DCOrange

Buffalo could use a WR like Ridley, but he’ll be 24 as a rookie and I think Buffalo has more pressing needs to address. Depends on how free agency goes though. I think targeting Auden Tate in the 2nd or 3rd might be a better move.

I think Lock will be a first rounder next year. Wish he had stayed in this year’s draft to give Buffalo another option.

It does. It honestly blows my mind. I remember watching one of his games earlier this year where he went 9/19 but I swear like 5 or 6 of those incompletions were drops. I don't know how his drop percentage ended up being so low lol

Take away his rushing and his passing numbers alone are still on par with Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold.

ProFootballFocus tracks Drop %: Mayfield: 8.0% Rosen: 7.5% Rudolph: 6.6% Lamar: 8.5% Darnold: 4.3% Allen: 4.8% This is a percentage of drops compared to all attempts (with spikes and throw-aways, and I THINK balls batted at the line removed). I think it's important to note that because for example, Allen's drop % looks very low because his throws are so often off target, but I imagine if you were looking specifically at drop % of catchable balls, Allen's would be much more in line with his peers because his WRs were god awful. But point being, compared to their total adjusted attempts numbers, Lamar had a higher percentage dropped than any of the other top prospects.

He did, but he was also impacted by drops more than any other QB in this draft class. Louisville has a garbage team this season. Taking drops into account, he completed a higher percentage of his passes than Sam Darnold while playing in a more pro-style offense and was better on his deep balls than Darnold too. Not saying he's a better passer than Darnold, but I think Lamar's passing ability tends to be grossly underrated. If you watch any of this year's draft prospects, you'll see all of them miss a lot of throws. Outside of Baker Mayfield and a couple of the small school guys like Kyle Lauletta and Logan Woodside, this isn't a very good class as far as accuracy goes.

Unfortunately the research into this is still so relatively new that we can't really answer that question, especially since we also can't study this until after the person dies. I don't think we really have an idea of how common CTE is yet due to the challenges in researching it.

You're not wrong, but I'm confused why carrying a bad supporting cast to be one of the best offensive teams in the country and a bowl game appearance is viewed as a bad thing.

They may be similar athletes, but Pryor was a poor passer even by college standards. Lamar is a very good passer by college standards.

I assume ProFootballFocus has it for NFL QBs but I’m guessing it’s hidden behind their Deluxe Subscriptions.

Adjusted means that it’s counting dropped passes as completions and removing spikes, throwaways, and balls batted at the line from the equation entirely. ”All” just means it’s looking at all of their attempts after making those adjustments versus qualifiers like “Deep” (20+ yards down the field) and stuff like that.

I'm not picking Lamar for his downside at all. Outside of maybe Josh Allen, I think Lamar has the most upside of all the options. I'm not sure I agree, but even if so, you can find a role for him in the NFL even if it isn't at QB. But I don't think he's very far behind the other QBs in this class as a passer anyways; they all have a lot of room for improvement.

I actually don't think his downside is very low. In the very least, he's a guy that if you just get the ball in his hands, he can be electric as a runner. The downside of guys like, for example, Mason Rudolph, is that if he doesn't improve as a passer, he's nothing. If Lamar doesn't improve as a passer, he can still be a playmaker. I actually think Lamar is one of the safest options considering how many holes all of the other QB prospects have this year.

The missing pieces regarding the completion percentages are: 1. Where are they completing the passes? 2. How often are their WRs catching the passes? 3. Is the completion a well-thrown ball or just a good catch? I can't answer the 3rd with the available data (though Ben Solak from NDT Scouting is working on that), but the other two can be factored in. For example, take Lamar Jackson, Sam Darnold, and Drew Lock. Raw Completion %: Darnold: 63.1% Lock: 57.8% Lamar: 59.1% So based on this, we'd say Darnold was pretty significantly more accurate than the other two. But if we take drops into account and split it out based on the distance of the throw, you get the attached table, which shows that both Lock and Lamar had a higher adjusted completion percentage overall. In the short+intermediate range, they're all within 1% of each other, but on deep balls, Lamar is 2% better than Darnold and Lock is nearly 9% better.

It's not the distance that's an issue with Rudolph; it's the velocity. He can get the passes down the field (though he has a tendency to underthrow them when he misses). But his passes float too much IMO; think of the Peterman INT against Jacksonville for example. The ball just hangs in the air too long on those throws to the perimeter. I don't agree with the "nobody did less with more" take...Rudolph did throw for what, 5,000ish yards and around 40 TDs while rarely turning the ball over? That offense was insanely good this season. But I do think it's mostly to do with who he was throwing to and the scheme that he was playing in rather than Rudolph's actual skillset. Just a ton of one-read throws to wide open guys and just throwing it up for his amazing receivers to go get the ball when they weren't wide open.

I'll hopefully be around! Never posted here before, but I've watched more of this year's QB class than probably the last 5 classes combined since I thought this was certainly the year that Buffalo would finally be aggressive in getting one.

I think Mayfield has below average arm strength too, but his ball placement is leagues ahead of Rudolph from what I've seen. I guess we'll see what happens with Rudolph, but it honestly kinda blows my mind that there's even a discussion about him possibly going in the 1st round. I thought he was a good sleeper candidate when there were rumors that he might enter the draft last year, but he just isn't a first round prospect, especially in a class that's so deep at QB. I think it would be pretty surprising if he ever turns into a starting QB; not impossible, but surprising. Like I said, I just don't see anything with him that you can hang your hat on. I put him on the same tier as the smaller school guys like Logan Woodside and Kyle Lauletta, but even then, those two at least have very good/borderline elite ball placement. Rudolph just isn't really good at anything.

I personally like Jackson as a prospect a lot; it certainly takes a certain willingness for risk though. He's an incredible athlete with great arm strength and he's a much better passer than he's given credit for. If you adjust for drops, his completion percentage is ahead of Darnold and on par with Rosen/Rudolph (Mayfield is wayyyy ahead of the pack). And despite not being a traditional pocket QB, Louisville's offense has more pro concepts in it than what was run at USC or either of the two Oklahoma schools. If you watch Lamar, you certainly see him sail some passes high, but you also see him make a lot of "NFL throws", throws into tight windows, and just some absolute dimes down the field. I like Rudolph as a guy to target in the 4th round, but nothing higher than that. He just doesn't really have any strengths. His arm strength is probably below average. His ball placement is generally below average. His athleticism is below average. He doesn't really show the ability to work beyond his first read very often. He's just a middling prospect, like a slightly better Nathan Peterman from last year. If Buffalo can't get one of the top 5 QBs (in my mind, Rosen, Darnold, Allen, Mayfield, and Lamar; not in that order), I wouldn't bother taking one at all until around the 4th round. There's plenty of worthy projects to take after that top 5, but they're all significantly worse prospects IMO. I don't think anyone outside of the top 5 projects as a starter in the NFL; I'd give Rudolph, Lauletta, Woodside, and Falk a snowball's chance at least, but they're far more likely to end up being backups.