Surveying 2017 NFL Draft's Expanding Quarterback Class
In the 2014, 2015 and 2016 NFL drafts, a total of zero Power Five conference senior quarterbacks were selected in the first two rounds. For the most part, if you're a top college quarterback, you either leave before your eligibility runs out or you must constantly prove yourself as a comparable talent at a “lower level” of college football.
This year, according to NFL Draft Scout, the top senior passers are Mississippi's Chad Kelly, California's Davis Webb, Tennessee's Joshua Dobbs, Pittsburgh's Nathan Peterman, Iowa's C.J. Beathard and Wisconsin's Bart Houston.
Webb had to graduate transfer from Texas Tech to see playing time, as did Peterman from Tennessee. Kelly has a list of off-field incidents, and he ended the season with a major knee injury that should keep him out of the draft cycle. Houston was notably benched several times this season, while Dobbs and Beathard haven't done much in their careers other than post marginal upsets.
To say the least, this senior quarterback class lacks talent, so do not be surprised if the 2017 draft looks like the three before it. On the other hand, several underclassmen have already declared at the position, including some relative surprises.
This quarterback class—maybe the entire draft class—will revolve around the handful of passers who are leaving school early to get a head start on their NFL careers. With a few others potentially joining them, there's plenty of buzz around the draft world. Follow us as we break down the narratives, traits and projections of some of the most draft-altering players in this class.
DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame
1 of 6
At this point, DeShone Kizer of Notre Dame is the only redshirt sophomore quarterback who has declared for the 2017 NFL draft. In recent history, the other redshirt sophomore QBs who have declared include former first overall pick Michael Vick, former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel as well as Jameis Winston, who won the Heisman and was selected first overall.
Unlike those three passers, Kizer never had a season when he lit the college football world on fire. Instead, his Fighting Irish only went 4-8 in 2016, leaving them ineligible for bowl season. That's one reason why Kizer was able to get ahead of the rest of the class with his mid-December announcement.
As a pure talent, Kizer isn't too different from Winston. He's a big-bodied passer who has the peaks and valleys of an Eli Manning, though he's a better athlete. During the opening weekend of the season, many viewed Kizer's six-touchdown performance in a double-overtime loss to Texas as enough to vault him into the limelight faster than any quarterback since Cam Newton in his Heisman season at Auburn.
Unfortunately, he and Notre Dame weren't able to keep up the pace down the stretch. Kizer wasn't even named the team's starting quarterback until the Fighting Irish went toe-to-toe with the Longhorns, and his development, at least on the surface, looks like it has suffered for it. Kizer has spent three offseasons in South Bend, Indiana, either receiving backup reps or splitting practice time.
There's a decent chance that Kizer is the first passer off the board in April, considering he's listed at 6'4" and 230 pounds by NFL Draft Scout, he has a rocket arm and he was mobile enough to execute inverted veer option plays at Notre Dame. Kizer may not have the polish of Winston coming out of Florida State, but he at least has the raw tools that Blake Bortles did coming out of Central Florida, and Bortles was selected with the third overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft.
On paper, there isn't anything that Kizer can't do, but his sometimes dangerous play may cause front offices that want a plug-and-play starter to shy away from him on draft day. It should be noted that Kizer is from Toledo, Ohio, a two-hour drive from Cleveland, where the Browns franchise holds the top pick in the draft.
Projection: First round
DeShaun Watson, Clemson
2 of 6
If you're a fan of college football, you know who DeShaun Watson is. In his three years at Clemson, he's been at least a part-time starter, and he's about to face off against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the CFP National Championship for the second straight year.
Last go-around, he went 30-of-47 passing for 405 yards and four touchdowns along with 73 rushing yards in a Vince Young-like performance on the biggest stage. That led to the hype surrounding Watson this preseason, when many pegged him as a candidate for the first overall pick of the 2017 draft, when the true junior would finally be eligible.
Unfortunately, besides his passing touchdown numbers, Watson regressed in 2016—but he also finished second in the 2016 Heisman Trophy voting after coming in third in 2015. Either way, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney let the media know back in early November, according to ESPN.com, that Watson was on his way to the NFL, as the team honored him during its senior day celebration.
Watson, who struggled with injury issues during his senior year of high school and through his freshman year in college, has been healthy for the past two years—but a thin dual-threat quarterback is always going to get questioned during the draft process. For example, NFL Draft Scout has Watson measured exactly equal in height, down to the eighth-inch, as former Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, and he's listed just one pound heavier.
That's the same Bridgewater who, around this time in 2014, was almost unanimously projected as the first overall pick in his draft class. But after the size of his knees became a talking point in the draft community, he dropped down to pick No. 32. With Watson's injury history and size as well as Bridgewater's recent injury, expect to hear frequent comparisons between the two.
As a passer, Watson is your cliche spread quarterback. He can get hot and look like a 16-game starter, and he can malfunction in the red zone and turn the ball over by being too agressive. His performance against Alabama will be big, as the book on his college career isn't published just yet.
Watson, along with Kizer, is clearly one of the two top quarterbacks in this draft class as it stands today. Beyond these two passers, almost no one believes there's another eligible quarterback who has a chance of being a first-round pick.
Projection: Top-45 pick
Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech
3 of 6
To explain Patrick Mahomes' background, you have to go through Texas Tech's whole quarterback episode under head coach Kliff Kingsbury. The former Red Raider quarterback and Texas A&M offensive coordinator during the Johnny Manziel era was flipping quarterbacks for a long while in Lubbock, Texas, but he eventually settled on Mahomes.
In 2013, the year before Mahomes stepped on campus, the top three passers under Kingsbury, who at the time was a first-year head coach, were Davis Webb, Baker Mayfield and Michael Brewer.
Webb took the opportunity to leave Texas Tech as a graduate transfer to join California this past season, and he very well might be the first senior passer drafted in this class. Mayfield went from a non-scholarship player at Texas Tech to leading Oklahoma as an apparent three-year starter heading into 2017. Brewer, before Webb, left Lubbock as a graduate transfer to Virginia Tech.
If nothing else, there has been constant shuffling at the quarterback position for Kingsbury, and Mahomes, who declared for the 2017 NFL draft after scoring 115 total touchdowns in his college career, only kept the ball rolling. On draft weekend, you'll often hear that Mahomes' father, Pat, spent a year as a pitcher in Major League Baseball, and you'll see Mahomes throwing the ball in every corner of the field in Texas Tech's wide-open offense.
Usually, Air Raid system passers are knocked, but Texas Tech and California's systems are close enough that Webb was able to plug-and-play in after a camp, and California just sent Jared Goff to the NFL as the 2016 first overall pick. Kingsbury also coached up Manziel, who himself was a first-round pick.
Derek Carr of the Oakland Raiders was considered an MVP candidate for a while, and he played in a similar system to Mahomes in his last couple of years at Fresno State. Mahomes will be talked about as a system passer, while at the same time NFL teams are proving to us that not only is the label of a system passer meaning less, but that it isn't influencing their decisions.
Mahomes has the arm and mobility to make any play on the field, similar to Manziel, but he never had a moment like Manziel did when the Aggies beat Alabama. In fact, Texas Tech only went to one bowl game in Mahomes' three years there, which featured a combined 9-18 record against Big 12 Conference opponents.
He's a project passer, but he's going to be worth the effort for a team that can unearth the gem that's waiting inside of his raw talent. He may not be a first-round pick, but Mahomes is going to be drafted on Day 2, which essentially means you're getting a starting opportunity within two years in today's NFL landscape.
Projection: Day 2
.jpg?w=256)
Brad Kaaya, Miami
4 of 6
Like DeShaun Watson, Brad Kaaya is not new to consideration as a top quarterback prospect in the 2017 draft. Since he took over as a full-time starter with the Miami Hurricanes as a true freshman, many had Kaaya tabbed as a potential first-round pick in the spring of 2017.
But unlike Watson, who has had moments of greatness against top teams and led Clemson to big games, Kaaya has failed to meet expectations at Miami. He'll leave South Florida with plenty of records to his name, but he's not much different from former USC standout Matt Barkley.
Barkley was also a player rumored to be a first-round pick early on in his college career, largely because of his production, youth and starting status at a major football program. After running up and down the Trojans' record book, though, he eventually settled in as a fourth-round pick with the Philadelphia Eagles.
In the last three years, Barkley has played for three NFL franchises, and he has a career mark of eight touchdowns and 14 interceptions in a possible 74 games. That might not be too far from Kaaya's NFL trajectory, if we're being honest with ourselves.
Kaaya had a lot of hype rolling into this season, as former Miami quarterback Mark Richt took over as the team's head coach. Richt turned the likes of Aaron Murray into one of the best quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference in the last half-decade, and he also watched over Matthew Stafford, who went from University of Georgia starter to first overall pick with the Detroit Lions.
The problem is this: Even in 2016, in his year with Richt, Kaaya was never as consistent as Murray or as strong-armed as Stafford. Against teams like Appalachian State and Florida Atlantic early on in the season, he had brutal interceptions and misfires.
Kaaya is your textbook quarterback. He's a tall passer from California with the numbers, school logo and coach to claim he's next up, but when you turn on his play from Saturdays, it is just missing.
It took until January, but Kaaya finally declared for the NFL draft. Once he goes through the combine and pro day circuit, he may realize that the potential of being a third-round pick may not have been worth leaving Coral Gables so quickly.
Projection: Late Day 2, early Day 3
Jerod Evans, Virginia Tech
5 of 6
While Brad Kaaya's declaration was surprising, Jerod Evans' declaration was downright shocking. Though he did set plenty of record at Virginia Tech, Evans, a true junior, decided after the Hokies' bowl game that he was done with major college football after just one season.
Before his 2016 year in Blacksburg, Evans was playing football at the Air Force, a stint which ended quickly because of a torn ACL. From there, he transferred to Trinity Valley Community College in Texas, his home state. Though he only used three years of eligibility, he's four years removed from high school, as his last prep season was in 2012.
Coming out of Trinity Valley, Evans was ranked as a 4-star recruit by Scout.com and the 10th-best junior college player in all of the country. Justin Fuente, Evans' new head coach with the Hokies, made him the immediate starter. Evans used the opportunity to break Virginia Tech records for both passing yards and passing touchdowns in a season.
In 2015, Fuente was the head coach of the Memphis Tigers, where he developed quarterback Paxton Lynch into a passer worthy of the Denver Broncos' first-round pick in the 2016 draft. When you look at Evans' 2016 tape, though, he's even less refined than Lynch was coming out.
It would be shocking if Evans was even selected on Day 2 of the draft. He has more in common with former Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones and former Hokie Logan Thomas, both Day 3 selections, than most underclassmen declarations.
Evans looks more like a top high school prospect, with his arm strength and speed, than a draft prospect. Early on, he should be nothing more than a third-string passer, though he does have starting quarterback traits.
Later this month, Evans will be a 23-year-old, despite his inexperience in major college football. When he does get drafted in 2017, he will quickly have to adapt to his fifth team, dating back to high school, in less than six calendar years.
In that respect, the only recent quarterback prospects with a similar background are David Fales, who had cups of tea at Nevada, Monterey Peninsula Community College, Wyoming and San Jose State before becoming a sixth-round pick, and Tom Savage, who transferred from Rutgers to Arizona to Pittsburgh before becoming a fourth-round pick.
Projection: Early Day 3
The Undecideds
6 of 6
If you look at NFL Draft Scout's junior quarterback rankings, you will notice that a vast majority of them have already stated their intentions, one way or another, on what level of football they want to be playing next season.
Deshaun Watson (No. 1), Brad Kaaya (No. 3), Patrick Mahomes (No. 5) and Jerod Evans (No. 6) have already stated that they want to declare for this coming draft. Oklahoma State's Mason Rudolph (No. 4) and Washington State's Luke Falk (No. 8) are returning for their senior seasons.
That leaves only two junior passers in the site's top-eight whose futures are up in the air. One, Quinton Flowers (No. 7), is a mid-major passer for South Florida who is listed at just a hair under 6'0", making him unlikely to be a top-100 selection in any draft class.
The other is a potential first overall pick, Mitch Trubisky (No. 2). Trubisky is a one-year starter at North Carolina who ESPN.com's Todd McShay projected as the first quarterback selected in his first mock draft of the season. He's an athletic passer with the same tools and inexperience that Ryan Tannehill had coming out in the 2012 draft, but a talent like that may go high in a class cast in insecurity.
Trubisky played football in Mentor, Ohio, and his school bio states he wishes he could play for the Cleveland Browns. Though his future is still up in the air, he easily locks himself into one of the top-three slots in this quarterback class the moment he decides he wants to be a part of it.
The only other quarterback who may declare for the 2017 draft, at least as of now, is Wyoming's Josh Allen. Allen is coached by Craig Bohl, who recruited and coached 2016 second overall pick Carson Wentz when he was the national championship-winning head coach of the North Dakota State Bison.
According to Steve Palazzolo of Pro Football Focus, 72 percent of Allen's yards are considered air yards, which leads the nation by 7 percent. Allen has incredible mobility and arm strength, maybe the best combo of the two in the draft class. But the redshirt sophomore only has 212 completions in his college career, and his 55.9 percent completion percentage isn't that of your typical first-round pick.
There have been more shocking declarations in this draft, between Brad Kaaya and Jerod Evans, but Allen should go back to school to refine his skills. It's not like a quarterback won't progress under Bohl. It's also worth noting that Wyoming doesn't play a wide-open spread system like a Texas Tech or Virginia Tech.
.jpg?w=480)
