NFL Draft QB comparison

[Mr. Laz]

Some stats

Deshaun Watson is by far the 2017 NFL Draft’s most tested QB
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“Of course he is! He went to two title games!” Well, it’s even deeper than that.
by Jason Kirk Apr 7, 2017, 8:00am EDT

Even if we knew for sure a QB would be going in the top five of the 2017 NFL Draft, we’d have to argue about who it should be. North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky might be a slight media favorite, but not by a lot. SB Nation, ESPN, and one NFL.com analyst rank Trubisky second; USA Today has him third; and SI and Sporting News fourth.

Also considered among the top five QBs by one major outlet or another: Miami’s Brad Kaaya, Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer, Texas Tech’s Pat Mahomes, Pitt’s Nathan Peterman, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, and Cal’s Davis Webb.

Lotta names! I dunno how you distinguish them. There are arguments for and against each. Lemme add one more argument!

As a college fan, one subject I feel NFL people overlook is the level of competition already faced by these players.

NFL fans fairly worried about the quality of Carson Wentz’s FCS opponents, but there’s a wide range within FBS as well. Throwing for 400 yards against Alabama twice — just to pick a totally random example — means more than doing the same to Kansas.

Let’s rank them by opponent-adjusted numbers.

2017 NFL Draft QBs, ranked by 2015/2016 schedule strength

can't copy stat comparison table, follow link to website: http://www.sbnation.com/college-foot...rback-rankings

Watson’s raw stats are a little worrying, especially the turnovers, as is his arm strength, apparently. In 2016, Mahomes threw for way more yards per game (421 to 306), Trubisky threw about a third as many INTs (six to 17),

Peterman had a far superior yards-per-attempt number (9.3 to 7.9), and so on.

But considering the schedules Watson faced, his 2015 and 2016 top-10 rankings in completion percentage, TDs, and total yardage look even more impressive.

As Bill Connelly wrote in a statistical study of 2016 college QBs:

The most interesting name is one not in the Power 5 top five: Watson, who ended up in the 81st percentile, 10th among P5 dual-threats.

Opponent adjustments would have been kind to Watson (Clemson did play eight teams in the S&P+ top 25, after all). I’m assuming he’d have been in the top five had that been taken into account. (And as soon as I figure out a decent way to do that, I will.)

But if you’re trying to poke holes in Watson’s résumé — and we know draft scouts love to do that — you could note that Watson was drastically below-average in a few categories.

Whereas Trubisky was at the 73rd percentile or higher in four of six categories and wasn’t below the 50th in any, Watson was 45th percentile in yards per completion, 49th in interception rate, 41st in opportunity rate, and 32nd in highlight yardage. He was really good at scrambling for necessary third-down yardage, but ... maybe that’s a thing? Maybe he’s not a great enough runner to scramble the same way in the pros?

I’m not sure I believe that, but it might have some merit. (Gun to my head, I’m still picking Watson over Trubisky, though.)