Anytime there’s a clear-cut first-overall pick in the NFL Draft, you can expect to see a number of contrarian opinions. It happened with Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, and it’s happening again now with Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson. Former NFL quarterback and current NBC analyst Chris Simms garnered some attention for ranking the former BYU passer above Lawrence, and on Good Morning Football, he seemed to imply that the wrong motivations could lead the Jaguars to draft him.
“He is from Georgia. That is right up the road from Jacksonville,” Simms said. “He of course went to South Carolina, Clemson there. He is a God-like figure, as far as football is concerned. He is going to sell tickets. He is going to be everything they want.”
It’s certainly true that the prospect of selecting Lawrence has brought a lot of excitement to the city (more than Wilson would bring), but that also doesn’t change the fact that Lawrence is more accomplished than Wilson, and Simms’ take puts him squarely in the minority.
“I like Trevor Lawrence,” Simms said. “But the thing that jumped out to me more, there was more missed throws and inaccurate throws on the film than I thought I was going to see. Not to say that there are still not a lot of damn good ones, but I think that to me was the difference.”
Simms said that if he were Jacksonville general manager Trent Baalke, he would take Wilson at No. 1 over Lawrence. Luckily for Jaguars fans, this will almost certainly not happen, as Lawrence and the Jags have been closely communicating throughout the pre-draft process.