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ZWK's 2025 Prospect Analysis (1 Viewer)

ZWK

Footballguy
This thread is for my analysis of the 2025 draft class and other college players. Previously threads: 2024 draft class, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 WR & RB.

To start things off, here's a big ol' list of draft eligible WRs & TEs, sorted by career AYPRR. That's adjusted yards per route run, where adjusted yards means "receiving yards, plus a 10-yard bonus for each first down and a 15 yard bonus for each TD". In parentheses I've put the player's AYPT (adjusted yards per target). Average for a rd1-3 WR over the past several years is 3.75 AYPRR and 15.4 AYPT. I've also put an asterisk (*) for players with less than 500 career routes (that's bad), and I've bolded the players who will be power conference early declares if they enter the draft now (that's good).

4.61 Tez Johnson WR (15.2)
4.61 Tre Harris WR (16.6)
4.51 Harold Fannin Jr. TE (16.2)
4.45 Jayden Higgins WR (16.4)
4.22 Emeka Egbuka WR (16.4)
4.08 Ricky White WR (14.2)
3.89 Xavier Restrepo WR (16.3)
3.84 Nic Anderson WR (20.9) *
3.79 Brant Kuithe TE (14.4)
3.78 Tory Horton WR (14.6)
3.76 Jalen Royals WR (16.2)
[3.75 median rd1-3 WR (15.4)]
3.75 Travis Hunter WR (16.0)
3.70 Tetairoa McMillan WR (15.6)

3.62 Joey Hobert WR (14.2)
3.59 Luther Burden III WR (12.8)
3.56 Colston Loveland TE (13.7)

3.52 Eli Stowers TE (13.7) *
3.52 Zakhari Franklin WR (13.8)
3.51 Elijhah Badger WR (13.9)
3.51 Kobe Hudson WR (14.7)
3.43 Nick Nash WR (12.9)
3.41 Tyler Warren TE (15.6)
3.37 Pat Bryant WR (16.0)
3.34 Devonte Ross WR (13.1)
3.29 LaJohntay Wester WR (12.5)
3.29 Oronde Gadsden II TE (15.3)
3.28 Bryson Nesbit TE (14.7)
3.26 Roc Taylor WR (13.4)
3.26 Elic Ayomanor WR (13.1)
3.25 Ja'Corey Brooks WR (15.9)
3.22 Isaiah Neyor WR (14.6)
3.17 Jaylin Lane WR (13.6)
3.15 Daniel Jackson WR (12.2)
3.12 Dane Key WR (14.0)
3.11 Jaylin Noel WR (12.3)
3.08 Theo Wease WR (15.3)
2.98 Barion Brown WR (10.9)
2.97 Antwane Wells Jr. WR (14.9)
2.97 Tai Felton WR (13.4)
2.93 Matthew Golden WR (15.9)
2.92 Kyren Lacy WR (14.2)
2.91 Jack Bech WR (14.7)
2.81 Isaiah Bond WR (14.5)
2.73 Will Sheppard WR (12.4)
2.68 Moose Muhammad III WR (15.6)
2.68 Evan Stewart WR (11.8)
2.59 Da'Quan Felton WR (11.5)

2.57 Bru McCoy WR (13.0)
2.56 Terrance Ferguson TE (14.2)
2.54 Beaux Collins WR (12.3)
2.52 Savion Williams WR (12.9)
2.49 Samuel Brown WR (13.2)
2.45 Mitchell Evans TE (14.3)
2.45 Kaden Prather WR (12.4)
2.41 Jalil Farooq WR (13.4)
2.40 Caden Prieskorn TE (17.3)
2.37 Jimmy Horn Jr. WR (12.7)
2.35 Rivaldo Fairweather TE (12.9)
2.27 Luke Lachey TE (12.8)
2.24 Benjamin Yurosek TE (13.3)
2.21 J.Michael Sturdivant WR (12.2)
2.14 Deion Burks WR (10.2)
2.14 Jake Briningstool TE (12.0)
2.11 Dillon Bell WR (12.1)
2.07 Oscar Delp TE (15.9) *
2.05 Gunnar Helm TE (16.3)

1.93 Julian Fleming WR (12.3)
1.79 Ty Robinson WR (11.5) *
1.77 Mason Taylor TE (11.7)
1.50 Jackson Hawes TE (13.6) *


These stats aren't perfect, e.g. I think Tet McMillan's numbers understate his production because about 1/3 of his routes came as a true freshman when he wasn't as much a focus of the offense, or as good. Playing a lot of snaps as a freshman is a better sign than being stuck on the bench but hurts his career per-route and per-target stats compared to other players who didn't win snaps as freshmen. Over the last 2 years McMillan has 4.34 AYPRR and 16.0 AYPT, and if he had seen the field less as a freshman his career numbers would be closer to that.

In contrast, Oklahoma WR Nic Anderson's asterisk is well-deserved - his good stats come from only 1 season of playing (he redshirted in 2022 and missed 2024 with injuries), which give him a tiny sample size (332 career routes & 61 career targets) and mean that he'll probably be returning to school.

There are zero super-clean profiles here - early declare, Power conference, 500+ career routes with above median AYPRR & AYPT. McMillan & Travis Hunter are right on the edge, at least, and at this point I think they're my top 2 WRs in this class (though it's unclear how much wide receiver Hunter will play in the NFL). Small school players generally had less competition from teammates for snaps & targets and weaker opposition (and there's a question of why they didn't go to a better school), older players have stats that reflect what they did at age 21+ (and a question of why they didn't enter the draft sooner), and small sample size stats are noisier and could be good based on random variation rather than ability (and there's a question of why they didn't play more).

I've posted some other WR+TE stats for this class on Twitter in graph form, and here in spreadsheet form. Not sure if images work on the forum - if so I'll post some graphs here at some point, if not I'll have to stick to lists & links.
 
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Passing under pressure

See also the spreadsheet version, the table (image), the Twitter thread (with graphs), and my post on last year's class.

Looking through PFF data on college QBs, I've found / come up with 5 under-pressure stats which successful NFL QBs have tended to do well on. All 5 are career stats, and rate stats given per pressured dropback. They are:

Sack Rate: sacks per pressured dropback, aka pressure to sack rate
Wasted Play Rate: sacks + throwaways + hit-as-threw + batted balls per pressured dropback
Potentially Positive Play Rate: completions + drops + scrambles per pressured dropback
First Down Rate: passing & scrambling first downs per pressured dropback
Big Time Throw Rate: passes graded 1.0+ by PFF per pressured dropback

Here's a look at how 2025-eligible QBs did on these stats, along with 15 QBs from the 2017-2024 classes who have had some NFL success. They are sorted by the player's average percentile ranking on these stats, relative to all QBs drafted 2017-2024 (min 100 career pressured dropbacks). In parentheses are their percentile ranks on each of these stats, in the same order as above (sack, wasted, potentially positive, first down, BTT):

Deshaun Watson 2017 (91, 99, 82, 95, 67)
Tua Tagovailoa 2020 (84, 84, 86, 83, 95)
Patrick Mahomes 2017 (93, 87, 61, 89, 96)
Brock Purdy 2022 (89, 89, 88, 78, 61)
Drew Allar 2025 (92, 88, 76, 76, 64)
Diego Pavia 2025 (91, 87, 91, 74, 46)

C.J. Stroud 2023 (88, 91, 80, 51, 57)
Garrett Nussmeier 2025 (91, 86, 50, 74, 38)
Kyler Murray 2019 (55, 41, 96, 99, 34)
Carson Beck 2025 (74, 72, 71, 71, 32)
Josh Allen 2018 (62, 61, 34, 68, 93)
Baker Mayfield 2018 (30, 66, 89, 86, 42)
Jaxson Dart 2025 (74, 72, 50, 38, 79)
Trevor Lawrence 2021 (72, 57, 29, 57, 97)
Kurtis Rourke 2025 (43, 72, 83, 76, 37)
Riley Leonard 2025 (91, 84, 95, 30, 7)

Justin Herbert 2020 (46, 78, 37, 59, 82)
Joe Burrow 2020 (17, 45, 83, 82, 58)
Cade Klubnik 2025 (71, 58, 34, 55, 57)
Kyle McCord 2025 (58, 38, 51, 61, 66)
Will Howard 2025 (93, 79, 25, 58, 14)

[median drafted QB 2017-2024]
Dillon Gabriel 2025 (58, 71, 54, 25, 32)
Jordan Love 2020 (83, 88, 4, 11, 43)
Tyler Shough 2025 (75, 45, 38, 30, 37)
Jayden Daniels 2024 (8, 34, 91, 61, 20)
Lamar Jackson 2018 (28, 55, 50, 47, 28)
Jalen Hurts 2020 (57, 16, 72, 39, 17)
Graham Mertz 2025 (24, 21, 30, 26, 75)
KJ Jefferson 2025 (3, 17, 71, 67, 14)
Shedeur Sanders 2025 (13, 11, 55, 42, 47)
Jalen Milroe 2025 (4, 4, 51, 67, 36)
Brady Cook 2025 (20, 30, 45, 14, 50)
Cam Ward 2025 (18, 7, 28, 25, 42)
Quinn Ewers 2025 (18, 11, 28, 17, 4)


You can see that 11/15 of the successful NFL QBs are above median in the combined percentile rank (they're actually all in the top 40%), and the ones who have been successful in the NFL while ranking below the median were only slightly below the median and were mostly great runners (Jordan Love is the one exception). I think it's relatively common for QBs who scramble a lot to have high sack rates (because some sacks are basically failed scramble attempts) and low big time throw rates (because they make many big plays under pressure with their legs rather than their arm, and those aren't include in the stat).

So this looks like bad news for many of the QBs in this class including the top 2, Shedeur Sanders & especially Cam Ward, who rated much worse than that and aren't close to Daniels/Jackson/Hurts as runners.

Carson Beck & Jaxson Dart are the two guys with pretty good under-pressure stats who are expected to go in the top 100 picks in this year's draft.

Drew Allar, Diego Pavia, and Garrett Nussmeier rate best under pressure from the 2025 eligible QBs, but are expected to stay in school.

Here are the scramble rates for 2025-eligible QBs, for context (percentile relative to drafted QBs in parentheses):
21% Riley Leonard (95)
19% Jalen Milroe (91)
18% Carson Beck (91)
18% Diego Pavia (91)
15% Drew Allar (80)
15% KJ Jefferson (80)
15% Brady Cook (80)
15% Tyler Shough (78)
14% Jaxson Dart (67)
13% Kurtis Rourke (63)
12% Cam Ward (49)
11% Shedeur Sanders (43)
11% Cade Klubnik (39)
10% Dillon Gabriel (36)
9% Quinn Ewers (26)
7% Graham Mertz (20)
4% Garrett Nussmeier (8)
4% Kyle McCord (5)
3% Will Howard (3)

So possibly more hope for Milroe than it looks like from his main stats, though his sack rate and wasted play rate are really terrible. But Ward & Sanders had averageish scramble rates, so that doesn't account for their mediocre numbers on the other under pressure stats.

Allar is on track to be just the 11th QB since 2017 to be drafted while ranking above the median in all 5 of these under pressure stats:

Mac Jones 2021 (95, 96, 97, 97, 59)
J.J. McCarthy 2024 (78, 93, 99, 93, 71)
Deshaun Watson 2017 (91, 99, 82, 95, 67)
Tua Tagovailoa 2020 (84, 84, 86, 83, 95)
Patrick Mahomes 2017 (93, 87, 61, 89, 96)
Sam Darnold 2018 (82, 75, 79, 96, 87)
Brock Purdy 2022 (89, 89, 88, 78, 61)
Drew Allar 2025 (92, 88, 76, 76, 64)
Bo Nix 2024 (92, 59, 75, 80, 86)
C.J. Stroud 2023 (88, 91, 80, 51, 57)
Kyle Trask 2021 (51, 71, 68, 74, 78)

That's a pretty impressive group, featuring the most successful NFL quarterback of the past several years (Mahomes), the biggest draft steal (Purdy), a few other QBs who have had some NFL success, and a couple 2024 rookies who it's too soon to tell on.
 
Yes love this thread. Are there any qbs that did or are doing well in the nfl with bad rate stats seen here ala Ward and Sanders?
 
Yes love this thread. Are there any qbs that did or are doing well in the nfl with bad rate stats seen here ala Ward and Sanders?
PFF only has data back to the 2014 NCAA season (and only back to 2015 for first downs) so I can't go back much further to add more QBs besides the ones that are already on the list.

I already included the 2017 QB draft class. For the 2016 draft class I only have data from their last 2 years (last 1 year for first downs) and the good NFL QBs were Prescott, Goff, and Wentz. Goff was great on these stats - on avg percentile he'd slot in between Mahomes & Purdy and he'd be the 12th member of the 5/5 above avg club. Prescott was pretty good - he'd slot in just ahead of Justin Herbert. Wentz I don't have stats for because he was FCS.

There weren't any good QBs in the 2015 class (Winston & Mariota have been the best NFL players), so those 17 are the list of comps that were have data for (the 15 above plus Prescott & Goff). And for Prescott and Goff it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison since we're missing the first 25% of Prescott's career dropbacks and the first 34% of Goff's (more for the first downs stat). It's also missing the first 23% of Baker Mayfield's dropbacks, and some first down data for Mahomes & Watson.

One piece of good news for Cam Ward is that his final season was better. If I look only at Ward's 2024 season, and compare it to everyone else's career, then it would be above average, between Josh Allen & Baker Mayfield. Shedeur Sanders's 2024 was also better than his career, but still (just barely) below median. But if I'm going to look at single seasons I should probably look at each player's best season under pressure, rather than careers for most players and final season for a select few. Setting that up will take some work, and my guess is that it will wind up being less predictive than career stats. And it might work better with adjustments for age/experience; Ward was a 5th year senior in 2024 so adjustments would downgrade that performance.
 
Pass rushers

I've been looking at PFF data for college pass rushers. I took 4 slightly different ways to calculate something like a player's career success rate as a pass rusher:

Pass Rush Win Rate: PFF stat, where a "win" means beating your block within 2.5 seconds
True pass set Pass Rush Win Rate: PFF stat, where a "true pass set" excludes excludes screens, play action, and rollouts
Weighted pressure rate: my calculation, 5 * sacks + 2 * batted balls + 1 * hurries + 1 * hits
True pass set Weighted pressure rate

I took the player's percentile on each of these career tats, relative to every player with at least 200 pass rushing opportunities in 2014-2024, and averaged them. (That correlates at r=0.92 or higher with the player's percentile on any one of these 4 stats, though some players do better on some of the stats than on others.)

The top 15 players by this way of calculating pass rush success are:

Ivan Pace Jr. MIAMI OH & CINCINNATI 2019-2022
Abdul Carter PENN STATE 2022-2024
Tim Williams ALABAMA 2014-2016
James Pearce Jr. TENNESSEE 2022-2024
Clarence Hicks UTSA 2019-2021
Joe Schobert WISCONSIN 2014-2015
Joshua Uche MICHIGAN 2016-2019
Curtis Weaver BOISE ST 2017-2019
Jatavis Brown AKRON 2014-2015
Laiatu Latu WASHINGTON & UCLA 2019-2023
Jalen Green JAMES MAD 2022-2023
Micah McFadden INDIANA 2018-2021
Jeff Gemmell CHARLOTTE 2016-2019
Chase Young OHIO STATE 2017-2019
Kalil Alexander TEXAS ST 2023-2024

I have bolded all of the players who met the 4 criteria:
* played whole career in a power conference,
* min 300 pass rushing opportunities (rather than 200)
* no missing data (from pre-2014 seasons)
* early declare (whole college career was in their first 3 years after HS)

You can see that the first two of those bolded players are in this draft class and the third is Chase Young.

If we continued down the list only including the players who met the criteria to be bolded, that leaderboard would be:
Abdul Carter PENN STATE 2022-2024
James Pearce Jr. TENNESSEE 2022-2024
Chase Young OHIO STATE 2017-2019
Nick Herbig WISCONSIN 2020-2022
Nick Bosa OHIO STATE 2016-2018
Myles Garrett TEXAS A&M 2014-2016
David Bailey STANFORD 2022-2024
Joe Jackson MIAMI FL 2016-2018
Derek Barnett TENNESSEE 2014-2016
A.J. Epenesa IOWA 2017-2019
Chop Robinson MARYLAND & PENN STATE 2021-2023


Lots of good names here, much stronger than the first list. Also includes another 2025-eligible player, David Bailey.

Here are the top 25 who were still in college this year, again with the same bolding criteria:
Abdul Carter PENN STATE 2022-2024
James Pearce Jr. TENNESSEE 2022-2024

Kalil Alexander TEXAS ST 2023-2024
Mike Green VIRGINIA & MARSHALL 2021-2024
Diwun Black FLORIDA & TEMPLE 2022-2024
Josaiah Stewart COAST CAR & MICHIGAN 2021-2024
Ben Bell LA TECH & TEXAS ST 2020-2024
Eric O'Neill JAMES MAD 2024-2024
Jaishawn Barham MARYLAND & MICHIGAN 2022-2024
David Bailey STANFORD 2022-2024
Princely Umanmielen FLORIDA & OLE MISS 2020-2024
Elijah Roberts MIAMI FL & SMU 2020-2024
TJ Guy MICHIGAN 2021-2024
Sebastian Benjamin W KENTUCKY 2023-2024
Cashius Howell BOWL GREEN & TEXAS A&M 2021-2024
Colin Simmons TEXAS 2024-2024
Antwaun Powell-Ryland FLORIDA & VA TECH 2020-2024
Jacob Manu ARIZONA 2022-2024
Dylan Stewart S CAROLINA 2024-2024
Russell Davis II ARIZONA & WASHINGTON 2022-2024
Jack Sawyer OHIO STATE 2021-2024
Jayden McDonald TROY & UCONN 2020-2024
Eddie Walls III FIU 2024-2024
Dani Dennis-Sutton PENN STATE 2022-2024
Elo Modozie ARMY 2023-2024

The next 3 bolded would be:
T.J. Parker CLEMSON 2023-2024
Jalon Walker GEORGIA 2022-2024
Derrick Moore MICHIGAN 2022-2024


As a first pass, this looks amazing for Abdul Carter & James Pearce Jr., great for David Bailey, and at least pretty good for Dani Dennis-Sutton, TJ Parker (not draft eligible yet), Jalon Walker, and Derrick Moore. There are some other names of potential interest but the non-bolded names require more sorting through.

This is just college pass rushing success, so it's not yet looking at things like size, athleticism, tape, technique, etc.

From what I've seen, Abdul Carter whole profile looks great, so IMO he should be in contention for the first non-QB drafted and (given that none of the QBs looks that great) the first overall pick. Pearce is smaller and plays smaller so probably not on the same level, but still should be a good first round pick.
 
Here's the pass rush success leaderboard for players listed at DT their final college season, who met* the criteria to be bolded:

Quinnen Williams ALABAMA 2017-2018
Christian Barmore ALABAMA 2019-2020
Hercules Mata'afa WASH STATE 2015-2017
Byron Murphy II TEXAS 2021-2023
Michael Hall Jr. OHIO STATE 2021-2023
Calijah Kancey PITTSBURGH 2020-2022
Jalen Carter GEORGIA 2020-2022
Vincent Taylor OKLA STATE 2014-2016
Deone Walker KENTUCKY 2022-2024
Mason Graham MICHIGAN 2022-2024
Dexter Lawrence CLEMSON 2016-2018
Jeffery Simmons MISS STATE 2016-2018
Vita Vea WASHINGTON 2015-2017
Leonard Taylor III MIAMI FL 2021-2023

* With the caveat that I didn't check these ones as thoroughly for who was an early declare, so some of them might have redshirted a year or something and not actually belong on this list. I also didn't try to filter out position switchers who also played some EDGE where pass rushing is easier.

Deone Walker and Mason Graham are the two DTs in this draft class who make the list.

Top career pass rushing numbers from players who were a DT in college this season:
Santana Hopper APP STATE 2022-2024
Deone Walker KENTUCKY 2022-2024
Peyton Zdroik AIR FORCE 2022-2024
Mason Graham MICHIGAN 2022-2024
Rylie Mills NOTRE DAME 2020-2024
Walter Nolen TEXAS A&M & OLE MISS 2022-2024
Jacob Holmes FRESNO ST 2022-2024

Caleb Banks LOUISVILLE & FLORIDA 2021-2024
Darius Alexander TOLEDO 2020-2024
Derrick Harmon MICH STATE & OREGON 2021-2024
T.J. Sanders S CAROLINA 2021-2024
Jared Harrison-Hunte MIAMI FL & SMU 2019-2024
Davon Sears TEXAS ST & OKLAHOMA 2022-2024
Marley Cook MIDDLE TN & MIAMI FL 2020-2024
Aeneas Peebles DUKE & VA TECH 2020-2024
 
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A ranking of the top QB prospects of the past 2 draft classes combined, according to a couple Twitter polls I'm running:

1. Caleb Williams 2024
2. Jayden Daniels 2024
3. Drake Maye 2024
4. JJ McCarthy 2024
5. Michael Penix 2024
6. Bo Nix 2024
7. Cam Ward 2025
8. Shedeur Sanders 2025

Nix vs. Ward was close, and I'm not sure about Daniels vs. Maye (I didn't bother polling that one).
 
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The website College Football Data (CFBD) has data on Expected Points Added (EPA, which they call "PPA") for college players going back to 2014.

The stat I've been using to evaluate QB production is something I've cobbled together from box score stats, including the situational stats available on cfbstats. It is very similar to EPA per play - comparing it with the CFBD data, the single-season version of my stat correlates at r=0.94 with season-long EPA/play for the 614 QB-seasons from 2014-2023 that are in both datasets with approximately the same number of plays in both datasets (within 2%), if I remove the SOS adjustment and the era adjustment from my stat.

There are various advantages and disadvantages of each dataset that I could go into (e.g. they each have some missing data), but since the stats I can get from each mostly agree with each other, instead I'll just give an overall production ranking based on averaging several of these stats together.

The number here is the percentile ranking, relative to all QBs drafted 2017-24 who met the minimum qualifying threshold. It is based on averaging together each player's rank on 5 stats (best season by EPA per play, best season by total EPA, career EPA per play, best season by ZWK per-play stat, best season plus + .5 * second best season by ZWK per-play stat).

Production Percentile relative to QBs drafted 2017-2024
85 Dillon Gabriel
76 Jaxson Dart
76 Kyle McCord
72 Carson Beck
72 Will Howard
72 Jalen Milroe
72 Cam Ward
72 Kurtis Rourke
58 KJ Jefferson
47 Tyler Shough
44 Brady Cook
44 Quinn Ewers
42 Drew Allar
39 Diego Pavia
36 Garrett Nussmeier
19 Shedeur Sanders
15 Graham Mertz
15 Riley Leonard
6 Cade Klubnik

7 of the 15 good NFL QBs that I included in my post on passing under pressure had elite college production (90th percentile or higher), and no draft-eligible QBs are in that range. Half of the other good NFL QBs (4/15) had good production (64th percentile or higher), half of the remainder (2/15) were around the median, and only 2/15 were meaningfully below the median (Josh Allen & Jordan Love both around 36th percentile).

So we can think of this list as "pretty good but not amazing" for the top 8 2025-eligible QBs (Gabriel through Rourke), "concerning but not hopeless" for the next 7 (Jefferson through Nussmeier), and disastrous for the bottom 4 (Shedeur Sanders on down).

There's a lot of overlap between the "pretty good" group by overall production and the highest ranked QBs in this draft class, e.g. this consensus board currently has Cam Ward, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart, Will Howard, Dillon Gabriel, and Kyle McCord among the top 8 quarterbacks, with just Kurtis Rourke ranked later (and Carson Beck returning to school). However Quinn Ewers is mediocre on this stat and projected 1st round pick Shedeur Sanders is awful.

Sanders rating awful may sound familiar - that was also true on the "under pressure" stats.

We can look at both this production stat and the under pressure stats side-by-side, combining the two stats into a single score just by averaging the two percentile rankings. Here is how that looks, with the two percentile rankings in parentheses.

I have included all the 2025-eligible QBs (bolded), the 15 good NFL QBs (plain text), and 7 QBs from the past 2 draft classes who it's too soon to tell on (italics).

COMBINED player (production, under-pressure)
88 Tua Tagovailoa (90, 86)
83 C.J. Stroud (94, 73)
82 Kyler Murray (99, 65)
82 J.J. McCarthy (76, 87)
81 Deshaun Watson (76, 87)
81 Bo Nix (85, 78)
81 Baker Mayfield (98, 63)
77 Caleb Williams (91, 64)
76 Joe Burrow (96, 57)
75 Patrick Mahomes (64, 85)
71 Trevor Lawrence (81, 62)
70 Jaxson Dart (78, 63)
70 Michael Penix Jr. (68, 71)
69 Jayden Daniels (95, 43)
68 Bryce Young (82, 54)
68 Carson Beck (72, 64)
66 Dillon Gabriel (85, 48)

66 Jalen Hurts (92, 40)
66 Kyle McCord (76, 55)
66 Kurtis Rourke (69, 62)

65 Brock Purdy (49, 81)
63 Will Howard (72, 54)
61 Drew Allar (42, 79)
58 Diego Pavia (39, 78)

58 Drake Maye (56, 59)
55 Justin Herbert (50, 60)
54 Lamar Jackson (66, 42)
52 Garrett Nussmeier (36, 68)
52 Jalen Milroe (72, 32)

49 Josh Allen (35, 64)
48 Cam Ward (72, 24)
46 KJ Jefferson (58, 34)
45 Tyler Shough (46, 45)

42 Jordan Love (37, 46)
40 Anthony Richardson (31, 49)
38 Brady Cook (44, 32)
38 Riley Leonard (14, 61)
30 Cade Klubnik (6, 55)
30 Quinn Ewers (44, 16)
26 Shedeur Sanders (19, 34)
25 Graham Mertz (15, 35)


The top draft-eligible QB by this combined rating, Jaxson Dart, falls below more than half (8/15) of the good NFL QBs. 3 too-soon-to-tell QBs from last year's class are mixed in among those 8 good QBs.

Also, if you look at the names of the good NFL QBs who fall below Dart on this list, you'll see that more than half (4/7) are great runners.

Most of the guys who were in the "pretty good but not great" tier by production continue to be in that tier by this combined rating: Dart, Beck, Gabriel, McCord, Rourke, Howard. QB-needy NFL teams might be better off targeting one of these guys on day 2 rather than forcing a QB pick early.

However, the two guys with pretty good production numbers whose under-pressure numbers drag them down into the "concerning but not hopeless" range are the two who are projected to be drafted the earliest: Cam Ward & Jalen Milroe. Milroe's running ability gives him some hope, and if tape guys like Ward give him some hope (see: Herbert, Allen, Maye).

Quinn Ewers & Shedeur Sanders are down in disastrous territory, well below even Jordan Love. And neither offers much as a runner - both had negative rushing yards with the CFB convention of counting sacks as rushes. Avoid.

Allar, Pavia, and Nussmeier returning to school with good under-pressure numbers but not good production. They could be shoot up these ranks next year if they can produce in college in 2025, since the production rating heavily depends on a player's best season.
 
In previous years I've given rankings of QBs Big Time Throw Rate (BTT), a PFF stat which counts how often they grade a player's throws as 1.0+.

I've been tinkering around with their in-context data and I think I can do better.

A problem with looking at a player's total Big Time Throws per attempt is that there are many plays where, if a quarterback executes well, he won't get a Big Time Throw. If the play call is a WR screen, or a quick slant, or similar, and the quarterback gets the ball out quickly to the open receiver, he has done his job and he hasn't gotten a BTT. BTTs happen when the play calls for a difficult throw, or when the play breaks down and the QB has to make something happen. If a quarterback makes lots of quick throws, that doesn't necessarily mean he's bad at playmaking, it just means that he needs to do it less often.

PFF stats offer breakdowns including:
* Screens vs. Non-screens
* Pressure vs. No Pressure
* Quick plays (<2.5 s) vs. Slow plays (2.5+ s)

So instead of looking at BTT rate on all plays, we could look at BTT rate only on non-screens, or only on plays where the QB gets pressured, or only on plays where the QB holds the ball for at least 2.5 seconds.

Limiting it to only non-screens is an obvious improvement (there were only 2 BTTs on screens in all of FBS football last year), but I think that looking at BTT rate when pressured or BTT rate on Slow plays (2.5+ s) is even better. That includes most of the plays where things break down and the QB has to make something happen off-script, as well as many of the plays where it's especially difficult to make a throw as designed (including slow-developing downfield throws, facing down pressure, etc.). And the data seem to confirm that these two BTT stats are especially relevant - they are more correlated with draft capital, and with NFL success, than any of the other BTT stats that I've looked at.

Also, unlike PFF, I've decided to calculate BTT rate as per non-scramble dropback, rather than per attempt (or some other option), because I think that on plays where a quarterback makes a Big Time Throw, often a lesser quarterback would have taken a sack. So I don't want to leave those out of the denominator.

Both career rate and best season seem relevant, so here is each quarterback's percentile on both (Career, Best Season). I have bolded the 2025-eligible QBs, included the same 15 successful NFL QBs for comparison, and also included the other 2024 first rounders in italics.

BTT per non-scramble dropback, avg of Slow Plays and Under Pressure.

Percentile Player (Career, Best Season)
99 Josh Allen (98, 99)
98 Trevor Lawrence (99, 95)
95 Patrick Mahomes (94, 94)
94 Tua Tagovailoa (95, 92)
89 Michael Penix Jr. (93, 85)
85 Drake Maye (89, 77)

82 Deshaun Watson (86, 80)
81 Caleb Williams (83, 79)
79 Joe Burrow (73, 81)
77 Jaxson Dart (77, 76)
74 Brock Purdy (46, 86)
73 Justin Herbert (76, 68)
69 J.J. McCarthy (71, 70)
68 Kyle McCord (61, 71)
67 Cam Ward (40, 76)

65 Kyler Murray (69, 57)
64 Bo Nix (61, 64)
62 C.J. Stroud (68, 50)
61 Jayden Daniels (35, 75)
58 Cade Klubnik (44, 71)
57 Jalen Milroe (52, 68)
49 Dillon Gabriel (40, 68)

48 Baker Mayfield (58, 42)
46 Jordan Love (43, 61)
44 Graham Mertz (40, 54)
42 Kurtis Rourke (39, 49)
39 Drew Allar (37, 43)
38 Garrett Nussmeier (60, 15)
38 Diego Pavia (52, 21)
36 Tyler Shough (39, 36)
33 Carson Beck (36, 35)
32 Shedeur Sanders (39, 26)
31 Quinn Ewers (18, 49)
31 Brady Cook (33, 26)
31 KJ Jefferson (25, 36)

24 Lamar Jackson (19, 27)
21 Jalen Hurts (31, 12)
14 Will Howard (15, 8)
6 Riley Leonard (8, 7)


The pattern for the 2025 class is fairly similar to the other stats I've posted: no one did amazing, Jaxson Dart was pretty good, Cam Ward had a good best season but unimpressive career numbers, Sanders & Ewers did not look good. The 2024 class looks stronger.

Among the QBs who have had some success in the NFL, you can see that some are concentrated at the very top of this metric (>90th percentile among all drafted QBs), and few do poorly. The ones with the worst numbers are great runners like Jackson & Hurts, which suggests that there's some hope for Jalen Milroe.

So I'm not super high on any QB in this class, but right now Dart, Ward, and Milroe are the ones that I'm most interested in based on my own analysis. We'll see if I find any stat where Sanders looks better.
 
BTT per non-scramble dropback, avg of Slow Plays and Under Pressure.

Percentile Player (Career, Best Season)

77 Jaxson Dart (77, 76)
74 Brock Purdy (46, 86)
73 Justin Herbert (76, 68)
69 J.J. McCarthy (71, 70)
68 Kyle McCord (61, 71)
67 Cam Ward (40, 76)

.
Nice to see this value potential

33 Carson Beck (36, 35)
32 Shedeur Sanders (39, 26)
31 Quinn Ewers (18, 49)
31 Brady Cook (33, 26)
31 KJ Jefferson (25, 36)

24 Lamar Jackson (19, 27)
21 Jalen Hurts (31, 12)
14 Will Howard (15, 8)
6 Riley Leonard (8, 7)


The pattern for the 2025 class is fairly similar to the other stats I've posted: no one did amazing, Jaxson Dart was pretty good, Cam Ward had a good best season but unimpressive career numbers, Sanders & Ewers did not look good. The 2024 class looks stronger.

Among the QBs who have had some success in the NFL, you can see that some are concentrated at the very top of this metric (>90th percentile among all drafted QBs), and few do poorly. The ones with the worst numbers are great runners like Jackson & Hurts, which suggests that there's some hope for Jalen Milroe.

So I'm not super high on any QB in this class, but right now Dart, Ward, and Milroe are the ones that I'm most interested in based on my own analysis. We'll see if I find any stat where Sanders looks better.
Thank the breakdown and yeah, Hurts & Jackson numbers look bad, but that is not unsupported by their NFL play on "Big Time Throws" ... Passing is a "whole team effort", with OC, QB, OL & WR making all the right moves/actions to make it happen
 

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