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NFL Draft season kicked off in full force last week, as hundreds of prospects headed to the Senior Bowl to showcase their various talents. There were also plenty of media members, each eager to get an up-close view of some of the top talent in the 2022 NFL Draft class.
NBC Sports EDGE College Football writers Thor Nystrom and Crissy Froyd were among that media contingent, as both spent the week in Mobile carefully dissecting each pass, catch and drill. The focus for much of the week centered on quarterback play, with six QBs on the Senior Bowl roster. Nystrom and Froyd left town with differing opinions about who leads this quarterback class with the Combine still a few weeks away.
Below is their edited exchange, where each makes a case for their top candidate - and forecasts how the race might shift in the coming weeks:
Q. Who is your QB1 for the Draft, and why?
Nystrom: Malik Willis. Because we’re here to win Super Bowls. You get there with trump cards - players with traits that cannot be defended. Willis is yoked up with those. Bazooka for an arm. Ridiculous athleticism (4.38 40-yard dash time as a sophomore). Well-built. There’s a risk profile here, of course - his accuracy and placement need to improve. But in this quarterback class, there is not a sure thing. In lieu of that, if you’re going to invest Round 1 gold in a quarterback from this class in April, why wouldn’t you grab the only guy with the ceiling to be unstoppable if he hits?
Froyd: My QB1 is Carson Strong. Despite the trends that have occurred in today’s modern NFL, mobility doesn’t last forever and an offense will always have success if everyone does their job as perfectly as possible. Strong is the most developed player in the draft from a passing perspective, brings an elite level of mental processing and enough ability to move within the pocket when needed.
Q. How did your QB1 opinion change based on what you saw during your week in Mobile?
Nystrom: Believe it or not, as recently as a week ago the Willis QB1 take had you on an island. No longer. Willis dominated in Mobile. He was the best quarterback at the event - which mostly asked quarterbacks to play within structure, the biggest question about Willis’ evaluation previously. He answered a lot of questions. I’m more bullish on him being the top QB after leaving Mobile than I was flying in.
Froyd: Strong showed exactly what I expected to see from him and was one of the more consistent quarterbacks there. He far and away has the best deep ball and best playmaking ability as a pure passer. While no quarterback’s stock either exploded or specifically dropped throughout practices, several did things to help themselves by showing some under-appreciated aspects of their game. For Strong, that had to do with mobility - he’s no Lamar Jackson (not even close), but he showed a good amount of mobility within the pocket, evaded pressure on some occasions and even kept the ball himself a few times.
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Q. Clearly we have a difference of opinion. Thor, how do you rank Strong coming out of the Senior Bowl? Crissy, where do you place Willis? And what traits or concerns lead you to rank these players below your preferred QB1?
Nystrom: I have Carson Strong as QB4. I might not like him as much as Crissy does, but that’s not to say that I don’t like him at all.
Strong confirmed this week for onlookers that he has a bazooka for a right arm. Last week, I wrote of it: If he ever went Jonathan Moxon and turned to the crowd and chucked it, the media in Mobile would scatter quicker than if Jim Nagy announced a free lunch buffet. For me, the second-strongest arm in the class behind Willis’.
I loved that Strong came out from the very first practice without the knee brace we became accustomed to seeing him in during the 2021 season (he played all year with it until the regular-season finale). I loved it even more that he was more ambulatory than perhaps I’ve seen him. He’s a former basketball player who was playing through a knee injury last season - maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
Strong clearly came into the week with a goal of proving that reports of his lead-footedness were either premature or exaggerated. One throw in particular during the first practice Tuesday made me sit up in my seat: he threw a dime ball on the move to his left.
Of the six QBs in Mobile, I thought Strong had the second-best week of practices behind Willis. That’s in part because you have to feel better about his mobility and knee than you did heading into the week, and those are two of his biggest question marks. That said, it remains true that Strong is either the least-mobile of the top-shelf quarterbacks in this class, or the second-least. And Crissy nodded at this in her response: The league’s ever-increasing evolution from a power/physicality game to a speed/space game has naturally increased the value of athleticism at the quarterback position.
Strong’s confinement to the pocket will remove an entire element from his NFL team’s playbook that will be, at least to one degree or another, in a majority of the opponent’s. Air yards are not the only kind of yards. And the spacing that Willis’ legs will provide for his skill-position teammates will not be enjoyed by Strong.
My other concern with Strong is that arguably no quarterback in this class saw his effectiveness compromised more by pressure. His PFF grade in clean pockets (93.8) cratered to an ugly 42.6 under duress. I like the way he maneuvers in the pocket - I describe it like Frogger - but hate how quickly he runs out of answers when the enemy is at the gate. A part of that goes back to the lack of mobility and ability to escape. But since that won’t get a ton better in the NFL, he’s going to have to learn how to answer complex questions with his brain and arm while under the gun.
Strong is the better fit for an Air Raid system. If I ran any other, I’d prefer to build around Willis’ dynamic tools.
Froyd: I rank Willis QB3. At the end of the day, we are looking at three practices and a game in which Willis’ stock went up - and credit to him for being able to showcase some added touch on the ball and establishing what seemed to be a higher rate of accuracy after he completed 61% of his passes and five games in which he completed less than 60% of his passes. He also had three games with three interceptions against secondaries that were far from anything to write home about.
That overall body of work is concerning to me, even though he could have used a bit more help in the supporting cast. If Willis continues on the path he showed over a week in Mobile, there’s a lot to be excited about and he has somehow immensely transformed as a passer. The athleticism is great so long as his passing ability can continue to match it. But all quarterbacks slow down in 3-5 years, and I’m not sure I’m sold on the passing ability I get out of Willis long-term.
But in quarterbacks, we seek consistency. Strong has been one of the most reliable quarterbacks for his team in all of college football over both this season and last season, and is by far the most developed pure passer in this class. He had some struggles early on in game day of the Senior Bowl, but out-performed every other quarterback in Day 1 and Day 3. He also remained one of the more consistent of the three passers who had to deal with an onslaught of wind and rain in Day 2 of the event.
He had the best deep ball there in terms of placement and accuracy, and even though there were some remarks made about how he doesn’t drive the ball enough, it’s important to note that a lot of Air Raid quarterbacks are taught to put air under the ball and place it beyond the receiver a bit in a manner that leads them upfield. Strong did that perfectly - quarterbacks don’t try to hit in the numbers on every throw in this offense. He started off the game poorly before settling into a rhythm in the limited snaps he did take, and performed well from there.
With some of the uncharacteristic things that occurred on some of the deeper passes, it left me with questions for the coaching staff as to if they were trying to harness his arm strength or if their ways that differed from the Air Raid got into Strong’s head and ultimately caused some mistakes. Strong obviously doesn’t have a great amount of mobility, but it’s not a quarterback’s job to run around anyway - let your wide receivers and running backs do their jobs. Still, Strong showed a fantastic ability to move within the pocket, could evade pressure and kept the ball a few times - he didn’t wear a knee brace and looked unbothered in that aspect. That’s plenty enough for me if my offensive line and supporting cast are solid.
Q. The NFL Combine is around the corner (March 1-7). What are you looking for out of your QB1? Could you see your rankings reshuffle after Indianapolis, or do you feel your top choice has separated from the pack?
Nystrom: The Senior Bowl is the event that wasn’t supposed to suit Willis’ skill set - a postseason exhibition that prioritizes in-structure play and winning from the pocket. We know that Willis is going to blow the roof off the building at the NFL Combine if he chooses to do all the testing - and boy do I hope he has the showmanship to do so. If you thought the media was crushing hard on him last week, just wait until Willis makes a mockery of the athletic tests.
Willis ran a 4.37 40 as a sophomore and is a legitimate world-class athlete for his size. He profiles as a top-5 historical NFL scrambler. The hardest pre-Draft test, for Willis, is over - and he aced it. If Willis merely holds serve for the rest of the process, he will almost assuredly be my wire-to-wire QB1.
But of course, the rest of the process will have a material impact on the order of the other 29 signal-callers I’ll rank below him. For instance, Matt Corral‘s process hasn’t even started yet because he wasn’t eligible for the Senior Bowl.
Froyd: Nothing other than Day 1 of the Senior Bowl more perfectly illustrates the gap between QB1 and QB2 for me. Strong has separated himself from the pack for some time now in my eyes, but it was well-encapsulated in that performance. Strong’s knee is fine despite the rumors, and he’s already shown that. Before those rumors emerged, he was slated by several to be the first quarterback taken off the board in this draft, if not the No. 1 overall pick itself.
I’d like to see continued shows of the small amount of mobility, ability to maneuver the pocket and escape when necessary continue to shine through in off-season events like the Combine. But for me the chances of a QB1 reshuffle are slim, barring something absolutely egregious.
