2021 NFL Draft: Composite ranking of 2020/2021 QB prospects
2021 NFL Draft: Composite ranking of 2020/2021 QB prospects.
So your team needs a young quarterback and you’re looking for an answer in the 2021 NFL Draft class…
There is not a more fascinating position group to evaluate on an annual basis than the quarterback position. Unfortunately for NFL teams, there are not five players like Trevor Lawrence coming around each year, or even every couple of years.
Players like Joe Burrow, who emerge from one huge season as the undisputed QB1 of their class, are even more rare.
Taking quarterbacks in the NFL Draft is an inexact science, and ranking prospects like this is going to set you up for being featured on Old Takes Exposed, but someone’s got to do it.
How does the 2021 NFL Draft class — which presumably has four quarterbacks that could go in the top 10 picks — stack up against the 2020 class?
Let’s take a look at a composite ranking, not necessarily using the production we’ve seen from players in 2020 on the field (Burrow, Tagovailoa, Herbert, etc.) to our advantage.
2020/2021 NFL Draft composite QB rankings
Even as other-worldly as Joe Burrow’s 2019 season was for LSU, there is no doubt that the top QB prospect, probably dating back to 2012 with Andrew Luck and maybe further, is Trevor Lawrence.
Lawrence is like a QB prospect that was created in a lab. There is no trait he lacks physically, he’s a tremendous leader for his team, and he’s been consistently productive at Clemson. Lawrence is a “raise all boats” kind of prospect and while the term “generational” is thrown around too loosely these days, Lawrence is truly special and has been for years.
Prior to his breakout 2019 campaign, Joe Burrow was really just another guy out there at quarterback for LSU. The former Ohio State transfer saw everything click in 2019 and he showed off elite pocket maneuverability, tremendous anticipation and timing, and an overall feel for the game that ultimately landed him atop the 2020 NFL Draft.
Burrow’s ascent in 2019 was extremely rare, but these kinds of situations — to lesser degrees — are not impossible on an annual basis.
Burrow suffered a season-ending injury for the Bengals in 2020, and will hopefully be back to form as soon as possible.
Injuries throughout his career with Alabama certainly make the placement of Tua Tagovailoa on this list debatable, at the very least.
Tua’s development at Alabama was fun to watch and would have been even more fun had he not suffered a season-ending hip injury in 2019 when he was playing really great football.
The Dolphins bought into Tua’s football skills, mobility, leadership, and ability to light up the scoreboard with his left arm. Purely in terms of upside and body of work, Tagovailoa gets the edge over Justin Herbert in the composite, non-hindsight rankings.
Justin Herbert just broke Baker Mayfield’s record for touchdown passes by a rookie quarterback and has one more week to add to the total.
There is no doubt that what Herbert has done in his rookie year in the NFL is a surprise to most, if not all, of us.
At Oregon, Herbert didn’t show the same kind of consistency and pure dominance we’ve seen from him at times with the Chargers. It’s possible his game was over-analyzed since he would have been QB1 in the 2019 NFL Draft had he declared for it, but that just goes to show how good these top four quarterback prospects are.
There are legitimately four QB1 types on this list, and three of them went in the 2020 Draft. One is going to be out of reach for everyone except Jacksonville.
To a lesser degree, what we’ve seen from Zach Wilson in 2020 is what we saw from Joe Burrow in 2019. Wilson has gone from a guy not many knew a lot about to a household name and quite possibly the QB2 of the 2021 NFL Draft.
With that said, we have to be nit-picky because when you’re talking about making a franchise-altering selection, you have to be.
Wilson has played 30 college games to this point, and he is far from flawless as a prospect. Wilson has made some jaw-dropping throws in the 2020 season, and hasn’t consistently been helped by his playmakers on those throws, but he’s also got a little backyard, “hero” ball in him.
Even with that said, Wilson’s total body of work and progression up to this point have him firmly in the no. 5 spot on this list for me, even as talented as some of the other guys are. He will deservedly be a top-five pick in the 2021 NFL Draft class.
As talented as Wilson is, put an imaginary gap between him and Herbert as far as the way you would grade them overall at this point. Wilson could come into the NFL and ball out immediately, but Herbert had much more seasoning and better overall physical tools than Wilson.
Here is where things can get a little hairy, because Justin Fields obviously has a cult following from the Ohio State fan base.
We’ll talk about Fields in a moment. Let’s talk, for the moment, about Lance.
Trey Lance has only 17 games of experience at North Dakota State. I wrote recently about how he’s the biggest risk in the 2021 NFL Draft class not only for his own inexperience but because his traits are so tantalizing and translatable, if you’re an NFL team that passes you could be passing on a great one.
Lance’s 17 games have been loaded with big plays and frequent displays of athletic dominance. He is a tremendous runner and has maybe the best arm of the guys behind Lawrence in this draft.
North Dakota State also runs some pro concepts in their offense and asks more of Lance in that regard than perhaps other players in the class. Still, you have to question the lack of experience at least a little bit, which is entirely not Lance’s fault.
This is a ranking that could ultimately end up looking dumb in a few years because the upside is so high with this player.
Justin Fields has, at times, shown out like he’s a QB1 type of prospect. Over the course of his last six games (dating back to a matchup last season vs. Clemson) he has struggled.
Concerns have come up about Fields’ ability to process the field if he’s not hitting his first read or taking off and running with the football.
In many ways, Fields — who has only 20 games as the starter at Ohio State — should be looked at in a similar light as Trey Lance, whose most significant contribution early on could be with his legs. The upside with Fields, though, is tremendous. If things click for him, he has every physical tool you could ask for from the quarterback position.
The playmaking ability is there. How quickly will Fields be able to successfully operate an NFL passing attack against NFL scheming and coverages? That’s a big question for any quarterback, but against the best defenses he has faced in just a half-dozen recent games, it’s’ been a pressing one for Fields.
Talent, playmaking ability, huge flashes on tape — the quarterbacks ranked 5-8 on this list are all really similar in that way.
What it comes down to ultimately is decision-making and consistency, and Love showed in 2019 to be probably the worst of those four particular guys.
It was still not surprising that a team used a round one pick on Love (Packers) due to his physical traits, arm talent, and Mahomes-ian types of moments.
His ceiling might be the highest of QBs 4-8.
So what does all of this mean?
Ultimately, teams needing a young quarterback need to decide how they will want to proceed with the players they have available to them this year. Fans need to understand that if their team takes Justin Fields 6th overall in 2021, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to go out there and blow up like Justin Herbert has.
He may need a couple of seasons on task, learning, developing, and enduring hard growth like Josh Allen did with the Buffalo Bills.
Every quarterback prospect and every situation is different, but that’s the fun of all of this. Any of these guys would be fun to add to a QB-needy franchise because ultimately, you have to believe your staff can extract the best from them and surround them with a championship-caliber roster.
It will be fun to re-visit this list in a few years to see where each player is at in their careers.