A funny thing happened during the first round of the 2022 NFL draft.
We learned the NFL had told us the truth this off-season.
Beginning at the NFL Combine, and during the opening of free agency, the league spoke with nearly one voice, and the message was clear: There were more questions than answers regarding this quarterback class.
Yet many, myself included, after believing them initially began to change our stance. Sure, we saw Washington give up a pair of picks for Carson Wentz. Yes, we saw Atlanta sign Marcus Mariota, and Pittsburgh add Mitchell Trubisky. Yes, the league is telling us through their actions that they have some reservations about this quarterback class. But ultimately, a general manager or two is going to take the plunge in the first round. The fear of missing out on a quarterback is going to force their hand, and we see two, three, or maybe even four passers come off the board in the first round.
We saw one.
The league told us this was going to happen, and they held firm.
Now what?
The biggest surprise is Malik Willis. The Liberty quarterback who, by all accounts, put together a near-perfect pre-draft process, remains on the board as the second round looms.
That rise began at the Senior Bowl where, on the same field as Desmond Ridder, Kenny Pickett, Sam Howell and Carson Strong, Willis looked like the best quarterback of the group. See if you can figure out when the Senior Bowl took place by analyzing this chart of Willis’ position in mock drafts over the past few months:
After looking like a fridge first-round prospect for the bulk of January, Willis sees his stock skyrocket coming out of Mobile. That continued through the Combine and his Pro Day, and settled with him inside the top fifteen according to NFL Mock Draft Database.
Now, mock drafts are perhaps an imperfect means of analyzing a prospect’s true grade and how NFL teams view them, but many media members who are very plugged in with NFL teams had Willis coming off the board in the first round. Looking through the mock drafts over the past few days, you have Jason LaCanfora, Cris Collinsworth and even Pete Priscoe with Willis coming off the board in the first round.
Why? Because despite what the league told us they felt about these quarterbacks through their actions, we still believed that in the end, someone would get antsy and look at Willis to solve their quarterback problems.
That has yet to happen.
From where I sit, the reason Willis — along with Ridder, Howell, Strong, Matt Corral and quarterbacks not named Kenny Pickett — are still waiting to hear their names called comes down to two words: Value, and uncertainty.
We can start with the value side of the equation. Even those of us who believed more quarterbacks were going to come off the board Thursday acknowledged that it would be due to positional value, and not overall grade or ranking. Look through any scouting service or media outlet, and you will see that some of these quarterbacks would be a “reach” in the first round. Take, for example, the Consensus Big Board put together each year by Arif Hasan of The Athletic:
Top 32 picks remaining on the consensus board pic.twitter.com/tj9EAwDdE1
— Arif Hasan, silenced hexagon (@ArifHasanNFL) April 29, 2022
Taken from over 80 big boards, the Consensus Big Board is a useful tool every draft season. As you can see, despite being the consensus QB1, Willis still ranked just 28th overall. Ridder checks in at 42, Corral at 44, and Howell at 56. The “value” that would push some of these players into the first round, in our minds, was their position.
NFL teams saw value as well, just at different positions. Wide receiver, pass rusher, cornerback and offensive line to be specific. Teams, even those with needs at quarterback, saw more value in addressing other positions. Perhaps this is due to questions about this incoming class, and how quickly some of them should see the field, but the value part of the equation this year — or at least how we on the outside weighed that equation — came down differently than we expected.
Then there is the uncertainty piece to this equation. A common theme about this quarterback class was that it perhaps offered more questions than answers. Questions about scheme fit, about transitions to NFL offenses, about fixing mechanics and other issues that would need to be resolved or refined for these prospects to reach their ceilings as NFL players, or come as close as possible to those outcomes.
Prior to last year’s draft I had the chance to sit down with Matt Waldman and Dan Hatman to do a tape study of Davis Mills, now the entrenched starting quarterback for the Houston Texans.
You can watch the entire breakdown here, but a fascinating part of the discussion was what Hatman relayed about the pre-draft process teams go through. Having spent years in the league as a scout with the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, Hatman knows what it is like to be in the room where it happens.
With respect to Mills, the former scout outlined that part of the discussion about drafting a player will focus on sitting down with his potential position coach and going over what needs to be fixed, and whether that can be done early, or will take some time.
Perhaps what we woke up to Friday morning, with just one quarterback coming off the board in the first round, is a reflection of how those discussions went.
In a fantastic piece that focused on Willis, Steven Ruiz of The Ringer posited that the evaluation of the Liberty passer was in a sense a potential tipping point for how the NFL viewed the quarterback position. Willis was perhaps the ultimate bet on results over process. In college he relied on his arm talent and athleticism to solve problems. As Ruiz pointed out:
But Willis’s arm talent hasn’t been questioned. It’s concern over his ability to operate in NFL offenses—which are far more sophisticated than Liberty’s scheme and require a level of comfort in the pocket his college offense never did—that has scouts wondering whether he’s worthy of a top pick.
Willis’s critics believe those questions outweigh his high ceiling, making it difficult to view him as a bona fide Day 1 prospect. But in recent years, we’ve seen other potential boom-bust prospects hit more often than not. The most obvious example is Josh Allen, who possessed the physical traits to be an elite NFL quarterback but not the polish. Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert inspired similar critiques before blowing up the league upon arrival. But there is one clear difference between those guys, who are all at least 6-foot-3, and Willis, who stands just over 6 feet: They had the stature of quarterbacks who have traditionally gone at the top of the draft.
Willis doesn’t have that going for him. He’s short, he played at a small school, and his college offense did little to prepare him for the next level. A decade ago, we wouldn’t have even discussed the Liberty product as a viable first-round pick, let alone an option in the top 10.
The fact that we are proves that the Allens and Mahomeses of the world have caused a shift in the QB evaluation paradigm. But what would happen if Willis, the ultimate outlier, also develops into a superstar? Or what would happen if he flops, and one of the more “pro-ready” quarterbacks in this underwhelming class turns into a longtime starter?
Either way, Willis’s development will be closely monitored by more than just the team that drafts him—and his success or failure could dictate the draft strategy of QB-needy franchises for years to come.
For one night at least, the NFL sided on the process part of the “process versus results” debate. It was Pickett, viewed by many as perhaps the most “pro-ready” passer in the class, who was the only quarterback to come off the board in the first round.
Now the bigger test could come tonight, and early in the evening. If teams really looked at the value non-quarterbacks offered in the first round, you can see from the tweet above that we are getting into the range of the draft where Willis, Ridder and other quarterbacks might represent good value. We could also see early if the league agrees, as some teams with quarterback needs will be on the clock early Friday night. The Minnesota Vikings sit at 34, the Tennessee Titans at 35, the New York Giants — fresh off declining Daniel Jones’ fifth-year option — sit at 36, the Seattle Seahawks have a pair of picks at 40 and 41, and the Atlanta Falcons pick at 43 overall. It is possible we see a mini-run of quarterbacks early in the evening.
But what if we don’t?
That might put a dent in the idea of the paradigm-shift in quarterback evaluation, something I started writing about back in 2019 after seeing Mahomes take the league by storm. It would be more evidence, in tandem with what we saw Thursday night, that for teams, the process in the pocket still matters. Yes, arm talent and athleticism are important traits to study, but the process of playing the position is a necessary foundation.
Again, we will know more in a few hours, but after seeing the first round unfold, it was clear that the league was honest with us all along, and their reservations about the quarterback class were on display Thursday night.