Quarterbacks Not Named Joe Burrow
Quarterbacks rise up draft boards every single draft cycle. Because of the importance of the position, teams find themselves reaching for a quarterback before addressing other positions, because if you don’t have a signal-caller, it is hard to have success in this league. That leads to players like Jake Locker, Paxton Lynch, E.J. Manuel and others coming off the board perhaps early than their true draft grade reflects.
This year’s crop of signal-callers is no different. Joe Burrow is a very clean evaluation, but the rest of the quarterbacks expected to go in the first round (Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert and Jordan Love) all have serious question marks.
With Tagovailoa, the issues begin with his hip. The dislocated hip injury that Tagovailoa suffered near the end of the college football season ended his Alabama playing days, and has many concerned about both the short-term implications of the injury, and the potential longevity issues that could arise. Add to those concerns recent reporting from former NFL general manager Mike Lombardi, who relayed that two NFL teams actually failed Tagovailoa on a physical basis at the Combine, and that the quarterback had some earlier, undisclosed, broken wrists.
If you are an NFL team picking near the top of the draft and you need a quarterback, are you drafting a player with that medical history? Especially in the current environment where you might not get a second medical examination of him?
But what are your other options? Justin Herbert? The Oregon passer has a live arm and the athleticism that today’s offensive coordinators crave, but what else does he bring to the table? Herbert ran a system at Oregon that is not an exact one-to-one translation to the pro game, and his numbers were brutal under pressure. According to charting data from Pro Football Focus, Herbert was one of the worst quarterbacks in college football last season when pressured. Among 129 qualified passers, Herbert ranked 124th in negatively graded plays when he was under duress.
Pressure happens in the NFL.
If not Tua or Herbert, is Jordan Love the answer? The quarterback with 17 interceptions, or as he termed them, “teachable moments” in 2019? Perhaps you can calm yourself by studying his 2018 film, but even there you are going to find examples of him making throws that perhaps should have been interceptions, but were not.
If you are a team that needs to address quarterback in the first round, unless that player is Burrow, there are going to be some associated risks.