2020 Draft Board: Quarterbacks

**Note: changes have been made since the draft happened. I spent May and June adjusting my process by setting strict parameters and adding all combine participants from 2008-2017. Those two improvements caused major changes to my factors and table, which means some players that were on my draft board have been removed, some players that were removed from my draft board have been put back on it, and some players have seen a drastic shift in the round grades they were originally given.

I’ve had an itch for the last few years to find a way to create my own draft board; this year I decided to try and scratch it. I took every player drafted in the first three rounds from 2008-2017 and I added in players who found success as a pro that were drafted in the fourth round or later and those who went undrafted. I broke all that down by position. Using their pro stats, I created a way to determine players who would be considered successful and those who weren’t successful at that level. Then I used their college stats and combine results to look for any correlations that may result in a player finding success, or becoming a fleeting name in a long list of players who didn’t make it as a pro. I was able to find correlations for each position! Some (Quarterbacks, Linebackers and Safeties) did not have as many correlations as others (Running Backs, Receivers, and Tight Ends), but I used what I could find to narrow down my draft boards. Below you are going to find my 2020 Quarterbacks. Keep in mind that for the 2020 class I only used players that went to the Combine.

Players Removed:

I was able to remove six Quarterbacks from my draft board. The ones with a "D" next to their name fell into my "Depleted" category, which means they were removed because what I found significantly decreased the chances of success as a pro but didn’t eliminate the chance entirely. The ones with an "E" next to their name fell into my "Empty" category, because I found something that led to 0% success rate in the draft classes from 2008-2017. The players are:

Brian Lewerke (E)

Jacob Eason (E)

James Morgan (E)

Nate Stanley (E)

Jake Luton (D)

Kelly Bryant (D)

Steven Montez (D)

The Table

After I eliminated players, I created a table to determine the Draft Round I would attach to each remaining player. I used their college stats and combine results to determine the chances of them being drafted in the first three rounds by setting a low extreme and high extreme for each stat. If they had more low extremes then their draft grade fell, more high extremes and it rose.

My Draft Board

My Top 5:

1) Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama)

Analysis: Statistically I love his QBR (199.4) and YPA (11.2), his completion percentage (70) helps a lot too. People who try and talk bad about Tua like to point to his Receivers as the reason why he was so great. I like to counter that thought by pointing out that Alabama has had stellar Receivers come and go over the last decade plus (Julio Jones, Amari Cooper, Calvin Ridley to name the three big pro names), yet no Alabama Quarterback has been as prolific as Tua. His injury history does scare me, and I’m a strong proponent of the “Your best ability is availability” mantra. It’s the reason why I debated about listing Burrow at 1 but having followed Alabama football so closely over the past 18 years, I’ve never seen a Crimson Tide QB have the kind of impact Tua did.

2) Joe Burrow (LSU)

Analysis: Speaking of following Alabama football closely, there’s never been an LSU QB who has frustrated me as much as Burrow did this year. He made it look so easy and he did so in every single game. It didn’t matter who the competition was. Also, worth noting, Burrow top two Receivers (Jefferson and Chase) were among the best in all of college football. For anyone who wants to point to that as a reason to downgrade Burrow I’d like to point to OBJ and Jarvis Landry who are studs and yet their college production was not as good as it should have been due to QB play. I found one factor that led to 100% success from the players that had the factor in the 2008-2017 draft classes, Burrow also has the factor.

3) Jordan Love (Utah State)

Analysis: I thoroughly believe that Love’s season would have gone a completely different direction had Matt Wells not taken the Texas Tech job. Heck, I wouldn’t have held it against Love if he elected to not enter the draft and instead decided to transfer. He’s athletic, he has the arm, and perhaps the most important piece, he’s shown he’s willing to use his arm. All he needs at the next level is a coach who can teach him not to try and force his team to win. Leading a team to victory is not the same as forcing a team to victory, they often lead to very different conclusions.

4) Jalen Hurts (Oklahoma)

Analysis: Thanks to Lincoln Riley’s QB friendly offense Hurts’ stats have some added padding which helps with the paper test. But thanks to my following Alabama football heavily and my wife’s family (BIG Oklahoma fans) I got to see what appeared to be a substantial amount of growth in Hurts. When I watched him at Alabama, he looked scared to throw the ball, like he had very little confidence in his arm. Watching him play at Oklahoma I saw a little bit of that, mostly toward the end of the season, but at the beginning of the year he looked like the next surprise Quarterback to find themselves in the first-round discussion. If I was the GM of a team with an older QB I’d take Hurts as my future at the position. Spend the time before he takes over as your starter finding a way to help him gain full confidence in his throwing ability.

5) Justin Herbert (Oregon)

Analysis: That’s right, I don’t view Herbert as a sure-fire first round pick. Herbert’s arm strength is the talk of the town. My issue with that is he doesn’t use it! How are you going to under-utilize arguably your best asset?! Oregon is not lacking for talent, they just went 12-2 and won the Rose Bowl, you don’t pull that off with a subpar roster. Maybe the coaching staff really enjoys being conservative, but I doubt it. When you have a Quarterback like Herbert you want him to let it lose downfield early and often, it’s a great way to keep defenses out of the box. The only reason you keep your strong-arm QB from chucking the deep ball is if there’s something you’ve seen in practice that you don’t want to see on the field. I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he ends up with a team that has a vertical offense that allows him to go downfield all game long. That’s what makes today’s game so exciting. But if I was the GM of a QB needy team, I’d take any one of the four QBs I have listed ahead of Herbert first.

Sleeper: Mason Fine (North Texas)

Analysis: You wanna talk about a guy getting screwed out of everything because of his height, let’s talk about Mason Fine. Fine has a beautiful throwing motion. Fine put up crazy good numbers in high school but was very lightly recruited which resulted in him ending up at North Texas. Fine put up more prolific stats in college than Shea Patterson, Nate Stanley and Jake Luton, and he played at a bigger school than Kevin Davidson (while also putting up equal, if not better stats than him), yet he was left out of the combine. All because he’s 5’11. And not the 5’11 with the crazy explosiveness of a Kyler Murray, but the kind of 5’11 with pocket presence and a good arm. The kind of 5’11 that scouts look at and dismiss because he’ll “struggle to get see beyond the O-Line.” It's a bunch of non-sense.