To QB, or not to QB! … That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to take a QB early or to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by going best player available. OK, so that’s a little over-dramatic, but the overriding questions surrounding the early part of the 2022 draft continue to be ‘how good is this year’s QB class?’ and ‘when will they start to come off the board this spring?’ You can probably tell from my scouting profiles of this year’s top half dozen passers that there is some talent there. At the same time, though, it was hard to see any of these guys as necessarily the complete package that one would normally expect to see in a potential elite franchise QB.
And the question I have been asking myself over the past few weeks is whether I am missing something. So I put the question to two of the better QB evaluators in the draft analyst community in Frank Coyle, the long-time editor of Draft Insiders Digest, as well as our own Pigskin Paul Guillemette, whose had his own website prior to going the GBN as Associate Editor that focused on evaluating quarterbacks.
Certainly, neither Frank nor Paul were all that effusive in their assessment of this year’s QB class. Frank Coyle was willing to concede that this group ‘improved somewhat’ over the course of the season, but he still ultimately described it as ‘sketchy!’ And compared to our Pigskin, Frank was actually pretty kind to this year’s QBs as Paul described the 2022 pickings ‘to be mighty lean’ without anyone in this year’s group rating as even legitimately worth a top ten pick. Frank also didn’t feel any one of this year’s QBs were worth a top 5 selection, but that a case could be made for Pitt’s Kenny Pickett going later in the top 10.
It’s also probably not a good thing that the two also weren’t all that close when it came to ranking the top QBs. Frank has Pickett as the # passer this year, followed by Ole Miss’ Matt Corral, who he considers to be a mid-first round prospect, Sam Howell of North Carolina and Liberty’s Malik Willis. Pigskin, on the other hand, has Corral as his top QB followed by Howell, Pickett and Willis.
At least they do view the same four as the top QBs with Desmond Ridder of Cincinnati and Nevada’s Carson Strong, both a little farther back. Interesting that they both have UNC’s Howell rated somewhat higher than many other analysts out there, while they both have Willis as only the #4.
We also asked Frank where he felt that this year’s QBs would likely have fitted had they been entered in the 2021 draft. He believed that Pickett likely would have been selected somewhere after Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance, the first three players selected at last year’s draft, but before Justin Fields and Mac Jones. He also suggested Corral would have likely been the next QB selected after Jones with Howell and Willis marginal top 40-50 selections.
Frank also suggested that if we were looking for a sleeper at QB this year that maybe Cole Kelley of Southeastern Louisiana might be a guy to keep an eye on. Frank described him as a ‘hidden gem’ with an NFL arm, extensive experience and the intangibles to really surprise if he lands with a good coach to refine his game. Again, more of Frank Coyle’s analysis is available at Draft Insiders Digest, while Pigskin Paul Guillemette can always be found right here on the GBN.
