Let’s just put an end to this Taysom Hill nonsense right now

Taysom Hill is not going to be a franchise QB.

Taysom Hill is a useful NFL player. With only 48 players on an active roster on game days, a guy who can play as a wide receiver, tight end, h-back, punt gunner and line up at quarterback clearly provides some value.

And because he wears all of those hats, Hill, who will turn 30 in late August, is also a fun player who is easy to root for. But I’d imagine it would be significantly less fun to root for Hill if he was also your favorite team’s franchise quarterback. As well as Hill has performed as Sean Payton’s Swiss Army knife, we have seen nothing out of Hill to suggest he’s capable of leading an NFL franchise.

Hill doesn’t see it the same way, though.

And at least one NFL analyst agrees. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio got NFL Twitter all riled up on Monday with this tweet.

Sean Payton added more fuel to the NFL Twitter fire when he told Peter King he believed somebody would make an offer to the restricted free agent, which would cost that team a first-round draft pick.

Via NBC Sports:

“Yeah, I think someone is going to make him an offer. But the first thing the fan has to understand is . . . if we tender Taysom as a one [meaning placing a first-round tag on him], the team that makes the offer on him and signs him to an offer understands they’re going to give up a first-round pick if we don’t match. That’s easier to do if you’re pick 22, 23, 24, 25. We might very well see it if it’s a team in the second half of the [first round].”

So if you’re wondering why there’s so much discussion surrounding a third-string quarterback (who will be 30 next season) with all of 13 pass attempts on his career ledger … that’s why.

That sentence alone should be sufficient for explaining why Hill’s prospects as an NFL starting quarterback or “a future star” is so silly, but if you still think a 30-year-old quarterback with fewer career pass attempts than Mohamad Sanu has a chance, the film should convince you otherwise.

I mean, there’s not a lot of it (even though Hill will be 30 by the start of next season), which is an issue in and of itself. Here is a cut-up of all of his career attempts if you want to do your own exhaustive film study.

You typically need more than a handful plays to form an opinion on a quarterback, but I don’t know if that’s even true for Hill. He just doesn’t look like an NFL-caliber passer. He plays with no sense of timing or rhythm. If you were talking yourself into Hill as a viable starting quarterback, I’m not sure what trait of his really gets you excited outside of his athleticism and toughness.

It’s certainly not his accuracy…

And his arm strength is, um, not great, as his deep ball seems to just die out at about the 45-yard mark…

Hill’s numbers aren’t any better. For a larger sample size, let’s just include his preseason stats from the last two years when Payton started to give him extended looks at quarterback. That gives us 132 dropbacks to work with. Over those dropbacks, Hill produced an ANY/A of 5.2 (which would have ranked 28th during the NFL regular season), a TD rate of 4.1% (22nd), an INT% of 3.3% (29th) and a sack rate of 8% (27th). That’s the stat line of a bottom-five passer and 90% of those reps came against third-stringers in games that did not matter.

Whether you’re looking at the film or the stat sheet, there’s nothing to suggest Hill is anything more than a gadget player who just so happened to play quarterback in college. The NFL has seen a handful of those types in recent history and none of them went on to be franchise quarterbacks.

If we’re going to talk about Hill as a starting quarterback in this league, we have to wonder what an offense quarterbacked by Taysom Hill would even look like. Do not even think about bringing up Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, because Hill ain’t Lamar. Nobody is Lamar, which is why Baltimore capable of succeeding with an offensive scheme and philosophy that is not supposed to work in this era of pro football.

Unlike Lamar, Hill isn’t a burner or a runner who is going to make people miss. He’s a downhill, power runner who needs run schemes designed for that kind of runner in order to be productive. Here’s Kyle Shanahan explaining why that difference matters when considering the viability of a run game centered around the quarterback:

“Everyone [in Cleveland] wanted me to run the same stuff with [Johnny Manziel] as we did with RGIII. Well RGIII runs a 4.3, Johnny runs a 4.68. That is a different type of running style. Johnny is not going to outrun people on a zone read. Johnny needs to go downhill and make you miss which is quarterback draw, quarterback power, things like that. The problem with that stuff is that’s where you get hit. You don’t get hit going to the sideline, you get hit going downhill and Johnny has the quickness to make people miss but the next guy is going to kill him. You can’t do that all game in the NFL, that was my worry for Johnny, that you couldn’t develop a running game to protect him without him getting hurt.”

Keeping Hill healthy becomes an even bigger concern when you consider his injury history. Four of his five seasons at BYU were cut short by injury. His injuries included a torn knee ligament, a broken leg and a Lisfranc injury.

So if an NFL team did acquire Hill and anoint him as its franchise quarterback, it would have to overhaul the offense for an inaccurate quarterback with questionable arm strength who isn’t likely to last for a full 16-game season.

And, oh yeah, he’s going to be THIRTY!!! Hill is two months younger than Geno Smith, and Smith has actually put some decent tape out there, at least.

Taysom Hill is not a future star. He’s not even a future full-time QB. But if that’s his goal, then he should go ahead and go for it.

Sean Payton knows what Hill is — and what he isn’t. There’s a reason the Saints coach picked Teddy Bridgewater, who looks like a replacement-level starter at this point in his career, to lead the team while Drew Brees was out hurt. Had Payton really believed Hill was the future, we would have seen a lot more of him during Brees’ absence. (Bridgewater is likely to leave New Orleans in free agency, and the Saints are likely to sign or draft another QB to backup Brees instead of elevating Hill.)

I’m sure Payton loves having Hill on his roster. But his endorsement of Hill looks more like a coach trying to drive up the value of a player who doesn’t have a long-term future as a quarterback in New Orleans … or any NFL city, for that matter.

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