Player comparisons are an inevitability in every draft evaluation process. Some find them useful, others think they’re useless. But they give people a good general thumbnail of a prospect’s traits and attributes.
That said, we’re going a bit outside the box with these comparisons. Here, we align 2020 draft prospects with their fictional football doppelgangers.
Joe Burrow: Jonathan Moxon, Varsity Blues
Joe Burrow is regarded by most as the complete quarterback in this draft class, and almost a lock to be the first player drafted when the NFL Draft begins.
Jonathan Moxon, however, was a backup. The caddy to Lance Harbor, the All-State quarterback with a scholarship waiting for him at Florida State. While Harbor was throwing touchdown passes all over the field for the West Canaan Coyotes and making the student body swoon with interesting pep rally speeches, Moxon was waiting on the sidelines, reading “Slaughterhouse-Five” instead of his playbook on Friday nights.
But when Harbor goes down due to a brutal knee injury, Moxon gets his chance. One of the things he installs in the new Coyotes offense in the movie’s critical final game – an offense he tried to install earlier, much to the chagrin of old school coach Bud Kilmer – is Mississippi Valley State’s “Oop-de-oop” offense. A five-receiver system that as Moxon points out, has MVS averaging over 44 points per game. Of course, it leads to Kilmer delivering a rather amazing comparison in this clip (which, by the way, is not exactly safe for work, but since you are likely working from home, just make sure the kids are in another room):
Now, it is important to remember for this comparison not that Burrow was an afterthought in the Ohio State quarterback room, which led to his transfer to LSU, but rather the offense that Burrow ran last season. Under Joe Brady, the LSU Tigers were predominantly a five-man protection scheme. Very similar, in that regard, to that vaunted Mississippi Valley State offense. That made Burrow responsible for the sixth man in any potential defensive pressure scheme. What does that look like on film?
nice 6 man pressure by georgia here. got the free rusher to the man side of the half slide. burrow just got the hot off pic.twitter.com/Yu5sdmyiri
— betz (@alltwentytwo) April 14, 2020
That is going to have Burrow ready for whatever he will face in the pros.