2024 Quarterback Prospects

This is one of the most fascinating classes of quarterbacks I’ve studied in my ten years of doing this. There will likely be four selected in the top ten, and as many as six in the first round, with several teams scrambling to get in position to grab one of these talents. We have a mix of polished options with limited upside and freakish talents with some glaring flaws, plus a couple of thoroughly mediocre options that have gotten some first-round buzz over the course of the long pre-draft process.

Here is my ranking of the top seven, from the best to the worst.

 

Caleb Williams, USC

When you talk about Williams, there’s nowhere else to start but arm talent. The things he can do with a football are simply otherworldly. In every game I watched he had at least one play where he made a throw that only three or four people in the world can make, the sort of throw that completely changes how you have to play defense against him.

“Arm talent” often gets conflated with the mere ability to throw the ball a long way, but it is far more than that. It is the ability to fire balls into tight windows, to hit every part of the field with ease, and—the part where Williams truly excels—the ability to deliver the ball with velocity and accuracy from difficult platforms. It doesn’t matter if he’s standing still or moving right or left or forward or backward, the ball comes out of his hand with zip and precision on almost every throw he makes. He can adjust his arm angle to throw around defenders, and he can change the trajectory of the pass to flutter it in with touch. He’s merely good as an athlete, but he's very smart about how and when to use these abilities, and defenses will drive themselves insane trying to account for all the ways he can beat them.

There are, of course, flaws he needs to work through to take full advantage of his potential, and probably even to become an above average NFL quarterback. The biggest of these is his tendency to hold onto the football. He hunts big plays every time he drops back, and while his ability to hit on these big plays is what makes him so enticing as a prospect, he will also produce a lot of negatives. Behind the line he’s very good at finding space and staying in position to throw the ball, but he still takes sacks he shouldn’t, and at times this comes with some very shaky ball security. He passes up open receivers in the hope that he can make something bigger happen if he just waits another second or two, at times costing his offense opportunities to pick up not insignificant chunks of yardage.

The thing is, Williams absolutely can run the offense on schedule. The scheme he was running at USC was abysmal (and yes, his offensive coordinator is now in charge of the offense for the team that will get the second QB off the board), so I don’t necessarily blame Williams for freelancing so often. When he did stick to the script, however, he was excellent at getting the ball out on time and on target. He reads coverages well and makes quick decisions when he feels like it, hitting his receivers the moment they complete their routes rather than waiting to see that they are open. He will have an adjustment period as he starts running an actual offense, but the foundation is there, and I expect he will figure things out in a year or two.

Williams is going to go first overall, and he is absolutely worth it. He has enough flaws that I wouldn’t put him among the top tier of quarterbacks I’ve scouted, but he’s shown enough to make me think he has a pretty good chance of overcoming them. And if he can round into a more polished quarterback while still keeping the explosive elements of his game, there is no reason he can’t become the best quarterback in the league in four or five years.

 

Jayden Daniels, LSU

Daniels is the best in the class in two very important categories: athleticism and accuracy. The athleticism is what jumps off the page, as his legs will instantly become the number one threat any defense has to worry about. Whether on designed runs or on scrambles, he has the speed to outrun almost everyone on the field and the quickness to make anyone who tries to tackle him look completely helpless in space. It’s the sort of athleticism that can cover up for holes elsewhere in his game, or become an absolute nightmare of a secondary option if he can round out as a passer.

The accuracy is more subtle, but in terms of simply putting the ball in position for his receiver to grab it, there’s no one else in the class who boasts Daniels’s consistency. He’s incredible on deep balls, but he’s just as accurate to most other parts of the field. The one place where he seems to have some occasional struggles is across the middle, and there it’s more an issue of occasionally leaving it on his receiver’s back hip and taking away opportunities to run after the catch, rather than outright missing.

The middle of the field is the area where you see Daniels’s biggest struggles emerge. He’s not a particularly aggressive passer, shying away from tight windows and throws that could be contested. This means he’s good at avoiding turnovers, but also that he frequently passes up opportunities for a completion and simply holds onto the ball.

In these situations, his backup plan is always to run. A good backup plan given his athleticism, but one that occasionally leads him to flee from a comfortable pocket into the arms of a waiting defender. And even when he does escape he is always looking to run, never searching for opportunities farther down the field. He isn’t great at throwing on the run, and most of the time he doesn’t even try, choosing to tuck the ball even if there are open receivers who could get him bigger and easier gains.

This is where I will bring up something that will become relevant for a couple other quarterbacks farther down the list: age. Daniels is 23 years old and has five years of college under his belt, two more than the other quarterbacks at the top of the draft. This is relevant because it means he is farther along his development curve than the people he’s being compared to. We should expect him to be better at running an offense and reading a defense. We should expect him to have worked out the kinks of his game more than the players who have only been out of high school for three years. And where those flaws remain, it likely means they are more ingrained and will be harder to fix at the next level.

Age is definitely a reason to downgrade a quarterback, but not a reason to disregard talent entirely. The best quarterback I’ve scouted was Joe Burrow, a player who broke out in his fifth year with talent that was so undeniable that he simply had to go first overall. Daniels isn’t at that level, but his athletic ability is worth the chance. I am a little worried that even after five years of watching college defenses he’s still so hesitant about attacking them with his arm, but the combination of athletic ability and accuracy should create enough plays to make up for the ones that he leaves on the table, and gives him a floor that makes him probably the safest quarterback option in the draft.

 

JJ McCarthy, Michigan

McCarthy is a difficult prospect to study, because there really isn’t that much to study. He played on a team with a great running game and defense but with some middling receivers and pass blocking, which meant that he was rarely put in a position to carry the weight of the offensive burden. Because of this, it’s easy to see whatever you want to see with McCarthy. He can look like a game manager who had an easy life. Or he can look like a gifted physical talented who flashed in the few opportunities he was given. I think he is closer to the latter than the former, and the inconsistencies that come with his lack of experience should be ironed out in the NFL, making him more than worthy of a top five selection.

McCarthy checks almost every box you look for in a modern NFL quarterback. He has a strong enough arm to make every throw, and athleticism to threaten defenses both extending plays behind the line and picking up yards down the field. He’s very good at throwing on the run moving to either his right or his left, and he consistently creates opportunities when his initial options aren’t available.

His lack of experience could make for a slightly tricky transition to the NFL. He is a good athlete with a good arm, but he plays like a great athlete with a great arm, and has a tendency to try to escape from the pocket backwards in a way that will lead to some big losses in the NFL. He makes quick decisions and usually the correct ones, but occasionally he will force the ball into risky situations. He struggles to throw with touch, and underneath defenders can get their hands on passes that should be layered over their heads. He’ll probably throw more interceptions in his first couple years than most of the other quarterbacks on this list, but this is something that can be smoothed over with experience.

The biggest red flag I see with McCarthy is accuracy, though in a strange way. Over the middle of the field he is pinpoint precise, hitting tight windows and giving his receivers ample opportunity to run after the catch. But this accuracy disappears when he tries to throw to the sidelines. He’ll occasionally sail balls over his receivers’ heads and, more troublingly, will sometimes leave out-breaking routes on the back shoulder, which is just asking for a pick-six.

If McCarthy can correct these accuracy problems, there is no reason he can’t become a top tier NFL quarterback. But there is risk here as well, if he’s asked to do too much too fast. I’m not a fan of having a rookie quarterback “learn from the bench”, and this is doubly true for McCarthy, whose biggest obstacle is his lack of game reps. But if he’s put in a situation where he has to take a lot of chances and play in a system that doesn’t match his strengths, there is real bust potential here that probably doesn’t exist for the two quarterbacks I have above him.

 

Drake Maye, North Carolina

If you want to talk about bust potential, Maye is the riskiest quarterback at the top of the draft this year. His worst plays are the worst of the quarterbacks I looked at. He takes a lot of risks with the ball, either firing into covered targets or holding the ball too long in the pocket trying to extend a play. His mechanics are shaky, with an elongated delivery that increases ball security issues in the pocket and leads to a couple wildly inaccurate throws each game. Mechanics can be cleaned up in the NFL, but trying to tweak them can have knock-on effects, such as with Justin Fields who was a spectacularly accurate quarterback until the Bears tried to speed up his mechanics.

That said, a lot of Maye’s inconsistencies and recklessness are understandable. His receivers in college weren’t very good at things like “getting open” or “catching the football”, which meant that the entire burden of the offense was on Maye’s shoulders every single play. He fell back on hero-ball because that’s the only option he had, and hopefully in the NFL he won’t face these circumstances nearly as often.

And as bad as Maye’s low points can be, his high points are absolutely insane. Everything I said about Williams’s arm above holds true for Maye as well. He throws maybe the best deep ball I’ve ever seen, alternating between beautiful touch to drop it over a receiver’s shoulder and laser precision to hit a hole before a safety can come over the top. He’s incredible out of structure as well, extending plays with his legs while always keeping his eyes down the field and making creative plays to throw receivers open. He’s a very good athlete who can threaten defenses with his legs, though he occasionally will tuck the ball too early.

Maye isn’t a complete project either. There are plenty of moments of high-level play within structure that show up in his tape as well. He aggressively targets windows over the middle of the field, throwing with precision and anticipation to give his receivers opportunities to run after the catch. He’ll occasionally get caught on his first read, but also frequently shows the ability to make sharp decisions before the snap and move through options after it. He needs to go to a situation where he’s able to make these basic plays more frequently, and not fall back on his physical gifts too often. If he does, he has the potential to develop into the best quarterback in the game.

 

Michael Penix, Washington

Penix is one of the quarterbacks where we really need to discuss age. He will be 24 by the time he reaches the NFL, after spending six years in college due to a couple of serious injuries that ended his third and fourth years. He’s further along in his development process, and it shows on the field, where he had total mastery of his offensive system and made good, quick decisions to attack the holes in college defenses. This is the sort of thing I expect from an experienced quarterback though, so I give him less credit for having this edge over the younger players. And I am more wary of his flaws, since he has had more time to fix them and hasn’t managed to do it.

On tape though, Penix is just as good a quarterback as the two I have listed above him (and maybe even better than Maye). He has a strong arm that can reach every part of the field, and he shows off deft touch down the sidelines to give his receivers opportunities to catch the ball. He doesn’t target tight windows often, but when he does he is usually able to hit them with good anticipation and precision. I think he could comfortably slide into an NFL starting job right now, especially if he goes somewhere with good existing talent.

Penix can be a good starting quarterback if given a strong supporting cast like he had in Washington. My concerns are how much he can do to create opportunities on his own. He raised some eyebrows with really good athletic testing numbers at his pro day, but this athleticism never shows up on the field. He isn’t a threat to take off running, and he doesn’t make many plays outside the pocket. He has a strong arm, but it is very dependent on a solid base beneath him. He’s pretty good at maneuvering behind the line to avoid taking a sack, but once he’s forced to move his feet his accuracy disappears, and most of the time the best he is able to do is to throw the ball away.

I’ve gone back and reread a lot of my scouting reports from previous years, and one thing that surprised me was how much overlap there was between what I think about Penix and what I wrote about Mac Jones. Penix has a stronger arm than Jones, and his athletic numbers at least hint at some potential there, so if he ends up in a better situation than Jones found with the Patriots, I think he can hang around longer. And on a rookie wage scale, a quarterback with limited upside can be valuable if you can nail every other personnel decision. But that is hard to do, and four or five years down the road a team is going to face a difficult situation about whether to pay Penix more than he is worth or start the process over from scratch. It’s the sort of dilemma that can cripple a team for years, and I’d really be hard-pressed to justify spending a first-round pick on a quarterback like this.

 

Spencer Rattler, South Carolina

Rattler is almost certainly going to spend most of his career as a backup, but as a long-term project he at least offers some interesting potential. He’s a decent athlete with a very strong arm, and when he lets it loose he is capable of making some incredible throws into tight windows down the field. He’s good at moving behind the line and is not at all bothered by pressure, which makes sense because he probably has more experience with pressure than any other quarterback. The offensive line he played behind was abysmal, and part of the reason for hope with him is that he might be able to take some positive strides if he’s not running for his life on every play.

There are still enough flaws in Rattler’s game that I wouldn’t put too high a chance on him developing into an NFL starter, and I wouldn’t draft him before the third or fourth round. He makes too many poor decisions for someone with four years of starting experience in college. He regularly misses defenders sitting in front of his receivers, and when something isn’t available he will stand in the pocket holding the ball for far too long. Some of this can be attributed to having to force things due to his poor supporting cast, but it will take some work to get rid of these habits, work that probably isn’t worth it for a player with a still somewhat limited upside.

Even more troubling is his accuracy. He’s reasonably precise on his first reads, but his accuracy falls off as he goes through his progressions, and he has a habit of leaving the ball behind his receivers as they come across the middle. He’s good at moving behind the line, but he is also one of those quarterbacks who struggles to deliver the ball once he is forced to reset his feet. He can buy himself an extra second to throw, but he never does anything with it, either missing his target or simply flinging the ball out of bounds.

I have him ranked as the best option after the top five quarterbacks, but it would be just as reasonable to prefer the next on the list, who doesn’t have the same upside based on his physical tools but has a better chance of becoming at least a bottom-rung NFL starter. If Rattler can clean up his mechanics and learn to make better decisions, he could develop into an above-average quarterback a few years down the road. It’s not something I would bet on happening, but the possibility is there.

 

Bo Nix, Oregon

Nix is the classic example of a quarterback who stuck around college until he figured it out. He holds the record for the most games started in college football, starting for three years at Auburn and two at Oregon. And by the end of his career he had mastered the offense he was running, not that there was much to master. It was a very simplified scheme that was built largely out of slants and screens, rarely asking him to go beyond his first read or throw the ball more than ten yards past the line of scrimmage. Moving to the NFL will be essentially starting from scratch, not an appealing prospect for someone who is already 24 years old.

It might be different if Nix had some incredible tools that showed up on film, but he simply doesn’t. His arm strength and athleticism are both merely average, and while accuracy is his greatest tool, it isn’t at an elite level. He throws well on the run and flashes moments of creativity when the play breaks down, but just as often he bails out of clean pockets the moment his first option is taken away from him, cutting off half the field and killing plays before they can get started.

There are one or two moments every game that suggest there might be something more there. Plays where he’s asked to go through multiple reads and does a good job. Passes fit into tight windows over the middle. Sharp throws while scrambling outside the pocket. Not a lot, but enough to suggest maybe there is a more complete quarterback here that his coaches in college just chose not to utilize.

I’m pretty sure there isn’t, though. I think the best-case scenario for Nix is that he develops into a fringe starter who bounces around the league, able to execute a simplified offense well enough to look decent with a good supporting infrastructure (think Gardner Minshew). And worst-case scenario, the transition from NFL to college is simply too much for him, and he falls back on the old reckless habits he mostly managed to excise from his game by the end of his college career (think Kenny Pickett).