What should be obvious to everyone is that after 3x Mega Forums on TGG debating the top 4-5 QBs, and with less than a week until the draft and we STILL can't come to a consensus, @ouchy may be very correct...there's Trevor Lawrence and then a bunch of day 2 QBs no body can agree on.
I'm speculating but I think it's gotta be the Ohio State factor. Dwayne Haskins put up similarly impressive numbers in a very similar offense there and he has translated horribly to the NFL. The fact of the matter is Ohio State runs an extremely QB friendly offense. Fields fans don't want to admit that but it's true. Another thing is we have a bunch of people here fawning over Fields' physical gifts. How many times do we have to learn the lesson to focus more on drafting football players than athletes? Yeah, Fields is a great athlete and he's big. No doubt. Fans overrate that stuff a lot more than NFL teams do, they always have. It's easy to look up a guy's height, weight and 40 time and fall head over heels for him. Anyone can do that, no matter how little they know about football. The mental aspects are a lot trickier to grade, and actual NFL teams are better at doing that than any of us. Furthermore, how many successful NFL QB's are successful primarily due to their athleticism? Lamar...? Prime Newton...? Anyone else? Passing effectively is by far the most important thing a QB does and Wilson is simply a more natural passer than Fields.
He only does this some times. Much, if not most of the time, he clearly goes through his progressions.
I continue to marvel at the level of confidence placed on the NFL scouting community who get QB evaluations wrong way more than they ever get it right. Also the lumping of Fields with running QBs that rely predominantly on their athleticism is tired and lazy.
that is what I tried to explain to Legler, NCJetsFan...I have heard a lot of scouts comparing Zach Wilson's ceiling as a pro to Aaron Rodgers...and even though Rodgers is a phony, pretentious, self-absorded douchebag....as a QB, that is VERY HIGH PRAISE for Zach Wilson to receive from all of these scouts.
@GasedAndConfused said he never does it and Warner said “nothing of the sorts”. So acknowledgement of at least sometimes is progress.
The statements made concerning Wilson locking onto his first read had no qualifiers. You've complained about people "inferring" things you didn't say, or putting words in your mouth. I took those comments at face value. Not trying to be snarky or obtuse, but the claim was presented as "Wilson locks onto his first read and won't look off it". That's pretty straightforward. And people who haven't watched much of his film might well take it that way. TBF, Wilson does sometimes lock onto his first read, as I've said multiple times, and he needs to work on this, but no more - and quite possibly less than - Fields and the others.
But Legler u have to admit, that it is hard to grade out OSU QB's, (per REVISIon's excellent point) due to the fact that they play: A-in a VERY QB Friendly scheme which requires VERY little of them from a mental standpoint and B-are surrounded by more talent (while playing in that scheme) than just about any other QB in the entire country, since the Buckeyes are literally LOADED with 5 ***** Blue Chip talent year in and year out and basically OWN the Big 10. THAT is the thing which you Fields Guys (intentionally) miss or neglect to mention when you are bashing Wilson...yeah sure he played a shitty schedule, but BYU is hardly loaded with the same amount of talent that OSU is loaded with, so Zach had a hell of a lot less talent around him than Fields had. It all equals out in the end in that regard.
nice job linking to PennyandtheJets twitter account, NC! I enjoy Penny's podcasts on youtube, he seems like a good guy. Any shout outs we can give him to help him out are cool by me!
I'm not lumping Fields in with them. However, when his physical gifts are constantly cited as to why he's a better prospect than Wilson then I'm going to question how important those things are. I think very few people have laid out a good case for why they think Fields is a better passer than Wilson. It's all "he's a rare athlete, he runs a 4.4!"
You are conflating different takes by @ouchy. He says a lot of things about the QB class half if not not more I don’t agree with. I co-signed only one specific take which is as follows:
I’m sorry I can’t feel sorry for scouts because OSU makes their job is hard. Part of evaluation is projecting. They generally suck at that part of it.
Legler, do u at least agree that Ryan Day has constructed a VERY QB-FRIENDLY scheme for his QB's at OSU which requires very little of them from a mental standpoint?
TBH, I think it's harder to grade Wilson from BYU or Lance from NDSU. There's a lot that has to be extrapolated and assumed there. That said, it's not easy to grade ANY of the college players because they play in such different systems and against such different competition. That's a major reason why the "experts" miss so often. I think the reason Fields has "fallen" is because of the epilepsy issue. Sure, he may have played his entire college career without an incident, but then again would we know? Would OSU reveal that? IDK. Even so, all it takes is one big NFL-style hit and he could have that seizure even with the medications, no one has ruled that out, nor could they. I'm not trying to be alarmist here, but that's the reality, and a team is going to invest tens of millions of dollars on him, and moreover, they're betting they won't have to look for a FQB for the next 10 years, the possibility of losing him that quickly is giving teams pause, and rightfully so. It's a shame because I like Fields, and he's proven he's a warrior - that's one reason I could almost prefer him over Wilson (almost) - but no matter how tough and strong he is, he can't "out tough" a seizure.
Ryan does a good job at recruiting and scheming guys open. Like most college HCs he’s in the business of winning games not preparing QBs for Mike Shanahan’s offense. Just know this; if Wilson flops and Fields turns out to be a star, people will be fired. And know one is going to retroactively think back about how hard the evaluation was because of OSU’s talent and offense. Furthermore, it would be even worse than missing on Mahomes or Allen because this is not a who knew coming from the Air Raid or terribld production out of Wyoming. This would be passing on a blue chip prospect since HS that even the casual fan knows about.
And that statement implies that this is an issue most of the time. It's a fair criticism as far as sometimes he does that, just like sometimes Justin Fields does that. And I've pushed back against some posters who have said that Fields does this all the time. It's not true with Justin, and it's not true with Zach, and they're both going to have to improve on that, but I have no doubt they will - they have to or they won't last very long.
CC I understand what you are saying, but I believe a lot more was demanded by BYU's scheme insofar as his ability to make NFL type reads than was required of Fields in Ryan Day's simplified, uber-QB friendly, plug N' play scheme at OSU. That was my (and I believe REVISIon's point).....yes the schemes are obviously different schemes and of course they play different competition, so to your point, it is difficult to grade any college QB...but in that limited respect, I think you can definitely state that Wilson was forced to play the position at a higher level of mental acuity in BYU's scheme, than Fields was in OSU's simplified scheme.
