We’re at the portion of the draft cycle where ‘none of these players are good’
During every draft cycle we tend to follow the same exact timeline of events:
- Day after the previous draft: “Next year’s class is generational”
- Summer: 62 1st round QB grades with accompanying highlight of the QB hitting a wide open mid-level crossing route.
- Fall: 38 Top 10 first round LOCKS
- Post All-Star Game Circuit: 75 1st round ‘risers’
- Post Combine: Every team is looking to move up
- Early April: This class really only has 2 first round graded prospects
- Mid-April: Every team is looking to trade out of the first round
For the record, we are currently at the ‘none of these players are good’ and ‘everyone wants to trade down’ portion of the cycle. Just in case you’re following along.
Over the course of the college football season, we’ve seen the national conversation go from ‘The Battle for QB1: Ward vs Sanders’ to now ‘Cam Ward is the clear-cut QB1 and far and away better than Sanders’.
I personally find the latter very much funny because many of these same people spent the better part of the summer and mid-fall trying to sell the public on Carson Beck and Connor Weigman as QB1. And then after Week 2, it became Garrett Nussemeir and Miller Moss, then so on and so forth before many finally started to give both Ward and Sanders their just due as top prospects.
For instance, Ward wasn’t in a lot of people’s preseason Top 10 QB list, let alone QB1. But the talented signal caller has always been a highly coveted prospect in my eyes, dating back to his Incarnate Word days. Coming into the season, I was very high on Ward and his potential at Miami.
Even threw out this comparison as he began his transfer to Washington State from Incarnate Word.
Ward initially declared for the draft and was slated to go to the Reese’s Senior Bowl, before bowing out and transferring to Miami. Now, many will say he didn’t have a first round grade from scouts, which is why he decided to go back to school; partly true in my opinion. While, yes, he didn’t have a high grade from scouts, neither did Bo Nix. But we saw Nix go and make the most of his opportunity at the Senior Bowl and at the NFL Combine, which helped improve his stock enough that we saw him become a first round pick by the Denver Broncos.
I even asked Ward at the NFL combine about his unique path to potentially the #1 overall pick.
Who’s to say that Ward’s path wouldn’t have resulted in the same type of outcome, especially with the QB-needy teams in this draft class, who didn’t take a QB in the first round of last year’s draft.
Ward has always had the talent, mental toughness and grit to be a first round pick, which he proved even more so this season at Miami, which in retrospect, looks like the gamble on himself has paid off as he’s slated to go first overall.
Which now brings us to the most polarizing player in this year’s draft class: Shedeur Sanders.
I’ve been high on Sanders since his days at Jackson State, when many were too busy to watch FCS football I guess.
Based on narratives you hear parroted about, you’d think Shedeur Sanders came out of a run-heavy offense where he only averaged 17 pass attempts per game. I can understand the thought if that were the case, because there’s no way you take that type of QB in Round 1, right?
Anyhoo, there are a bevy of reasons why Shedeur Sanders is a bonafide franchise QB. Here is where Sanders excels as a QB: Situational football, which is
- 3rd Down offense: At Colorado, Sanders has completed 63.8% of his passes on 3rd Downs, with 69 first down conversions on 105 3rd down pass attempts. He has 11 touchdowns to only three interceptions on third down as well.
- Red Zone offense: At Jackson State, Sanders accounted for 47 total touchdowns to only two interceptions. At Colorado, he threw 18 touchdowns to only three interceptions, completing 71.4% of his passes.
Also included in situational football is backed-up offense, end of game situations and need-to-have-it situations, all which we’ve seen Sanders excel. He has a 2-2 record in his career in overtime games, and has led multiple game-winning/game-tying drives in his career.
The ability to thrive in the aforementioned pressure situations is what separates the average quarterbacks from the good quarterbacks. We are constantly looking for those types of players at the position, and Sanders has been one of the more consistent ones in those categories in quite some time.
From a physical tools perspective, it’s his pocket maneuverability, touch, timing and elite-level accuracy that makes him the ideal classic, drop-back passer. When you combine his physical tools and his ability to thrive in the high-pressure situations within a game, it makes the comparison to both Joe Burrow and CJ Stroud look even more on point than many are led to believe.
There are detractors who say that Sanders isn’t mobile enough, or doesn’t have a strong enough arm to warrant going within the Top 5 of the NFL Draft.
I disagree with that sentiment, as we look at similar prospects in terms of physical attributes in recent draft memory who have gone first overall:
- 2016 – Jared Goff
- 2018 – Baker Mayfield
- 2020 – Joe Burrow
Another common thought is that this is a ‘down year’ for the QB position, especially at the top with both Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, saying that neither would have gone as high in last year’s draft class.
Once again, I disagree.
Here is how I had the first round 2024 QB draft class graded:
Caleb Williams – 90
Jayden Daniels – 84
Drake Maye – 78
Michael Penix – 75.5
J.J. McCarthy – 75.5
Bo Nix – 75
Here are my grades for both Sanders and Ward
Shedeur Sanders – 85
Cam Ward – 84
And if you want to look back at the 2023 draft class, here are their grades
Anthony Richardson – 86
Bryce Young – 86
CJ Stroud – 86
Both Ward and Sanders are right there with highly-graded, first-round graded players of mine (80 or above grade) in previous classes. These two are legitimate franchise QBs that have the high floor to raise whichever program they get drafted to. Normally, we’re mainly projecting what we think these prospects will do as pros, but luckily we’ve seen both Ward and Sanders elevate FCS programs like Incarnate Word and Jackson State to postseason heights, as well as elevating once proud programs like Washington State, Miami and Colorado who were experiencing a mediocre period in their history, leaving all five programs better than where they found it.
You don’t have to pit one prospect against another, just enjoy the play of both and appreciate the fact that the NFL will get two more elite-level signal callers entering the league later this month.
