DCOrange

I'm really curious to see what ends up happening with Lamar. If a team wants to overhaul his footwork, he'll certainly need a year (or at least like half a season) to create new muscle memory. But I've seen articles suggest that Petrino specifically taught Lamar the footwork he uses now to help maximize his accuracy with his flick of the wrist throwing motion, and if a team buys into that line of thinking, I think he might be the most NFL-ready honestly. His running ability will take a lot of pressure off transitioning his passing game and he's already familiar with pro-style passing concepts. I believe it was Matt Miller a few days ago that basically alluded to this, saying that Lamar could probably have the greatest impact at the start of the season of any of this year's QBs.

He's a good QB. He's just had a horrible injury history. If the injuries drive his price down a lot, he makes a lot of sense as a guy that can start while you develop your rookie. If that rookie is Rosen, I don't really see the point though; Rosen should be ready to start immediately.

I think Cleveland is a very sensible landing spot for him, especially if they're as enamored with Josh Allen as some recent reports have indicated. Cleveland is trying to fight off the reputation that they're a complete joke...improving from having the most turnovers in the NFL to possibly the fewest would be a gigantic step in the right direction for them while they develop a young QB and Tyrod is on an expiring contract so it works out pretty perfectly for them.

This is 100% true about Mayfield; not so sure that's the case with Rosen though. He certainly doesn't look bad in terms of the metrics, but he's basically in the same neighborhood as the non-Mayfield and non-Josh Allen (in a bad way) prospects. See this Fanpost I threw together at BuffaloRumblings: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/12/14/16776108/more-ncaa-qb-charts If you look at the rating numbers, Lamar and Rudolph look better than Rosen. The adjusted completion percentage metrics are where Rosen shines more. But nobody is remotely close to Mayfield.

You and I disagree regarding his arm strength/his game in general, but yeah...I don't know how anybody can question his productivity. Outside of Mayfield and maybe Lamar, I'm not sure there was a more productive QB in the country. He was an incredible college player.

I don't mean to come across like I hate the guy. I'd be happy to have him; he just isn't my preferred choice. Also regarding the analytics, while they aren't good against top & mid-tier teams, at least part of that is also due to him being on an inferior team. Outside of Lamar and Mayfield, I believe Rosen was impacted by drops more than anyone else (roughly twice as much as Darnold and Josh Allen were). For all we know, his numbers would look drastically different in those games if his WRs could catch the ball. That was the one big thing I wish I could have factored in to my analysis that I posted the other day; I have the total drops from PFF but I can't see it broken down on a game-by-game basis. On the flipside, the numbers aren't always indicative of how well they actually played. Like that epic comeback against Texas A&M...Rosen finished with 491 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, and 2 fumbles, but those numbers don't show the fact that he threw at least two passes that were incredibly easy interceptions that A&M's defenders just couldn't hold on to; one of which went right through the guy's hands and ended up being a TD for Rosen. Edit: More than just being happy to have Rosen, I'd be perfectly fine with them trading up to #2 to get him (if the deal is similar to what Galko is proposing). Like I said, I think he's a good prospect; he just isn't my preferred choice.

Darnold, Mayfield, Allen, and Lamar. I still think Rosen is a 1st round prospect, but I don't like Rosen's combination of injury history, slight build, and lack of mobility. It would scare me to have a guy with a long history of injuries who is also a sitting duck in the pocket and also struggles with decision making under pressure. And I don't think he's as good a passer as his outstanding mechanics would suggest. He struggled with accuracy up until this season, and even this season, he struggled outside of playing against cupcake defenses. He only played one top 30 defense this year and in that game, he was atrocious. And against the mid-tier defenses (ranked 31-75th), he had 7 TDs to 7 potential turnovers (including total fumbles).

Rosen isn't my preferred choice; he's actually my #5 QB in the class. But I can get on board with it if they pull off something like this, especially if the 2019 pick included isn't a 1st rounder. He doesn't really seem like the type that McBeane would be looking for though IMO.

In Galko's mock draft, he says the trade would include "an early round pick in 2019" as well.

Yeah, I think the ability to step into his throws is really big for him too. I'm really interested to see where he ends up. It only takes one team to like him enough to take him at the end of the 1st or in the 2nd round; it wouldn't surprise me if that ends up being the case.

Yes he is.

Yeah, I agree with that. Rivers is also a much more precise thrower than Rudolph is (not even a knock against Rudolph really...Prime Rivers was an incredible precision passer). If you can place the ball where you want to, you can survive with the extra air time. Rudolph isn't as inaccurate as Josh Allen for example, but he does leave a lot of his deep balls short and he doesn't seem to take the short passes seriously enough; watching his film, you'll see him not even try to get his feet set a lot on the shorter throws. I definitely think he has the potential to improve his accuracy in the NFL, but we'll see. I'm personally not comfortable taking a guy in the 1st round if he has, IMO, below average arm strength and average ball placement. If he slips to like the 3rd round, I'd be fine with it. 2nd is still a little high for my liking personally, but I'm lower on him than most.

Throwing the ball far is only one part of arm strength. He's incapable of making deep throws on a rope; he can only make them putting a ton of air under it. He was a proficient deep ball thrower in college, but how much of this was having 2 or 3 WRs that are extremely talented at outjumping their man/the scheme allowing his WRs to slip in behind the defense? In the NFL, a lot of the deep balls he throws will give the safety enough time to come over and make a play on the ball. If you watch his throws to the sidelines, they hang in the air the same way Peterman's did this year in the NFL. It's going to be very difficult for him to throw a deep out in the NFL. If he succeeds, it'll likely be from attacking the middle of the field in the short-intermediate range IMO; I don't think the rest of his game will translate very well.

I've probably watched around 15 of Rudolph's games and think he has a weak arm. I mean, it isn't Kellen Moore level bad or anything, but it's similar to Peterman in terms of arm strength, which is to say, it'll almost definitely hurt his chances of succeeding in the NFL. He could theoretically become a good player in spite of that, but his arm strength will definitely limit the types of passes he can make.

Eh, his arm strength is definitely questionable. If you watch his game film, you'll see a lot of Peterman-esq passes that just float out to the sideline and are ripe for INTs if not for his WRs being amazing. Even his highlights you'll see his deep ball hang in the air a ton and force his WRs to basically box the corner/safety out to catch the ball.

If you're waiting for Washington to do something logical, you'll probably be waiting awhile. They're just a dumb organization. Not saying Cousins is the savior, but Washington constantly makes absurd decisions with their money and trading what they did for Alex Smith and then locking him in long-term is just another example IMO.

Certainly a fair criticism. I personally preferred Lamar over those two before I looked into these stats, so obviously we disagree there, but these numbers are just one more thing to look at really. Obviously there's additional context to everything that these numbers simply can't capture.

I had a little time this morning so I went through and added Josh Allen's numbers to the OP.

Woodside seems to be a late Day 3 guy right now. Like Lauletta, his accuracy is pretty impressive. I think he's a bit smaller than Lauletta though and probably has even more questionable arm strength. His accuracy makes him intriguing, but I'm not really sure he's any more likely to become a decent QB than Peterman is.

Edit: I added Josh Allen to the list since I had a little time this morning. His numbers aren't quite as bad as I expected though his passing yards in particular is incredibly low. The Lamar Jackson thread included some posts about how he performs versus tough opponents compared to how he performed against cupcakes so it got me thinking that it might be cool to do a breakout for each of the QBs. I just stuck with Darnold, Rosen, Mayfield, and Lamar for the sake of this exercise because we all know how brutal Josh Allen has been against good teams. The "Yards" and "Rush Yards" categories are average passing yards per game and average rushing yards per game. A couple things that jumped out at me: Lamar played the toughest schedule on average Rosen played by far the easiest schedule and was terrible against the only top 30 defense he faced Rosen and Darnold oddly struggled (relatively) against the worst teams they faced Mayfield in particular was just incredible this season, which I think we all already knew Lamar's stats don't look bad relative to his peers when you break it out by defensive rank Against Top 30 defenses: Against 31-75th ranked defenses: Against 76+ ranked defenses:

He did line up out wide often, but not in a way that would generally indicate being successful at it in the NFL. https://www.thefantasyfootballers.com/articles/reception-perception-zay-jones-years-confusing-wr-prospect/

Zay wasn't good when lining up outside in college; he was basically only effective as a slot WR. He does have the physical tools to potentially be an outside WR; he just hasn't been any good at it either in college or in the NFL to this point.

It's for all WRs at the time of release, which makes it kinda tough to really put much stock in it IMO, and I'm higher on Tyrod than most. Having said that, NFL's Next Gen Stats also track separation on an individual WR basis to show how much separation that WR has when the ball gets to them and the Bills WRs don't look good based on that metric either. Out of the 124 that qualified (requires 43 targets for Next Gen to track them): Charles Clay: 23rd Zay Jones: 66th Deonte Thompson: 87th Kelvin Benjamin: 123rd If you break it down by separation specifically for the targeted player and weight it by the number of targets, Buffalo ranks 24th out of 32. 1 KC 2 NYJ 3 LAC 4 GB 5 WAS 6 MIA 7 LAR 8 MIN 9 PIT 10 NO 11 CAR 12 CHI 13 ATL 14 JAX 15 BAL 16 DET 17 IND 18 SEA 19 SF 20 NE 21 CLE 22 PHI 23 CIN 24 BUF 25 TB 26 TEN 27 DAL 28 OAK 29 ARI 30 NYG 31 HOU 32 DEN

I'd rather keep Tyrod and his 1 year deal than signing Keenum long-term.

If we can get one of the top 5 QBs in this year's draft (some order of Darnold, Rosen, Allen, Mayfield, and Lamar), they should. After those 5, there's no real interesting options; some guys with big arms that make Josh Allen's accuracy look like Drew Brees, some guys that can throw it accurately but make Chad Pennington's arm strength look like John Elway. I wouldn't blame Buffalo for skipping the QB position if they miss on the first 5 guys and just wait until next year. I personally think they should at least try to take a developmental guy and kick Peterman to the curb, but we'll see. In the 2019 draft, Drew Lock is the guy IMO. I wish he had come out this year to give Buffalo another option.