Risers, Fallers & the Truth

So NFL GMs and scouting departments are sharing their information with the public evaluators? There are some pretty dumb franchises out there but I find it hard to believe that even they would put out into the public their true evaluations before the draft. Franchises have actually admitted to purposely putting out false information to throw off other teams, how can we tell real from the fake stuff?

There are so many of these so called experts now that we could find a bunch that have reasons why X QB is better than Y and so forth. JJ being projected as high as he is comes as a surprise to me as just a casual fan that has a lot of knowledge about the game. There were lots of wow moments from other QBs such as Penix but really didn't see a bunch of those from JJ. I still have the memory of the pick-6 against TCU in the prior playoff that was also a big moment but a bad throw that everyone seems to have forgotten about. He really just seems like mostly a game manager to me but I'm definitely no expert. Seems like a lot of over hype going on.

This is an annual occurrence with the draft media, there are players that they are high on that NFL teams aren't as high on and vice versa. Around the combine and pro days we begin to learn more about what NFL teams think, but we never fully learn until draft day. I don't have a whole lot of documentation on it, but I can assure you every March-April there is an upswing of players like McCarthy, JPJ, and Murphy II and downswing of players that teams actually aren't all that high on.

This doesn't mean that the NFL teams are right to think so - plenty of examples exist where teams reach according to draftnik consensus boards and regret it. A good example is the 2021 draft, Christian Darrisaw fell way farther than he had any right to because NFL teams just weren't that high on him and were frankly wrong. Meanwhile, a couple picks before he goes you have a LB in Jamin Davis who was considered a 2nd-3rd rounder by draft media, but NFL teams were super high on him and by April the betting markets showed that everyone knew he was going in the 1st round. Washington took him, and guess what... he's not that great, plays at the level of a 3rd round LB. Meanwhile they passed on a stud LT.

If I put my mind to it, I could probably remember a bunch of examples. 2022 had a big shift between LBs Nakobe Dean (expected late 1st, went 3rd) and Quay Walker (everyone knew he was going in the 1st round a week before draft day but was rarely mocked in the 1st round before that).

Don't underestimate what draftniks find out by draft day. Going over my 2023 data, my 6 favorite mock drafters had a consensus 22 players going in the 1st round - 19 of them ended up going in the 1st while the remaining two of three went in the first two picks of the 2nd round. We generally figure out who is going in what round, just not precisely where.

You forgot the "Truth" part. The truth is, no one has any idea how these guys will play in the NFL. None, nada, zilch, zero. There is no such thing as a sure thing in the Draft. The only sure thing that comes out of the draft is disappointment.

When it comes to the QB position, perhaps it's more of the "intangibles" that the NFL Scouts, Coaches and Front Office personnel might be searching for over the actual production in college...

That word, "intangibles", is somewhat of a vague word that can mean a whole bunch of different things; in terms of the QB position, it probably includes - but is not limited to - the following traits:

- How well the QB's overall game translates to the NFL: can the QB play within an NFL structured offense, or just play backyard "hero ball"?
- Processes information: the NFL is played at "warp speed" compared to a bunch of college games and can the prospect make key decisions quickly?
- Responds to coaching: does the prospect take constructive criticism and challenges from coaches to improve, or continue to do it "his way"?
- Handles adversity: when he gets punched in the mouth, does he get back up and counterpunch or melt down?
- Leadership: can you see this guy in a huddle with All Pros who have "seen it all" and get the offense (and team) to respond to him?

When I have done the QB Draft Watch threads the last two College seasons, I'm mostly watching the games, charting the stats for comparable purposes and giving my takes of what I see each week from the QB's on the games I watched. What I'm not doing is looking for those "intangible" qualities listed above, and that's probably what many NFL teams do more of than we realize, which is why the "NFL" at-large is higher on prospect like McCarthy than the production and gametape that might suggest he's more of a mid/late 1st Rd to 2nd Rd talent.

And to that point, Rich Eisen had something to say recently about McCarthy that might shed a bit more light on these sorts of things. I'm not a fan of Rich Eisen's show and he's more of a "suck up" to prospects than Jon Gruden was on MNF (it's mostly because Eisen has to talk "good" about prospects so he can keep his gig on the NFL Netowrk/Combine/radio show), and even though he also is a Michigan-"homer", he does say a few things about McCarthy in the below 6-min clip that caught my attention...



Eisen was talking a week ago about a recent report or Mock Draft that suggests McCarthy could go 3rd overall in the Draft, and Eisen starts listing reasons on why that is: 1) plays "within structure", 2) Michigan's offense might have been "run-first", but they did a whole bunch of pre-snap shifts/movement to try and confuse defenses, and 3) the Wolverines offensive coaching staff installed a whole bunch of new plays between the BIG10 Championship Game and The Rose Bowl National Semifinal vs Alabama and McCarthy "absorbed it all and got it done"...

...that last point is the key in which I think NFL Coaches and most excited about when it comes to McCarthy: the fact that he's "coachable", takes the challenges head-on, absorbs new information quickly, and can learn new wrinkles/playbooks in a short period of time and get it done on the field...

And when you just list out the facts about his background, you can start to see that come through:

- Sophomore/Junior yrs in High School in Illinois he won and was 26-2; winning the State Title as a SO in 2018
- Transferred to IMG Acadedmy in Florida for Senior Season and was 8-0 and led IMG to the #1 ranking nation-wide
- Initially chose Ohio St and pivoted to Michigan after Ryan Day took Kyle McCord in the '21 recruiting class
- Learned one offense in 2021 under then Michigan OC Josh Gattis, but learned another when Sherron Moore was promoted to OC in 2022
- Continued to evolve in 2023 when HC Harbaugh was suspended for 6 total games of the regular season, including Penn St & Ohio St games

The one thing that sticks out to me when you see some of that background is the transfer to IMG Academy for his Sr. season in 2020, which was out of his comfort zone. He was away from his family, friends and HS coaching staff in Illinois, but he had a clear goal of becoming a better QB and playing in the NFL and when the pandemic hit in 2020, playing football in Illinois wasn't a sure thing but they were going to play in Florida (and with some of the other top football prep schools in the nation) so he got a taste of bigtime athletics during that Senior Year in prep for what was to come in bigtime FBS Football at Michigan. This article from the Detroit Free Press in May 2020 (link) points out some of those "intangibles" that coaches salivate over:
And those intangible, "leadership" qualities continued at Michigan from his High School days in Illinois and IMG in Florida. There was an article in early Oct 2023 that pointed out McCarthy took a good chunk of his NIL money he earned at Michigan and gave it to his OL at Michigan (link).
I think when you start diving into the deep end of the pre-Draft swimming pool, you start to get a feel of those "intangible" qualities that can really tanslate to the NFL lockerooom and into the huddle on the field...and when you hear the phrase that the "NFL is higher on McCarthy than the sports media", you realize that some NFL coaches/Front Office personnel (like Kwesi) have known this for a quite a while and the rest of us are just now catching up...

Very sensible and well reasoned post.

Does anyone else feel like this year's top 4 QB's smoke mimics 2023's top 4. If you recall Young and Stroud were obvious top 2 throughout their college season and the debate was which one was going #1 overall. After the season Levitz jumps into the mix as a clear cut #3 and possibly unseat Stroud as the #2 due to bad test score. Richardson, at the start, was considered raw with high upside and didn't start climbing into the first-round QB talks until after the combine. I see a similar pattern this year.

Stroud & Young = Williams & Maye - consensus top 2 QB's all year with recent rumors of Maye falling behind Daniels
Daniels = Levitz - the early challenger to crack into a top 5 pick, possible #2 overall
McCarthy = Richardson - the late riser whose intangibles are unclear but has a really high upside by a lot of scouts.

Keep in mind this year's QB's are much more talented, better size (except Richardson who's a freak), experience, and arguably better intangibles. I'm not comparing talent here. This year also has an added bonus of 2 more QB's with enough talent to be starters if put into the right situation and with the right coaching staff. The smoke screen stuff at the owners' meetings is hilarious because it's almost a game between teams to see who can spread the biggest "click bait" material. But if the 2023 pattern holds true, then we all can expect the following order of QB's being drafted off the board in April (NOT REALLY)

1 - Bears - Williams (instant bust in the first year)
2 - Commies - Maye (takes Wash to the playoffs)
3 - NE - McCarthy (I won't mention what might happen because I don't wish that on any player)

This leaves Daniels falling but there are too many QB needy teams, so it won't be out of the top 10. Again, this year also has Penix and Nix as serviceable options for some of those teams. Do the Vikings even like Daniels, I know us fans do, but unknown with this staff. 

I doubt it goes this way, but we just don't know. I seem to recall NE having a bit of success with another Michigan QB, Craft is 82 and just might push for JJ.  Dang this will be fun to watch with everyone saying it's either Maye or McCarthy for Minnesota. Especially now that the QB talk is trumping any rule changes, contract stuff etc., at the owners' meetings. 

Da Bears are gonna draft JJ after reading this...... Keep up the good posts uncle. I appreciate the time you put into them.