DCOrange

Lamar actually doesn't scramble very often. In the Petrino offense, it's basically either a read-option or he'll sit back in the pocket and attempt a pass.

I'm fine bringing him in cheap, but it seems like he still has the reputation of being a good player despite his recent play and that scares me.

Saying that none of them are in the top 5 big board isn't really that much of a stretch to be honest. For example, Mel Kiper and Lance Zierlein each only have one QB in the Top 5 (both of them have their #1 QB at #5). Barkley and Quenton Nelson are probably the top 2 on most big boards. Minkah Fitzpatrick and Bradley Chubb seem to be locked in for most as well. I would expect most big boards will have 0 or 1 QBs in the top 5 with the exception of McShay. Not having a QB in his top 5 doesn't mean he doesn't think they're a great prospect.

I believe Charlie Campbell from WalterFootball was actually the most accurate last year. Mayock was most accurate two years ago. I don't think they'll take another corner in the 1st after doing so last year, but to be fair, if they let Gaines walk, corner is probably one of the 3 biggest needs the team has.

Yes, I've seen a bunch of reports that he could fall to the 2nd round. Seems like people are hearing his draft stock will fall in Randy Gregory style. It sounds like teams are extremely concerned by his off-field issues (which probably means Buffalo would also pass on him).

I'd personally prefer Tyrod to start the season and Lamar Jackson to potentially finish it but I think that's probably the least likely scenario out there.

To be fair, the Bills had a revolving door of sucky play at RG last year, which Groy has played in the past, and he still didn't get a shot at all under the new regime. Rex Ryan certainly seemed to like him, but I'm not so sure we can say the same about McDermott. And if the Bills like Groy so much, he could step in at RG; both RG and C appear to be holes on this roster and Groy can only fill one of them. And at least based on Kiper's mock and rankings, there was a pretty sizeable gap in ranking between Daniels and the closest LB (Vander Esch), DT, WR, and QB, and he already had Buffalo taking a CB.

I think I referenced it in my Josh Rosen bullet if I remember right, but yeah, the intermediate game might be the most important area to be able to successfully throw to in the NFL, and Rudolph's numbers in that range are extremely promising. It's kinda funny; the author mentions in his podcast that he was surprised how low Rudolph's all-around numbers were, but with the numbers he put up in the intermediate range, he actually surprised me in a good way. I've said in the past that I don't think there's anything you can really hang your hat on with Rudolph, but maybe that intermediate game is something. I still don't like him as a 1st or 2nd round pick, but that's something Buffalo could point to and be like "Yeah, this right here is what excites us about him". I don't think age really matters to be honest, especially if you're setting strict definitions of what is and isn't ball placement; it's really just a matter of whether or not you're willing to put in the work to chart everything out.

The percentages are based on whether or not the throw had proper ball placement, so for example, Rudolph completed roughly 52% of his deep balls I believe, but in BlueChipScouting's review of his film, the author charted it out and said only 38% of his deep balls were thrown with good ball placement. It's important to note that for example, he could have thrown a perfect ball but the corner made a great play on it/the WR dropped it; those would still count as good ball placement in these metrics. The color coding compares the QB's to the rest of their peers in that specific distance/location. So for example, look at the "20+ Left" column. Chase Litton completed it 75% of the time. Compared to the others, he was the highest, so his number is green. Rudolph was a distant last, so he was a redish-orange. Of the QBs included, the average was 50%, so at 50%, Darnold is yellow. Lamar Jackson, being slightly below that average, is a yellow-orangeish tint. It's just a Conditional Formatting setting I used in Excel. The author goes into detail about what he considers good ball placement in his podcast, which you can listen to here: https://soundcloud.com/user-743485251/episode-10 He talks about it at the very beginning if I remember right. For example, on the short passes, he looks for passes to be in a very specific spot, basically chest level so that the WR can catch it without over-extending, bending down, etc. so that he can pick up YAC since that's what you need in a short pass. The window for proper ball placement gets a little more generous further down the field. It's certainly subjective; there's no purely objective way to look at ball placement, but ball placement is more important than completion percentage. What I'm really curious about is that I know Benjamin Solak from NDT Scouting did a similar project for all of the QBs in the Senior Bowl and is currently planning to publish his findings for the underclassmen (Darnold, Rosen, Lamar, etc.) around mid-March. I'm curious to see how similar their numbers are. But the main point is that I think it's very important to look at ball placement regardless of the fact that it's a subjective thing. As I mentioned in response to one of the other posters, Benjamin Solak is working on a similar project, and in his, he also breaks it down by situation. You can view his work on the Senior Bowl QBs here; it's incredibly impressive. https://www.ndtscouting.com/solak-2018-senior-bowl-contextualized-quarterbacking-available/

To be fair, he points out that Buffalo could attempt to trade up into the top 10 for a QB, but he doesn't do trades in his mock drafts.

One of the guys I follow on Twitter for breakdowns of draft prospects retweeted a podcast from the guy that runs BlueChipScouting.com and basically, he watched a ton of film of most of the QB prospects and charted their passes for ball placement rather than completion percentage and I threw together a spreadsheet that summarizes the findings. Here's a link to his findings for the top 5 QB prospects. He mentions in his podcast that he plans on publishing the full set for the second tier guys later this week (as you'll see in my chart, there's a lot of holes currently for the Tier 2 guys, but I included as much as I could). https://www.bluechipscouting.com/single-post/2018/02/19/Quarterback-Ball-Placement I split the chart up based on how many yards the pass traveled, so "20+" = 20+ yards down the field, "10-20" = 10-20 yards down the field, etc. I don't think the 4th section of the table is particularly helpful, but I included it anyways; I think splitting it up by distance and direction is much more helpful in terms of drawing conclusions. Edit: Some of the main conclusions that stood out to me: Mason Rudolph's deep ball accuracy isn't nearly as good as his completion percentage would indicate. The author mentions it on his podcast, but basically, a ton of his deep balls forced his WR to come back to the ball rather than leading him, but he also noted that Rudolph was extremely impressive in the intermediate game. It's kind of a theme at this point, but once again, Lamar Jackson looks like a comparable passer to most of the draft class. He isn't in Baker Mayfield's league, but he's not far off from guys like Darnold and Rosen, and he's much more accurate than Allen. Allen's intermediate and deep ball accuracy are still below average, but he's at least comparable to some of the other guys. His short passing accuracy is pretty insane though. Rosen isn't particularly impressive outside of the intermediate passing (which is arguably the most important zone) where he's the best. I'm really curious to get the full numbers on White, Litton, and Ferguson. What we currently have for Ferguson is surprisingly impressive.

It honestly wouldn't shock me if Polian hasn't actually watched Lamar this season and that he's just going off of how he looked a year ago.

If Buffalo drafts him, I'll root like hell for him. I thought he was a really intriguing option last year when he was considering entering the draft and was viewed as a 3rd or 4th rounder. I'd still be okay taking him around that range this year, but like I said, I think he's a low-ceiling choice.

That's a really nice breakdown of the prospects. One of the things that jumps out at me is him specifically referencing Lamar's experience in the Daboll-style offense. I also agree with him regarding Lauletta and Chase Litton. I'm really curious to see how their draft stock shapes up at the end of the draft process. I like Lauletta a lot and I think Litton is a decent option for the last couple rounds if Buffalo wants to draft multiple QBs (which I doubt, but you can't completely write it off).

Nobody will say it in retrospect, but if I were given a choice between a guy with EJ's physical tools and charisma and Rudolph's mediocre at best tools and better accuracy, I'd probably rather take the EJ guy and hope he puts it together. I just think Rudolph has a very low ceiling. At best, I think he's a worse starting QB than Tyrod currently is.

This is how I felt when I was watching Chase Litton film the other day and kept seeing this guy named Tyre Brady pop up. I'm curious to see if he ends up getting some looks in the NFL next season because I was really impressed by him in the 2 or 3 games of Litton's that I watched.

It's gonna be so interesting to see where Rudolph and Lamar in particular land. Trepasso has Rudolph as the #1 QB in the draft while the guys at WalterFootball have him as a late 4th rounder. And ESPN has Lamar as roughly a 3rd rounder while there's been rumors that Cleveland might consider Lamar with one of their 1st round picks.

I can't imagine McBeane take a chance on Freeman given his suspension history, but no doubt he's an intriguing option. Maybe some other LB-needy team scoops him up and allows Buffalo to get a better option from what's otherwise pretty slim pickings in free agency this year for linebackers. He's only out for two weeks this upcoming season, but I suspect his suspension history will be enough to keep McBeane away anyways.

That's right, it was his second season. I guess I've lost track of time haha

Yeah, Koetter wasn't very impressive in his first season as the head coach. The struggles in the red zone in particular were concerning, but so was the fact that Tampa so rarely used DeSean's speed on short drag/quick slant type routes rather than just using him as a vertical threat. Jameis struggled all year to hit him deep, and the few times they had DeSean run routes underneath, he created a lot of separation, but for some reason, they didn't use that very often. I also think they should have played Chris Godwin more; he was great this season but played a very limited role. And the Gruden/Dungy debate will rage on. Hard for Bucs fans to complain considering they got their Super Bowl but obviously things didn't end on a high note with Gruden.

I guess it depends on your opinion of Jameis. I think he's roughly an average starting QB right now who, when the O-Line protects him, showed he could be a great QB in the NFL. They have one of the best WRs in the NFL along with a very talented rookie WR, DeSean Jackson, Cameron Brate, and OJ Howard. It's not hard to imagine them turning into one of the best offenses in the league very soon. Defensively, they have as good a linebacking corps as there is in the NFL and one of the best DTs in the NFL. They still have a lot of holes to address on that end though. They have what seems to be some decent pieces in the secondary, but it's still pretty early to determine for sure there and their pass rush off the edges was abysmal last season.

I mean, they did win a Super Bowl the year after firing Dungy. Perhaps they win it even with him; it's hard to say. But Gruden was able to take that amazing defense Dungy and co. had built and give it a pretty good offense that Dungy was unable to provide. It's been pretty bad for them since that Super Bowl, but I think they're trending in the right direction now. It'll be interesting to see how they do this upcoming year; their GM has done a nice job of adding talent to the team, but he may believe to a fault in the young O-Line they've built. They have a couple really talented blockers, but it's never come together for them, and yet it appears that they're satisfied with what they have. If they can add a good pass rusher off the edge and get one of the talented RBs in this year's draft, they should be a good team next year. Maybe he turns it around with his next team, but that dude was beyond terrible last season. Seemed like a classic case of getting paid and no longer caring.

This is the worst take I've ever seen published on this message board.

To be fair, having watched most of Tampa's games this season (and the last one too), I don't think there are many RBs in the NFL that could have been productive behind that line. Doug was pretty terrible this season even if you take the O-Line into consideration though. This was a no-brainer for Tampa though. Saves them roughly $21 million over the next 3 years and the draft class is incredibly deep; they'll almost certainly get an upgrade at a fraction of the cost.

I agree with all of that as well. I'd guess Darnold and Allen are his top 2 QBs in some order.