Mount Doom, Mordor: Now that the NFL season is over, the QB Shuffle is about to heat up. With a strong crop of young guns coming out of college and a plethora of teams in need of a competent QB, the jockeying for position is sure to be intense. Not as intense as the Philly fans trying to watch the guy eating horse crap, but pretty intense. Our New York Giants will be a key player in the drama, and I’m hoping their second pick is not used on horse crap (aka Ereck Flowers). Let’s try to figure out how the game of QB musical chairs is going to play out.
The New Blood
The top 4 coming out of college are Josh Rosen, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, and Josh Allen. There is really no consensus on who is the best and mock drafts are all over the place.
Mayfield is the gunslinging Heisman winner, but he’s a bit small. Darnold has all the tools, but turnovers have been an issue and he hasn’t put it together as expected. Allen has everything you would want and a ton of upside (think of a more athletic Ben Roethlisberger), but is a bit of a project. Rosen has a huge arm, but is immobile and his teammates hated him. Putting these four in order is tough. One thing we do know for sure is that the Cleveland Browns will take the wrong one.
Who Will be the Cleveland Bust?
The Browns have had a whopping 28 starting QBs since 1999. Uncle Rico is staying fit, waiting for his shot. This year they’ve assembled an all star crew of personnel people in attempt to finally get it right.
But hey, they have two of the top 4 picks. Why not take two of the above guys and double their chances of one panning out? No functional organization would do that, but they can’t get it wrong again. No one will care when the Browns leave town in the dead of night this time. They might even get some volunteers to help them pack. Hey Browns, Johnny Manziel wants another shot.
All Eyes on Kirk
Washington decided they don’t want to win a Super Bowl anytime soon, so they traded for Alex Smith. This frees up Kirk Cousins to sign elsewhere and he’ll have several suitors. I think the most likely landing spots are Denver, Arizona, and the Jets. Minnesota could be a dark horse.
Who will step up to try to land Captain Kirk and who will take their chances on an unknown but cheaper option in the draft? We sure appear to be headed for a shipload of new starting QBs next year. And plenty of other teams are riding the twilight years of a veteran QB and are starting to think about a successor. Once the Cousins domino falls, things will heat up.
Enter the Dragon
Dave Gettleman is playing it close to the vest, but most people think the Giants will take a QB. Wouldn’t it be nice if they already had the answer in Davis Webb and they could use the #2 pick on one of their many other needs? Or they could trade down and stockpile picks. The second pick could yield some serious booty to a QB hungry team. The G-men have bigger holes to fill, like the gigantic hole who plays LT, but man, Saquon Barkley looks like a star.
Webb actually beat out Mayfield in his freshmen year when they were both at Texas Tech. Mayfield transferred to Oklahoma, then Webb lost his job to Patrick Mahomes after getting hurt. Webb then transferred to Cal to replace Jarred Goff. Oh, what a small QB world.
Landon Collins and other Giants have praised Webb, saying the Giants don’t need to use the pick on a QB. Eli even nicknamed him The Dragon. I don’t know about you, but I can get behind a QB named The Dragon.
Watching Webb on tape, he sure does drop a lot of nice passes in the bucket. But what you don’t see is him finding guys on his third of fourth read too often. The scouts all say that he can make the throws with a clean pocket. But if you ask around, you might have heard that clean pockets aren’t really the Giants’ thing.
Davis is probably not the answer. When you bench your franchise icon QB for Geno Smith, it’s a fair bet the team thinks Webb is not progressing quickly. I know it’s a new regime, but it’s hard to see them banking on Webb.
So Who’s the Guy then?
I hope they don’t take Rosen. After years of Eli, I’d like to see a QB who can move. And the low score he gets on intangibles is a mighty red flag. His pro comparable in one scouting report was listed as Jay Cutler. Run away. Don’t look back. Run.
Mayfield has been called a rich man’s Jeff Garcia. Incidentally, Garcia was one of Cleveland’s 28 starting QBs. He’ll chuck it around and be fun to watch. It’s hard to see him being a bust, but he doesn’t check the boxes like the other guys. He looks like a pizza delivery guy who sells weed on the side. He does win, if that’s your thing.
Allen has a great arm, can run, and is as hard to tackle. Man, that sounds like fun. But he played poorly against good teams and didn’t do a whole lot of winning in college. We like winning.
Darnold probably could use one more year in college, but he seems destined to turn into a quality QB if a team is patient with him. It’s early, but I think this is the guy who ends up in blue.
Come back tomorrow for Angry Ward, the guy who started ahead of Uncle Rico in high school. You can follow us on Twitter at @BenWhit8, @MeetTheMatts, @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram @MeetTheMatts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.
