With Super Bowl LVI now fully in the rear-view mirror, the attention of the football world shifts squarely to the 2022 NFL draft.
Soon, the NFL will descend on Indianapolis for the Scouting Combine, and all 32 teams will dive into the process of stacking their boards and getting ready for the draft itself. Part of the process that all teams will work through is figuring out just what to do with this incoming class of quarterbacks. Having seen one team — the Cincinnati Bengals — reach the Super Bowl with a second-year passer, are teams going to bet on a rookie from this group? Or will they follow the model set by the team that won Super Bowl LVI, the Los Angeles Rams, and take a swing on a veteran via trade?
Teams that go the rookie route might do a ton of work on Cincinnati quarterback Desmond Ridder, and they might love what they see from a mental standpoint. Diving into five plays from his game against Houston in the conference championship game highlights what teams might like:
When discussing the Rams’ trade for Matthew Stafford, head coach Sean McVay highlighted Stafford’s ability to fix things on his own during the play. As Ridder showed in these examples, he might have that ability as well.