2021 NFL Draft Quarterback Rankings: Trevor Lawrence is QB1 but who's next?

29.04.2021 17:22

You know Trevor Lawrence tops the list, but will it be Justin Fields, Zach Wilson or Trey Lance right behind him?

We made it. It’s been a looooong draft season, but we survived again and made it to opening night with the 2021 NFL draft kicking off Thursday night in Cleveland.

Predictably, quarterbacks dominated the pre-draft discourse. There were a lot twists and turns and mini-dramas along the way. Remember that brief period when some were lobbying for Zach Wilson as QB1? That was adorable. That was really the only challenge to Trevor Lawrence’s status as the top player in this draft, which is a bit surprising. Most of the discourse has been focused on two players: Justin Fields and Mac Jones. Trey Lance, who might be the draft’s biggest mystery, might actually be the least polarizing prospect in this class with everyone agreeing, “He’s talented, but who knows?”

I mean, that can be applied to every QB prospect every year. The truth is, nobody knows, but that’s not going to stop us from pretending like we do. And that’s why I’m here. To do the impossible and attempt to tell you how the top-five quarterback prospects in this class will fare at the NFL level.

In order to do so, I watched every dropback each prospect took in the final college seasons. These rankings are based solely on that film study. And I used that to grade them in three categories:

Process: Everything that leads up to a throw, which includes the quarterback’s pre-snap routine, pocket management and reading of the defense.
Arm talent: The grade is based on both accuracy and arm strength. Can this quarterback get the ball to his intended target no matter where it is on the field?
Creativity: A quarterback who can run his offense efficiently is to be valued, but what happens when things don’t go as planned? And does the quarterback possess unique ability — such as Lamar Jackson’s mobility or Tom Brady’s computer-like processing — that allows his coaches to employ tactics that others cannot?

With that out of the way, let’s get to the rankings. We’ll start at the top…

The hype is warranted. The phrase “generational prospect” is thrown around too much, but it’s a label Trevor Lawrence has earned over the last three years in Clemson.

I’m going to envoke a name that really should be off-limits for quarterback comps, but screw it: I think Lawrence is the modern-day Peyton Manning. They are obviously different players stylistically but they share one big thing in common, and that’s their ability to make the game so simple. Maybe Clemson’s painfully simple offense had something to do with that but he has this ability to make everything looks so simple. he’s able to drown out all the noise in a given play and focus on the two or three things — a problem defender, an issue with protection, etc. — that are pivotal to the execution of a play.

Another Peyton-like facet of his game that he developed this past season was his pre-snap ability. In 2020, we saw Lawrence start to use a dummy cadence to extract information from the defense, which he’d use to punish it after the snap. His game is already evolving at a rapid pace.

We haven’t even gotten to the physical talent. Lawerence is a large human being who moves like a much smaller one. He’s just so twitchy, which allows him to avoid pressure and move into open pockets of space to get a throw off. And when Lawrence can throw from a clean platform, he doesn’t miss often — no matter where on the field he’s aiming. Not much changes when his platform isn’t clean. Lawrence doesn’t need much space to get himself in a position to throw.

On top of all that, the dude just doesn’t repeat mistakes. Look at his interceptions — or even his interceptable passes — last season and none of them are alike. Early in my evaluation of Lawrence, I took note of a play against Wake Forest in which Lawrence didn’t hit his checkdown on time and ended up taking a sack. The very next play, he went through his progression quickly and hit his back for a good chunk of yards … it was never an issue again.

There are no sure things in the NFL Draft, but if Lawrence isn’t, at the very least, a good quarterback in the pros, then we might as well give up on doing this every year.

What am I missing?

How are there any questions about Fields as a prospect? Maybe it’s something that we can’t see on tape that’s scaring some teams off. Or maybe smokescreen season has tanked his public stock while the league is still quietly high on him. But, in any other year, Fields is QB1 material.

As you can see in the graphic above, he checks all the boxes for a quarterback prospect. This is what top prospects look like. And he has the film to go along with it.

The biggest strength of Fields’ game is his toughness in the pocket. He just looks so at home in the pocket and it takes a fair amount of pressure to get him rattled. And even then, his athleticism allows him to turn those precarious situations into productive plays. A positive gain is never out of the question with Fields behind center.

Then there’s the stuff that Fields doesn’t seem to get enough credit for. His accuracy might be the best in the class. Yes, even better than Lawrence’s. And while he doesn’t solve problems as quickly or consistently as the Clemson product, his processing skills aren’t that far behind and things could even out as he plays more.

Fields’ decision-making could be cleaned up. But those bad decisions that seemed to show up in bunches in the Indiana and Northwestern games weren’t really the result of Fields being fooled. It was more of him trying to do too much. The same goes for the inflated number of sacks he took last season behind a bad Ohio State offensive line. But those plays are easily outweighed by the more successful plays Fields gives you when improvising.

I’m not saying he’ll be as successful as either quarterback, but Fields reminds me of a stylistic hybrid of Deshaun Watson and Dak Prescott. That’s his ceiling. If he reaches it, there will be a handful of teams regretting their decision to pass on him … maybe even Jacksonville.

I’ve already written in-depth about my thoughts on Wilson as a prospect, and that article was mostly negative so I’ll focus more on his strengths here.

A lot has been made of Wilson’s creativity as a passer, but that talk has mostly been focused on the off-platform throws that have earned him comparisons to Patrick Mahomes. But what stood out to me was Wilson’s ability to manipulate defenses with his eyes and shoulders feints. In terms of craftiness, Wilson might be at the top of this class.

He’s also fairly accurate and his arm strength is more than good enough, even if it has been overrated during draft season. It’s not that Wilson isn’t capable of making some ridiculous throws, but his arm does seem so talented when there are bodies around him, which I think separates him from Lawrence, Fields and Trey Lance in this class. Of course, there weren’t very many bodies around Wilson in 2020 with BYU’s offensive line just mauling opposing pass rushes. Dealing with pressure is such a big component of NFL quarterback play, and we just didn’t get a lot of examples of Wilson doing that last season. And when we did, results were inconsistent.

Another worry, at least for me, is Wilson’s decision-making. Again, he wasn’t under a lot of duress, which is when a lot of mistakes tend to happen for young passers, but when he was, we saw some brutal decisions. And that carried over from the 2019 season, which was a struggle for the 21-year-old. Injuries played a role in that — another red flag for the slender prospect — but a banged-up shoulder can’t be blamed for throwing a ball directly into double coverage.

Wilson is a good prospect deserving of a first-round pick, but he’s far from a sure thing and a lot will have to go right in his development for him to meet pre-draft expectations.

I’m going to keep this one short as to not risk looking like a complete moron in a few years because this could go in a lot of directions.

We have one year of film on Trey Lance and he was a 19-year-old, first-year starter when we last saw him play full time. I recently watched his tape from the 2019 season in order, and I’m not going to lie: The first few games were pretty rough. There were errant throws, bad decisions and panicked moves in the pocket. Even his dropbacks were inconsistent!

Then I kept watching. And Lance just kept getting better. The mistakes disappeared. His pocket presence improved. He stopped missing throws (though his ball placement still left plenty to be desired) and his arm talent took over. By the end of my film study, he looked like a top-5 pick. Again, he was 19 at the time.

Due to the pandemic, Lance played only once in 2020 and it was not a good showing. That’s understandable given the circumstances but I don’t think we should throw that game away entirely. That Lance didn’t really pick up where he had left off is a bit of a concern, but not one that’s going to significantly alter my evaluation of his 2019 tape.

Lance is a big, strong quarterback with a powerful arm and good poise in the pocket. Those quarterbacks tend to do well in the NFL.

I promise you, I tried. I watched every dropback Mac Jones took during the 2020 season. And I just didn’t see it.

I do like the idea of Mac Jones. A quick processor with supreme accuracy and quick feet in the pocket (he played tennis, people!). That’s the Mac Jones we’ve been sold by anonymous coaches and execs who may or may not be running a psyop to get another prospect to fall to their teams.

Maybe those evaluations are genuine. And maybe these people really see the next Tom Brady or Drew Brees. Earlier this week, I explained how recent history shows that the NFL isn’t developing quarterbacks like that anymore, but even if you’re still holding out hope that it’s possible, I just don’t see Jones as the guy to do it.

For me, his accuracy is merely “good.” On touch throws, he’s the most precise in the class, but everywhere else, there really isn’t anything separating his accuracy from that of Fields or Lawrence.

I’d say the same about his processing. Maybe he gets through a progression a bit faster than Fields or Lawrence but that’s out of necessity. Those two can take that extra beat or two because they can deal with pressure. If the pressure gets to Jones before he can get a throw off, though, the play is dead.

And that’s the issue so many have with Jones as a prospect. He gives his play-caller no margin for error. Sure, he’ll execute a play as designed, but if the defense has a better play called, it wins. There is no Plan B.