2015 NFL Draft: Blake Sims Scouting Report

Alabama’s Blake Sims showed some flashes his first year starting at Alabama. Sims is an interesting prospect moving forward in this draft. Below is a breakdown of Sim’s strength’s and weaknesses

Strengths

Blake Sims does one thing better than any quarterback in this class and that’s his uncanny ability to sense pressure and elude defenders in the pocket. As cliche as it is to compare a small, undersized QB to Russell Wilson it holds true when talking about Sims. Their pocket movement and presence is so strikingly similar. Sims makes defenders miss constantly, it looks so natural for him and you really get the sense he’s comfortable with pressure.

Sims came to Alabama as a running back and it shows when he takes off to gain extra yards. He bounces off tacklers and gains those extra few yards you normally wouldn’t see QB’s get. Like Wilson, Sims is a pass first quarterback and when needed he uses his gifted speed to make plays. His mobility is really exceptional. This run against Texas A&M displays his speed and running back background to a tee.

Sims possess good velocity on his throws and tosses some real accurate balls at times. He is not afraid one bit to take the top off the defense and throw it deep. He did that plenty with Amari Cooper this past year. Sims threw for 28 touchdowns and completed 65% of his throws during his first year as a starter. Sims also puts really nice touch on the ball when needed. His ability to take some off his throws is a really underrated quality he has especially when he’s throwing to open tight ends or wide outs.

Sims is a great teammate and leader. His peers have nothing but good things to say about him. “He’s a perfect teammate,” said senior safety Nick Perry said in an article with TideSports.com. “If you look at Blake’s five-year career here, he’s played every position we’ve ever asked him to play, he’s done whatever you need if you ask him to do it for the team, he’s very well liked by all the players on the team, he’s a very good guy to lead,” said Nick Saban in the same article.

Weaknesses

Sims is short and undersized, he’s not the ideal height for a QB at 6’0. Sims tends to struggle with his accuracy and really struggled this year when Alabama was playing on the road. Lacks experience as of now, only had 12 starts in his college career. Sims needs to re define his accuracy and seemed to panic when his first target Amari Cooper was not open. We also don’t know how well he performs without a stud receiver, he was able to use Cooper as a security blanket and was able to toss it up and watch Cooper come down with it. Alabama also hasn’t historically produced quarterbacks that succeed in the NFL. Sims could just be another one of those but his potential is worth the risk.

Draft Stock

The quarterback class is weak this year outside of Winston and Mariota. Out of almost every QB outside of the first round Blake Sims has potential (that’s the key) to be the best out of all the leftovers. His uncanny resemblance to Russell Wilson can not be ignored, his movement, release, size, mobility are all near identical. Sims most likely will be a Day 3 draft selection. If the right team gets him, the rest of the 31 teams may kick themselves on what they missed.