Jordan Rodgers- 2013 NFL Draft Scouting Report

Positives:

+Good Athlete
+Solid arm strength
+Good NFL pedigree (brother of Aaron Rodgers)
+Great rusher
+Doesn’t lock onto receivers
+Tough
+Has the physical tools for success

Negatives:

-Nightmarish footwork
-Can be a terrible decision maker
-No football IQ
-Can’t read a defense
-Horrific awareness of the blitz
-No pocket awareness
-No pocket mobility

Vanderbilt quarterback Jordan Rodgers (brother of Aaron Rodgers) has all the physical tools to be successful. But he really has a lot of work to do.

Rodgers has decent measurables. At 6’2, he is shorter than ideal (but still taller than Drew Brees), and he has mediocre bulk, but he has above average speed for a quarterback. Although his 4.74 40 suggests mediocre speed, when you watch him on film, it’s easy to tell he is a good athlete.

Rodgers has poor stats. He transferred from a JUCO school last year to Vanderbilt, and he started the last 9 games for the Commodores. In 2011, he completed exactly half of his 216 passes for 1524 and 9 touchdowns, but 10 interceptions. On the bright side, he was an excellent rusher. He got 420 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns in 2011.

Rodgers has respectable throw power. He puts average zip on his passes, and that’s in spite of the fact that he uses horrible fundamentals. A simple change in fundamentals should make a big difference in throw power (I’ll get to that later).

Rodgers is a very good runner. Right now, it’s probably the best aspect of his game. He has excellent speed, fantastic vision, and excellent toughness. His toughness and agility has been a big part of his game at the college level. It should definitely help him in the NFL.

Rodgers doesn’t have the smoothest delivery. He has a somewhat low release point, and it takes him a long time to get the ball out of his hand. Don’t get me wrong; he’s not Tim Tebow. But he definitely has some flaws in his delivery.

Rodgers biggest issues is his accuracy. He isn’t accurate because he uses absolutely horrendous footwork in the pocket. His footwork is just terrible. His dropbacks are rushed, making it very difficult for him to hit backside targets, and he stands WAY too tall in the pocket (which also slows down his release). Standing too tall in the pocket means the quarterback isn’t bending his knees when making a throw, which results in tense muscles, wobbly passes, and throws that come up short. It’s amazing that he can even put average zip on his passes in spite of those mechanical flaws. His mechanics are a bit better on the deep ball, since it feels far more natural to bend your knees throwing a deep pass. Standing too tall in the pocket leads to balls being underthrown, and he overcompensates on the deep ball by making a concerted effort to throw farther, even though his deep ball mechanics are just fine, and the difference in his mechanics on the deep ball gives him more throw power even without putting more effort into the throw. As a result, he overthrows the deep ball, and underthrows short passes. His feet are also often too far apart when he throws the ball, yielding to similar problems. As mentioned before, he hurries his dropbacks, which makes it harder for him to hit outside (especially backside) throws with consistent accuracy, simply because his violent dropback makes it difficult for him to stop his movement and get set to throw the football. Another tendency I couldn’t help but notice is that even when he uses proper footwork, his target step is often a bit too wide, so he tends to lead receivers farther than where they are going. It’s not a footwork problem. It’s closer to a problem with aim. He thinks his receivers are faster than they really are on crossing routes, and leading the receiver too far on routes over the middle can be disastrous against zone coverage.

To give you an idea how crazy his mechanics are, I will say that Rodgers is the only quarterback I’ve ever seen who is actually more accurate on the run than he is when his feet are set. For the most part, his roll out mechanics are just fine, and he can make some good throws on the run.

Rodgers is an average decision maker, but he has below average pocket presence. He isn’t great at making pre-snap reads, and his crazy dropback makes him a sitting duck against the blitz. He has poor awareness of the pressure, and has absolutely no awareness of his blindside. I have said that he is mobile, but I would say that he lacks pocket mobility, again, because of poor footwork. Pocket mobility is the ability to evade pressure and find a good place in the pocket to make a throw when the blitz is coming. Rodgers is unable to do this. He has no awareness of the pressure, and he struggles to move around the pocket and find a good place to throw the football. As a decision maker, Rodgers has some flaws. He makes a crazy effort not to “lock onto” receivers. Locking onto receivers is a bad thing; it will become easy for defenses to read the quarterback’s eyes, and often jump routes. Rodgers puts too much effort into not locking onto receivers, and it actually hurts his game. Instead of staring down receivers, Rodgers throws them the ball immediately, whether they are open or not. Defenses can’t read his eyes and know where he is going with the football. But that doesn’t really matter if he throws the football to a guy who is well covered. Rodgers needs more patience in the pocket. I swear, he’s never done a pump fake in his life. Typically, if he spends 3 seconds looking for an open man, he just tucks the ball down and runs with it. He needs to learn to do a better job of reading through his progressions and occasionally throwing to his 2nd and 3rd read if his first guy isn’t open. To be frank, inside the pocket, he plays as if his hair is on fire, and the ball is a hot potato. He is jittery, wild, and he wants the ball out of his hands as quickly as possible. He has some work to do as a decision maker.

Ultimately, I like Rodgers simply because he has lots of physical tools, and, with good coaching, he could be a good player. Like most former JUCO prospects (Jason Pierre-Paul is one), he is extremely raw out of college. But, with some coaching, he could be a good. He’s a project. They are very different players, but, to give you an idea how he will be valued in the draft, John Skelton was extremely raw out of college as well. We’ll see if he develops. And we’ll see if Rodgers develops. One way or another, he has potential.

NFL Comparison: A poor man’s Jake Locker

Grade: 60 (worthy of a late 4th to early 5th round pick)

Projection: 50 (will be roughly a late 5th to early 6th round pick)