Drafting a QB? What do NFL teams really look for?
Photo by Lance King/Getty Images
Is there any college stat that predicts NFL success for a QB? No, there isn’t. The Denver Broncos could very well be drafting a quarterback in the first round for the the first time since they drafted the horrible bust known as Paxton Lynch with the 26th overall pick in 2016. Lynch was big and mobile and had a cannon arm, but, to quote Bull Durham, he had “a million dollar arm with a five cent head.” This led to him making a grand total of four starts at QB in the NFL, which is one of the lowest numbers of games started in a career for a first round QB. I wrote about this a few years back.
So how can the Broncos not only avoid a terrible bust like Lynch, but also find a “franchise QB” in this draft? For the discussion on what a franchise QB is, read this.
We know that Sean Payton loves having a QB that has the quick processing skills to run his complicated offense, like Tony Romo and Drew Brees have. But how do you know which college QBs have that? Can you determine that by looking at stats? Yes and No.
Let’s look at completion percentage. A QB with the ability to go through his reads and make the right throw will have a much higher completion percentage than a “one-read” QB, but one-read QBs like Tim Tebow can have a really high completion percentage. Tebow’s college completion percentage was 66.4% which is good for 48th all-time among D1 QBs with a minimum of 875 throws. QBs in the right college system can have very high completion rates even if they are not good at all at going through progressions.
To be successful in the NFL, a QB needs to be able to not only go through his progressions but also have the accuracy to put the ball exactly where he wants it. The difference between a completion and an interception can literally be a matter of inches. So completion percentage has to also be paired with accuracy, since a QB can be accurate but have a low completion percentage (with high difficulty throws and/or poor receivers) and vice versa (with a good scheme and “wait until they are open” throws).
If you look at the top 10 all-time in college completion percentage, you find zero NFL franchise QBs.
Rk
Player
Pct
From
To
School
1
Colt Brennan*
70.4
2005
2007
Hawaii
2
Colt McCoy*
70.3
2006
2009
Texas
3
Grayson McCall*
69.9
2019
2023
Coastal Carolina
4
Kellen Moore*
69.8
2008
2011
Boise State
5
Graham Harrell*
69.8
2005
2008
Texas Tech
6
Brandon Weeden*
69.5
2008
2011
Oklahoma State
7
Case Keenum*
69.4
2007
2011
Houston
8
Will Rogers*
69.3
2020
2023
Mississippi State
9
Chase Holbrook
69.3
2006
2008
New Mexico State
10
Seth Doege*
69.0
2009
2012
Texas Tech
Admittedly Grayson McCall could still be one (and will likely be a first round pick in 2025 after he finishes his sixteenth year of college). While Colt McCoy and Case Keenum have had nice NFL careers, no one is ever going to confuse them with a franchise QB. Interestingly if you go to #11 currently, you do find a franchise QB, Joe Burrow, and at #14 you find a guy who many thought would be a franchise QB, Baker Mayfield. Both guys were taken #1 overall in the draft.
If you follow that link you also find guys like Teddy Bridgewater (15), Brock Purdy (22), Geno Smith (27), DeShaun Watson (28), Tua Tagovailoa (31), Robert Griffin (32), Andrew Luck (34), Caleb Williams (39), Marcus Mariotta (42), Aidan O’Connell (43), Derek Carr (44), Trevor Lawrence (46) and TIM TEBOW (48).
Bo Nix is #49.
Ok, so college completion percentage isn’t a great metric for determining future NFL success since there are more failures than successes in the top 50. Partly because just completing a pass doesn’t mean it was the “right pass”. Defenses love to see QBs throwing short of the sticks on 3rd and 7. A four yard completion on 3rd and 6 keeps your completion percentage up, but takes you offense off the field (with most head coaches who don’t go for it on 4th and 2).
So how do we figure out which QBs are capable of making the “correct” throw (or just throwing the ball away, which hurts completion %, if there is no throw to make)? FWIW JJ McCarthy had the highest career completion percentage among the top six QBs in this draft (table on this later).
Let’s turn to TD/INT ratio. This is tricky because of the dropping rate of interceptions in college (and in the NFL). For example, Hall of Famer, Dan Marino threw 74 TD passes in college and 64 interceptions. That’s a ratio of 1.2, which would be terrible in modern college football. Heisman trophy winner, Doug Flutie, threw 67 TDs and 54 INTs. That’s also a ratio of 1.2. So what is a “good” ratio now. Basically if you are not 3.0 or better, you aren’t sniffing the draft. Even with a really high ratio, you might go undrafted.
With a minimum of 69 college TD passes (I made exceptions for the QBs in this draft), here are the top 50 all-time in college TD pass/INT ratio.
You should note that with the exception of Chad Pennington and Tim Rattay, all of these QBs played in college this century. Guys in orange are still in the NFL. Some of the names in the list are still playing in college (McCall, Dillon Gabriel and Will Rogers). Patrick Mahomes just missed the top 50. His 3.2 ratio ranks him 55th all-time. His NFL ratio (regular season) of 3.47 is actually better than his college ratio. The same could be said about Drew Brees.
Brees NFL ratio was 2.34 while he college ratio was 1.98. One corollary to recent college QBs putting up crazy high TD/INT ratios is that they can’t match those in the NFL. For example former #1 overall pick, Sam Bradford, threw 88 TDs with only 16 INTs in college. That’s a ratio of 5.5. He finished his NFL career with 103 TD passes and 61 INTs (1.69). Tagovailoa, who is #1 all-time in college with a ratio of 7.9, currently has an NFL ratio of 2.19, and he is considered an amazingly accurate NFL QB (who plays in great system for an NFL QB).
So just like with completion percentage, we can’t go JUST by TD/INT ratio. Both have to be used together along with film review and just good old rationality. What do I mean by that? I mean, how did the QB play in college against the toughest competition that they faced. In other words, against ranked teams (or just SEC teams in the past two decades).
We also have to look at the health history of the player. There have been many QBs who checked all the boxes in college, except being able to stay healthy. Sam Bradford comes to mind, as does Michael Penix in this draft.
But the competition piece should not be overlooked. Omar Jacobs put up crazy numbers playing in the MAC. That led to him being drafted with the 164th pick in 2005. He never played a down in the NFL. We all know the story of Tebow.
Kellen Moore was another QB who put up crazy numbers playing against weaker competition in college, but his lack of arm strength led to him not even being drafted. He did start two NFL games but his college numbers were definitely a product of the system that he played in and the competition against which he played.
Of course the piece that is being overlooked in all of this, is the ability of the QB to run. The running QB has made a huge resurgence in the NFL in the past decade led by Lamar Jackson, but most GMs still want the prototype “pocket passer” because it has been forever since a QB who runs a bunch led his team to a Super Bowl victory. Cam Newton took his team to the Super Bowl, but Von Miller put him in his place. Prolific “running” QBs like Newton, Griffin, Jackson, Kyler Murray, Justin Fields, Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen, have all failed to lead their teams to hoist the Lombardi trophy. Patrick Mahomes can be thought of as an exception, but he is a QB that really only runs to set up his throws or when he absolutely has to. For the most part the QBs who have “won” Super Bowls this century are or were not runners (Tom Brady, Peyton and Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco, Nick Foles, etc.).
In 2023 Mahomes ran the ball 75 times in the regular season, but 21 of those were kneel-downs losing 25 yards. Since the NFL still stupidly counts kneel-downs as a rush for negative yards, Mahomes finished the season with 54 actual rushes for 414 yards (7.67 YPC). So during the regular season he had about three actual runs per game. Compare that to a running QB like Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts who had 139 and 147 actual runs this season. That being said, Mahomes had the best actual YPC among starting QBs this season. See the table below
Player
GS
Att
Actual Runs
Yds
Actual Rushing Yds
ACTUAL YPC
TD
1D
Succ%
Lng
Patrick Mahomes*
16
75
54
389
414
7.67
0
27
50.7
25
Bryce Young
16
39
35
253
257
7.34
0
18
64.1
26
Zach Wilson
11
36
31
211
216
6.97
0
7
41.7
20
Jordan Love
17
50
38
247
259
6.82
4
16
44.0
37
Ryan Tannehill
8
17
12
74
79
6.58
1
4
35.3
23
Kyler Murray
8
44
40
244
249
6.23
3
15
59.1
33
Sam Howell
17
48
44
263
267
6.07
5
19
50.0
24
Lamar Jackson
16
148
139
821
830
5.97
5
48
54.1
30
Trevor Lawrence
16
70
59
339
352
5.97
4
23
47.1
26
Joshua Dobbs
12
77
72
421
426
5.92
6
31
49.4
44
Geno Smith*
15
37
28
155
164
5.86
1
10
40.5
25
Dak Prescott*
17
55
43
242
251
5.84
2
21
52.7
22
Justin Herbert
13
52
42
228
244
5.81
3
16
40.4
35
Jake Browning
7
27
23
127
132
5.74
3
12
63.0
21
Justin Fields
13
124
117
657
665
5.68
4
43
52.4
39
Brock Purdy*
16
39
28
144
155
5.54
2
15
53.8
17
Russell Wilson
15
80
66
341
359
5.44
3
38
55.0
21
Josh Allen
17
111
102
524
533
5.23
15
57
65.8
23
Joe Burrow
10
31
19
88
99
5.21
0
9
38.7
20
Getting back to success, particularly in Sean Payton’s offense, the most important ability is the ability to got though progression and make the correct throw (or throw the ball away), but we’ve seen that we can’t just go by completion % or TD/INT ratio to determine whether or not a college QB will have the ability to process the play and make the correct throw accurately and on-time in the NFL. Additionally there is very little way to know how a QB reacts when pressured unless they faced a great deal of pressure on their throws in college. For a QB like JJ McCarthy, who rarely got sacked (Michigan allowed 20 sacks in 15 games last season), it’s really hard to judge. At least for Bo Nix, who was only sacked five times all season at Oregon, we have some film and data from him at Auburn where he was pressured almost constantly.
As an aside, the Ducks allowed only five sacks in 2023 AND 2022. That’s astounding. That’s the best by far in the BCS over the last two seasons. For comparison in 2023, Old Dominion, the worst team in the BCS for allowing sacks allowed almost five PER GAME, while Oregon allowed five PER SEASON over the last two seasons. Maybe we should just draft an offensive lineman from Oregon and forget about a QB in the first...
Compare Nix and McCarthy to Caleb Williams who was sacked 33 times last season and 30 times the season prior. In college, a sack is counted as a negative running play for the QB, which explains why Williams career rushing stats look as poor as they do. He, like Mahomes, only runs when he has to. Generally he uses his athleticism to avoid pressure and make crazy/amazing throws, then cry about them when his team loses.
QB
Comp
Pass Attempts
COMP%
Yds
Y/A
TD
INT
TD/INT
RATING
Carries
Rush Yds
YPC
Rush TDs
Total TDs
Drake Maye
618
952
64.9%
8018
8.42
63
16
3.94
154.1
302
1209
4.0
16
79
Caleb Williams
735
1099
66.9%
10082
9.17
93
14
6.64
169.3
289
966
3.3
27
120
Jayden Daniels
953
1438
66.3%
12750
8.87
89
20
4.45
158.4
617
3307
5.4
35
124
Bo Nix
1286
1936
66.4%
15352
7.93
113
26
4.35
149.6
405
1613
4.0
39
152
J.J. McCarthy
482
713
67.6%
6226
8.73
49
11
4.45
160.5
161
632
3.9
10
59
Michael Penix Jr.
1067
1685
63.3%
13741
8.15
96
34
2.82
146.6
134
265
2.0
13
109
Of course, there are those that think the only stat the matters is WINS. So great QBs that play on average teams (like Drake Maye at UNC) should someone be dinged in the draft because they were not able to overcome the play of every other player on their college team. This line of thinking is easily refuted though by looking no further than the QB who led Georgia to back-to-back titles, Stetson Bennett, who may be out of the league next season because of his addiction. Of course we also have Tebow, who led the Gators to two national titles and then couldn’t make it the NFL.
I guess this was a lot of words, with the key takeaway being, that whatever QB Sean Payton likes, I will get behind. Payton was able to bring out the best in Drew Brees, so if he sees a little of Brees in Bo Nix or JJ McCarthy, then I am not going to question his judgement. Payton inherited Russell Wilson last season and tried to make the best of it, but there is no question that he wants a quarterback who is much more apt at running his offense.
