez Walker (in 2023) he wasn't exactly lacking options either.


Among 126 QBR-eligible quarterbacks in 2023, Maye ranked 10th against zone and 105th against man. That is a unique and, considering he'll face more man coverage in the pros, not entirely encouraging combination.

He posted his 22/23 stats but Josh Downs was at UNC for 2022 and not 2023. Maye's 2022 season was much better. Tez Walker missed 4 games in 2023 due to an incorrect interpretation of the transfer rules.

[MightyGiants]

Bobby and Justin do their breakdown of the QB draft class.

[MightyGiants]

Lance Zierlein has his QB grades up and I thought it would be interesting (and in keeping with the theme of this thread) how the QB prospects compare to previous years.



Caleb Williams
USC
6.74   QB   Junior

Jayden Daniels
LSU
6.73   QB   Senior

Drake Maye
NORTH CAROLINA
6.50   QB   R-Sophomore

J.J. McCarthy
MICHIGAN
6.40   QB   Junior

Bo Nix
OREGON
6.39   QB   Senior

Michael Penix Jr.
WASHINGTON
6.25   QB   Senior


2023



Bryce Young
ALABAMA
Rnd 1, Pick 1   QB   Carolina Panthers   Junior   6.82

C.J. Stroud
OHIO STATE
Rnd 1, Pick 2   QB   Houston Texans   R-Sophomore   6.70

Anthony Richardson
FLORIDA
Rnd 1, Pick 4   QB   Indianapolis Colts   R-Sophomore   6.40

Will Levis
KENTUCKY
Rnd 2, Pick 2   QB   Tennessee Titans   2023   6.34

Hendon Hooker
TENNESSEE
Rnd 3, Pick 5   QB   Detroit Lions   R-Senior   6.23

2022


Malik Willis
LIBERTY
Rnd 3, Pick 22   QB   Tennessee Titans   R-Senior   6.41

Matt Corral
MISSISSIPPI
Rnd 3, Pick 30   QB   Carolina Panthers   R-Junior   6.40

Kenny Pickett
PITTSBURGH
Rnd 1, Pick 20   QB   Pittsburgh Steelers   R-Senior   6.40

Desmond Ridder
CINCINNATI
Rnd 3, Pick 10   QB   Atlanta Falcons   R-Senior   6.36

Sam Howell
NORTH CAROLINA
Rnd 5, Pick 1   QB   Washington Commanders   Junior   6.22

2021

Trevor Lawrence
CLEMSON
Rnd 1, Pick 1   QB   Jacksonville Jaguars   Junior   7.40

Zach Wilson
BYU
Rnd 1, Pick 2   QB   New York Jets   Junior   6.50

Trey Lance
NORTH DAKOTA STATE
Rnd 1, Pick 3   QB   San Francisco 49ers   r-Sophomore   6.47

Justin Fields
OHIO STATE
Rnd 1, Pick 11   QB   Chicago Bears   Junior   6.45

Mac Jones
ALABAMA
Rnd 1, Pick 15   QB   New England Patriots   r-Junior   6.33

2020


Joe Burrow
LSU
Rnd 1, Pick 1   QB   Cincinnati Bengals   r-Senior   7.07

Tua Tagovailoa
ALABAMA
Rnd 1, Pick 5   QB   Miami Dolphins   Junior   6.77

Justin Herbert
OREGON
Rnd 1, Pick 6   QB   Los Angeles Chargers   Senior   6.45

Jordan Love
UTAH STATE
Rnd 1, Pick 26   QB   Green Bay Packers   Junior   6.36

[Ed Vette]

Bobby and Justin do their breakdown of the QB draft class.

Not much to disagree with...

I agree that Calib Williams is an incredible talent, but I believe his personality issues will become a problem at the next level. I can't say he is the best QB prospect of all time but he's going to frustrate a lot of Defenses. One thing that I'll add is that he won't be a pocket QB based on what he does naturally but also because he's listed at 6'1 and that may be a stretch. He's going to have to drop deep, so more shotgun and more moving out to half the field. Moot points for us.

I agree with everything said about Drake Maye. There are two QB's perfect for Daboll and the Giants. Maye and JJ McCarthy.

Daniels is a fascinating prospect and I get what Justin's point is about him and why he would rank him number 2. I just see him as Bobby does and I also would compare him longevity-wise to RG3. He is going to get his ass kicked taking those hits at the next level and he's slight of build. At his age, his prime years are now. Not three years down the road. Also, having the best one-two WR duo is a total asset. He's not going to have that at Washington.  In the right system, I would absolutely take him. If he's on the board with Maye, it's Maye.

I would like to see JJ McCarthy be able to layer his throws at all levels and I don't see that being corrected at the next level. Strong arm but the deep throws as I've said, drop off. That said, he's got a nice upside and Daboll would be the best HC for him. If they draft him, sit him for at least a year. Because of the system he played in, I'm skeptical about labeling him and putting him in a box. It's just not fair. I think he reads the field better than Jones and he works well in a system and that's important at the next level.  Again, I think he should have transferred and stayed another year.

One of the best things about Bo Nix is his intangibles as a leader, as a locker-room Coach, and as a mature man. He has a decent accurate arm, sees the field well, and makes good decisions. He even has made some of those same Calib and Mahomes throws. He has good pocket awareness. I just don't know if he's the guy Daboll would be looking to drive the ball down the field. Like Daniels and his WR's, a huge plus is that O-line he had and a Run Game. When you can average 6.5 yards a game rushing with your one-two punch, it's a game-changer.

The Giants won't draft a QB with an injury history after the DJ saga. Great arm, yada... Penix as a Southpaw requires some system changes. I think he will be a good prospect for some team on day-two. He will need a good O-line as a pocket passer. I also think Justin was kindly polite to Chris Simms over that stupid tweet CS made.

Here's the thing, which QB's would Drew Lock be better than? If it's a close call, then pass.

For this draft for the Giants, it's Maye, McCarthy and Nix. In that order.

[Bob In PA]

There are two QB's perfect for Daboll and the Giants. Maye and JJ McCarthy.

Ed (or anyone else who cares to participate): Great post. OK, then, you're Schoen... whom do you select...

(a) Both Maye and McCarthy are there AS WELL AS your top-ranked WR (probably Harrison, but who knows!)?
(b) Both Maye and McCarthy are there AS WELL AS your 2nd-ranked WR (whomever)?
(c) The lesser (in your view) of the two QB's is there (plus your top-ranked WR)?
(d) The lesser (in your view) of the two QB's is there (plus your 2nd-ranked WR)?

Bob

[Ed Vette]

Ed (or anyone else who cares to participate): Great post. OK, then, you're Schoen... whom do you select...

(a) Both Maye and McCarthy are there AS WELL AS your top-ranked WR (probably Harrison, but who knows!)?
Maye
(b) Both Maye and McCarthy are there AS WELL AS your 2nd-ranked WR (whomever)?
Maye
(c) The lesser (in your view) of the two QB's is there (plus your top-ranked WR)?
Daniels and if he's not there either, then the WR.
(d) The lesser (in your view) of the two QB's is there (plus your 2nd-ranked WR)?
Same.
Bob

Bob, I would trade up for Maye. I think McCarthy will be there at 6 and I would pick him there. If none of the top four are there, I pick the WR. They may pick Alt because they know more about the Neal situation than they have let on. I would be OK with that. I would move up from the second round for Nix. I would move up from the second for a WR or an O-Lineman, or stay based on how players go off.

I would trade next year's first and third to get Maye. The problem is the Pats need a QB and it may come down to JJ or Maye for them. SD will trade out for the Giants, the Pats probably not.

I do find it interesting that the Bears would be willing to trade out of the number one pick. Otherwise, why not just declare the pick?

[Ed Vette]

The Drew Lock signing might take Nix, Penix, and below off the table for the Giants.