Caleb Williams V Andrew Luck V Trevor Lawrence

[CWood21]

7 hours ago, ET80 said:

Is it really detracting or is it calling out legitimate questions?

I don't think anyone moves Williams up or down any boards with this performance - in fact, I'd say that the only way Williams would drop is if he had 4-5 more of these performances AND someone like Drake Maye would catch fire. Even THEN, it's up for discussion at most. 

Caleb Williams is still a lock for 1.1, I don't think anyone detracts from that.

If they were legitimate questions, they wouldn't be coming out of the woodworks after arguably his worst game in college (although his games against Baylor and Iowa State his freshman year give him a run for his money).

[ET80]

42 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

If they were legitimate questions, they wouldn't be coming out of the woodworks after arguably his worst game in college (although his games against Baylor and Iowa State his freshman year give him a run for his money).

Hard to question things when he's going 30/37 340 4/0, right? Flaws are hard to see when he plays a good game y'know...

[CWood21]

6 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Hard to question things when he's going 30/37 340 4/0, right? Flaws are hard to see when he plays a good game y'know...

So...if he plays well 98% of the time, what makes you think that 2% is his normal?  LIS, I have no issues if you think he's being overvalued because of the offensive system he's playing in.  Lincoln Riley made both Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield the #1 overall pick.  Hell, he even got Jalen Hurts picked 53rd.

[ET80]

5 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

So...if he plays well 98% of the time, what makes you think that 2% is his normal?

Show me where anyone said that's his normal. It shows a few flaws in his games, and that's what's being mentioned - literally nobody is claiming this is him, he's STILL 1.1. 

7 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

LIS, I have no issues if you think he's being overvalued because of the offensive system he's playing in.

LIS, nobody is saying that he's not the consensus #1 pick and BPA.

[Scoundrel]

50 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Show me where anyone said that's his normal. It shows a few flaws in his games, and that's what's being mentioned - literally nobody is claiming this is him, he's STILL 1.1. 

LIS, nobody is saying that he's not the consensus #1 pick and BPA.

Me I’m nobody!

[Trojan]

Andrew Luck was such an amazing prospect it's almost insane to consider anyone else in recent memory. Like maybe Myles Garrett, but Andrew Luck was a QB.

[Daniel]

2 hours ago, Scoundrel said:

Me I’m nobody!

Would you take Maye over him?

[Scoundrel]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

Would you take Maye over him?

I was just joking to jump in the Mod debate

[Daniel]

7 hours ago, Scoundrel said:

I was just joking to jump in the Mod debate

Ah. I was surprised, based on the prospects you usually like. Honestly though, if Caleb can’t get the “can’t win the big game” monkey off his back, I think Maye over Williams will be much more of a thing.

And it’ll be much more reasonable than the spicy Wilson over Lawrence takes.

[SaveOurSonics]

Andrew Luck is the only QB prospect I've watched since I've been making scouting reports who makes me hesitate over ranking Caleb as my #1 overall QB. 

 

I think Caleb is damn near perfect for the modern NFL. He pairs +escapability with +arm strength, +accuracy, & +++off-plane ability. It's that last part that Andrew Luck didn't QUITE have. It's why he's so reminiscent of Mahomes. 

That said, there's little doubt that Luck was a better processor & far more polished from a schematics standpoint. I can see the argument for either, really just a matter of preference at that point. Personally, I'd probably lean Caleb because he brings so much ability you effectively can't teach. 

[Epyon]

I can't speak for Andrew Luck the prospect since that was a couple years before I started paying significant attention to the draft.... but for prospects since I'd have had above Caleb (Ranked how I had them coming out):

1. Burrow

2. Mahomes (I had him as the #1 QB of his class, "and it's not even close" coming out..... Probably the single most talented QB I've ever seen, and only below Burrow here, because Burrow's final year he looked like an unstoppable monster, and I had minor concerns about TT/Air raid/BIG 12 translating.

3. Lawrence

 

Then a big gap.... and Caleb would fit somewhere in the next group with Lamar Jackson (who was only not elite because I figured he'd get broken in half at the NFL level running that much), Zach Wilson (yeah i bought the hype as a much less athletic mahomes), Goff, Maye, and Stroud.

My next tier would probably be Watson, Herbert (who I was probably unfairly low on because of Mariota busting), then Mac Jones (who I way overestimated his processing), Mariota, Fields (and this is partially revisionist.... I didn't have him on my board because of his abysmal time to throw... AFTER chicago drafted him I went back and talked myself into thinking of him as "Mitch Trubisky, but uppgraded across the board physically") , and Bridgewater

 

Notables not on my board at all where Trey Lance, Kenny Picket, Haskins, Jordan Love, Kyler Murray, Bryce Young, Daniel Jones, Mayfield, Darnold, Rosen, Wentz, Lynch, Winston, Manziel,, andJosh Allen (who I thought would bust)

Then Tua and Bortles (who I genuinely can't remember my opinions on at the time).

While I can't remember specifically scouting Luck, I vaguely remember being on the RG3 train that season.

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Epyon

[SaveOurSonics]

On 10/18/2023 at 6:37 PM, Epyon said:

but for prospects since I'd have had above Caleb (Ranked how I had them coming out):

1. Burrow

Great shout. I always lose sight of Burrow in these conversations because people put TLaw on such a pedestal. Burrow would probably be my #3 prospect behind Luck/Caleb. 

[AkronsWitness]

On 10/16/2023 at 6:18 PM, CWood21 said:

So...if he plays well 98% of the time, what makes you think that 2% is his normal?  LIS, I have no issues if you think he's being overvalued because of the offensive system he's playing in.  Lincoln Riley made both Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield the #1 overall pick.  Hell, he even got Jalen Hurts picked 53rd.

This is the problem and what I was alluding to earlier. It's more than a small amount of the time. He is not good against teams that actually matter and it's a very real concern with him.

I don't remember " How do you play when the lights are the brightest" not being heavily weighted criteria for prospects.

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by AkronsWitness

[Epyon]

1 hour ago, AkronsWitness said:

This is the problem and what I was alluding to earlier. It's more than a small amount of the time. He is not good against teams that actually matter and it's a very real concern with him.

More than fair, imo...

The thing that sold me on Mahomes coming out was actually the year before his final at Texas Tech, when they played a ranked LSU defense in their bowl game, and he still dropped 370 yards and 4TDs on them..

Two other things struck me tonight about Caleb...

1. He had multiple balls batted at the line (one off a helmet).... His height is a concern for me.. tonight didn't help.

2. His off target passes  have a tendency to be borderline "wtf"  passes. The overall accuracy and ball placement is there statistically, but it's just weird how often his misses aren't even in the vicinity of a hand grenade's range from the target. Like he doesn't miss often, but damn does he miss badly when he does miss.

[Tugboat]

On 10/20/2023 at 5:34 PM, SaveOurSonics said:

Great shout. I always lose sight of Burrow in these conversations because people put TLaw on such a pedestal. Burrow would probably be my #3 prospect behind Luck/Caleb. 

 

Burrow is a tricky one to insert into this conversation, purely because he really just had the one absolutely phenomenal year.  So it was a fairly small track record of elite play...with an absolutely stacked WR corps.  But it was a pretty undeniably elite season as a quarterback prospect.

 

2 hours ago, AkronsWitness said:

This is the problem and what I was alluding to earlier. It's more than a small amount of the time. He is not good against teams that actually matter and it's a very real concern with him.

I don't remember " How do you play when the lights are the brightest" not being heavily weighted criteria for prospects.

 

 

Yeah.  I really just don't get "big game energy" from Williams.  It's definitely a concern to me.  People have made excuses about "the team" around him...but the reality is, even on the offense end of the ball where he's in full control of his fate...he's come up way short vs top teams, and even just really solid competition that come ready with a strong gameplan to erase him.

 

40 minutes ago, Epyon said:

More than fair, imo...

The thing that sold me on Mahomes coming out was actually the year before his final at Texas Tech, when they played a ranked LSU defense in their bowl game, and he still dropped 370 yards and 4TDs on them..

Two other things struck me tonight about Caleb...

1. He had multiple balls batted at the line (one off a helmet).... His height is a concern for me.. tonight didn't help.

2. His off target passes  have a tendency to be borderline "wtf"  passes. The overall accuracy and ball placement is there statistically, but it's just weird how often his misses aren't even in the vicinity of a hand grenade's range from the target. Like he doesn't miss often, but damn does he miss badly when he does miss.

 

I'm not sure if it's strictly his height, or partially just his release point.  But there's definitely an element of Russ/Brees to him, where he does seem to need to move around to change his launch point and find lanes.  Either to see, or just to get the ball through clean...or both.

 

It's also true that it seems like when things go wrong for him, they over seem to go very wrong.  To where it is sometimes confusing what he's even looking at or seeing (or not seeing as it were).

 

It's also worth mentioning that he's coming out of this really QB flattering Lincoln Riley system.  He's got some similarities to guys like Baker and Tiny Kyler in that he seems intent on moving around even when it's not really necessary.  And it has those easy "wide open" schemed completions all over, with minimally demanding reads required for much of it.  And we've seen how those guys can struggle in a real NFL scheme.