Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Prospect Rankings: Quarterbacks

With the NFL Draft just over a month away, our College Football expert Thor Nystrom shares his official QB rankings. Read on for Thor’s player comps and analysis on the next crop of pro football signal-callers.

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Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft QB Rankings

1. Caleb Williams (USC)

6011/214 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Aaron Rodgers

Caleb Williams is an electric playmaker with a huge creative bent to his game. Supremely confident, he believes in his ability and what he’s seeing to a ludicrous degree. When things are going well, Williams is as dangerous as they come. When they aren’t, his propensity to turn down easy profits hunting for explosive play bogs down drives.

Williams is a very good athlete with a live arm. He has effortless velocity and doesn’t need both feet under him to zing it on the money to any sector. He is very good at throwing on the run. Some of his biggest jaw-dropping throws have come without both feet under him, and some have even come with one of them off the ground.

Williams’ tape is littered with accuracy, touch and placement. He can make all the throws, and he knows it. As a thrower, he’s audacious without being reckless. Williams only threw 14 career interceptions over 1,099 attempts.

Williams is extremely dangerous out of the pocket. He consistently puts defenders into conflict and coaxes them into bad decisions. He loves getting out to the perimeter and throwing on the run. Williams can also tuck and move the chains in a blink when the look isn’t there.

This makes him especially dangerous in the red zone, where he was elite in college. Williams rushed for 27 TD over two-and-a-half seasons as a starter. If he doesn’t like what he’s seeing, he’ll try to steal the touchdown himself.

I love the way he moves in the pocket, shuffling and sliding around to manipulate angles and keep a halo of safety around him. Pressure does not sneak up on Williams, who consistently makes pass-rushers miss. He’s very difficult to corral, even for free rushers.

Williams’ prerogative to extend plays is a two-way street. He has a highlight reel full of electric plays out of structure. Still, he has a bad habit of extending plays into a bridge-to-nowhere plank, leading to stalled-out drives or slap-the-ball-out fumbles. Williams fumbled 32 times over 35 career games.

Last season, Williams posted the highest pressure-to-sack ratio (23.2%) of my top-20 quarterbacks ranked in this class. That was way up from the year before, when Williams had a solid 16.0% pressure-to-sack ratio. Williams won the Heisman that year while throwing for 4,537 yards with 52 total TDs. Williams regressed a bit on a struggling USC team that went 7-5 in 2023. His play under pressure, elite in 2022 (85.1 PFF grade), utterly devolved in 2023 (41.6).

You can only blame so much of that on his offensive line, as Williams’ play style forces linemen to hold blocks longer and can sometimes scramble him into corners he cannot escape from. Williams led the FBS with 50 dropbacks in which the ball didn’t come out within six seconds of the snap. His 3.16-second average throw time was second-highest in this draft class, .01 of a second behind UTEP’s Gavin Hardison, who reads the field like it’s covered in Sanskrit.

Williams actually improved in this area after averaging 3.44 seconds per attempt during his outstanding 2022 season. Further improvement will be necessary to become an NFL star, as taking that long to throw in the NFL is not viable. Last year – and I’m sorry to have to mention this, Bears fans – Justin Fields led the NFL with a 3.39 average time to throw. That, plus Fields’ elevated pressure-to-sack rate – the two are correlated – was the biggest red flag of Fields’ evaluation coming out of Ohio State.

The path for Williams to improve entails mastering in-structure timing routes. The bad news is he did very little of that at USC. The good news is that it’s theoretically coachable, whereas Williams’ out-of-structure magic is not. But the fact remains that, at present, Caleb Williams doesn’t throw receivers open; he buys time until they are. There will be moments in every NFL game when that inclination is appropriate. There will be many more when he is going to be asked to manufacture completions in-rhythm from within the pocket.

If Williams busts, the reason will be because he never becomes more than a see-it, throw-it quarterback.

The question comes down to this: “Is Williams using scrambling as a crutch to give his receivers time to get out into space and break off routes, where he can easily identify them as open before releasing because he is incapable of anticipating? Or was that more a function of USC head coach Lincoln Riley letting Williams play playground ball because no player was more talented on any field that Williams stepped onto?”

Williams’ ceiling is the highest of any quarterback in this class. He has legitimate special ability. You don’t have to squint to envision him as a top-five NFL quarterback. Because of that, he’s my QB1. But there is risk in the profile. Williams needs his Andy Reid in the NFL, someone who can teach him how to differentiate between the times it’s appropriate to put on the superhero cape and when it’s best to take the short profit and move on to the next play.

2. Jayden Daniels (LSU)

6033/205 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Randall Cunningham

Jayden Daniels brings two superpowers to the pros: He will, from Day 1, be one of the most dangerous running threats the NFL has ever seen at the position. He also has a downfield cannon with a feathery touch. Both of these things will translate, embedding a reasonable floor and the makings of a theoretically sky-high ceiling.

Originally signed by Herm Edwards at Arizona State to be the face of that program, Daniels’ development as a passer had stagnated by Year 3. He transferred to LSU, where his career was salvaged by Brian Kelly and the Tigers’ new staff.

The biggest thing LSU did to improve Daniels’ game in 2022 was to get him to take care of the ball and reset him back to factory default settings. Following a 10/10 TD/INT rate in 2021 at ASU, Daniels posted a 17/3 TD/INT ratio at LSU in 2022. This was more in line with the two years before that at ASU when Daniels posted an aggregate 22/3 TD/INT rate.

In 2023, everything came together during Daniels’ national coming out party. He finished No. 1 in the FBS in PFF deep-passing grade and No. 3 in big-time throw rate while finishing 98th percentile in avoiding negative plays.

He had learned how to take care of the ball while becoming hyper-aggressive in situations that called for it, that ever-rare dichotomy of explosion and discretion. Combine that with his absurd rushing output – his 2,329 run yards the past two seasons were nearly 600 yards higher than the next-highest quarterback – and you can see why he won the Heisman.

Last season, Daniels bent the spatial rules of the football field. He forced opposing defensive coordinators to decide where they were going to rob Peter to pay Paul schematically. Whatever they decided, Daniels made them pay.

Do you spy on Daniels to contain him behind the line of scrimmage? If so, how are you going to keep a second safety deep to protect against the long ball? Do you try to speed things up by ramping up the blitz? You better get home quickly if you do that. Daniels was PFF’s highest-graded quarterback against the blitz in 2023.

I love Daniels’ snap-decision profit calculator. When he has the best of it, he pushes all his chips to the middle of the table. If it’s not, he will seamlessly revert to taking whatever profit is available to him. He doesn’t bail the pocket until he has to; Daniels is a full-field reader who is not looking to pull the down until he has to. But when he does, he shoots into the second level before defensive backs realize he’s broken containment.

Daniels’ pocket management has grown by leaps and bounds as the game has slowed down for him over the past few years. He has quiet feet and a sturdy platform under him as he calmly surveys his options. His 82.2 PFF pressure grade last year ranks No. 2 in this class. Daniels’ accuracy and placement are high-level at all three levels.

The concerns about Daniels are his fifth-year breakout, his rail-thin frame with his propensity to take big hits while running, his lack of work attacking the middle of the field and his high pressure-to-sack ratio. He must learn to slide in the NFL or he will get hurt.

Last season, per PFF, Daniels was only 9-for-18 with a 2/1 TD/INT rate between the hashes 10-20 yards down the field. This makes him a tricky projection to offensive systems such as Minnesota’s, which regularly peppers the middle of the field. It’s unclear whether Daniels is uncomfortable with this sort of thing or whether it was simply the constitution of LSU’s attack.

The issue that has been discussed most this offseason is his pressure-to-sack ratio. We’ll start with the positive:  It improved from a truly ghastly 30.8% in 2022 to a far more manageable 20.2% in 2023 (Drake Maye territory). But it absolutely needs to keep improving. This is the last frontier of Daniels’ renaissance as a player – mastering decision-making under duress.

I’m not as concerned by the fifth-year breakout as some others are. Daniels was a highly-touted recruit with obvious ability who played all five seasons and showed consistent improvement outside of the bizarre 2021 outlier. It’s more likely that his leap up last season is indicative of more improvement to come than it being a mirage. The arrow is pointing up developmentally, and Daniels was already the nation’s best QB last year.

3. J.J. McCarthy (Michigan)

6024/219 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Rich Gannon

J.J. McCarthy emerges from Jim Harbaugh’s NFL factory, where he just won a national title as a 20-year-old third-year junior. McCarthy displaced Cade McNamara as QB1 as a sophomore. McNamara had previously taken the job of Joe Milton III, another top-10 QB prospect in this class.

McCarthy is a good athlete (ran the sixth-fastest 3-cone at the NFL Combine at 17 pounds heavier than his Michigan listing) with a big arm (his 61 mph max-velocity throw at the Combine was one mph away from the record). Importantly, these two things work in conjunction on the field.

McCarthy had a 72.3% completion percentage in 2023. When scrambling, he completed an absurd 71.4%. McCarthy keeps his eyes up with his upper body cocked to throw and his feet under him while he maneuvers around. He doesn’t lose accuracy on the move because he takes his mechanics with him. He fires frozen ropes to all three sectors on the move.

One of the most encouraging aspects of McCarthy’s 2023 breakout season was his work under pressure, a problem area as a first-year starter in 2022. He has the lateral agility and acceleration to get out of sticky situations, and he’s comfortable ad-libbing. The improvisational aspect of McCarthy’s game could be special at the next level.

McCarthy is a smart, tough player. His toughness is a key part of his NFL evaluation. One of the rarest traits you see on quarterback film – college or NFL – is a quarterback who doesn’t fade away from hits or brace for them while throwing. McCarthy is a player who steps into his throw every time and eats the biggest possible hit to make the most accurate pass possible.

After sometimes struggling to move off his first read as a true sophomore in 2022, McCarthy’s 2023 tape showed a young prospect becoming increasingly comfortable moving to his second and third options. He still needs work in this area, but his improvement was encouraging.

McCarthy also has gotten very good at timing concepts, a key component in Jim Harbaugh’s pro-style system. He mercilessly attacks the middle of the field, a skill the NFL loves. Last season, McCarthy had the most completions in the intermediate range over the middle of the top quarterbacks in this class. He finished with an absurd 85.6% adjusted completion percentage and 91.2 passing grade between the hashes while ranking No. 17 in the FBS with 97 such attempts.

The narrative was flipped on McCarthy to begin this process. That narrative focused on his counting stats. Those were skewed by the 11 Michigan leads of 21+ points in 15 games that led to McCarthy not taking a fourth-quarter snap in seven games last fall. McCarthy’s stats were also not inflated by empty-calorie first-down screens, nor were they pumped up by pouring it on against bad defenses. When taking out screen passes, only one quarterback in this class had nearly half of his passing attempts come against top-25 defenses: McCarthy (49.7%).

McCarthy’s per-pass and high-leverage stats sparkle. He is the only quarterback in this draft class who finished 72nd-percentile or higher in all seven of these PFF categories last season: standard dropback percentile, at or the beyond sticks percentile, avoids negative plays percentile, under pressure percentile, outside the pocket percentile, third/fourth down percentile and positively graded throws percentile. No other quarterback in this class was 54th percentile or higher in all seven of those categories.

McCarthy does, however, need to improve his sideline accuracy. Last year, he managed to rank No. 5 in the FBS in catchable throw rate despite finishing No. 48 outside the numbers. When he’s off, it’s due to his tendency on those throws to take an exaggerated lead step and then swing his upper body on the follow-through. Michigan’s offense didn’t feature as many of these throws as those of the other top quarterbacks, so some level of natural improvement should come through experience and mechanical tweaking.

Lastly, McCarthy could stand to modulate his touch on certain throws. What he does really well is hum tight spirals at high velocity, but he will improve as a passer if he learns to trade heat for trajectory or touch on throws that call for them.

McCarthy is 61-3 as a starter since high school (he went 27-1 and won a national title as Michigan’s QB1). He’s a winner who former coaches and teammates fawn over. Harbaugh, now the Chargers’ head coach, believes McCarthy is the best prospect in this entire class.

McCarthy offers a stellar analytical profile and projectable traits. He has a rare skillset to play out of structure, proving he could play within structure at Michigan. He’s early on the development curve, with an unteachable aspect to his game that, if fully realized, will make him a legitimate menace at the next level. His floor and ceiling have both been undersold. He’s a worthy top-five bet in April’s draft.

4. Drake Maye (North Carolina)

6043/223 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Mashup of Carson Palmer and Carson Wentz (“Carson Pentz”)

Maye is a big, strapping pocket passer with a howitzer arm.

When Maye has his base under him and he steps into his throws, he’s extremely, extremely accurate. You particularly appreciate the downfield touch, fitting balls into very small spots way down the field on time.

Maye’s supreme arm talent has imbedded a fearlessness in him, a conviction that any ball that leaves his hand will get there. If you had to bet your life on one quarterback spinning a heat-ring spiral into a microscopic window 15 yards downfield, you would choose Maye. Over the last two seasons, Maye had a sterling 93.3 PFF grade on 110 attempts over the middle. Not only is he experienced at these sorts of throws, but he’s proven.

Maye’s rushing utility has been overblown; that won’t translate to the NFL level. He’s an extremely tough kid who will chip in on short-yardage and goal-line situations in the NFL and not embarrass himself when keeping on the rare read-option, but that’s about it.

You want Maye in the pocket. He needs that sturdy platform under him. Anything the defense can do to effect that increases the odds of an inaccurate throw or a wonky decision. Maye is good at manipulating the pocket early in the rep to keep himself out of harm’s way and keep a throwing runway in front of him. That also allows him to climb the pocket to fire a dart a few beats later if a speed rusher is beginning to breach a tackle’s outside shoulder.

When Maye has a halo around him when he starts throwing, he’s stepping into it and firing a pill. This is when he looks like a potential NFL star. He’s a fastball thrower with a 100-mph heater in the intermediate range. From an NFL perspective, this is one of the most encouraging parts of his eval.

But I noticed in Maye’s tape a propensity to speed through his throwing motion and/or forget his feet under the threat of a collapsing pocket. This habit may have, in some parts, formed from Maye’s lack of acceleration and lateral agility, which make it non-viable to attempt to escape sticky situations on foot.

The wrench that speeding up his motion threw into his mechanics had a tendency to cause Maye to lose complete control of the balls he was throwing, leading to errancy. Maye completed only 43.3% of his 90 passes under pressure last season for a 7/5 TD/INT rate. He was sacked 28 times. Collegiate coordinators knew that the way you make Maye mortal was to turn up the heat on him. Of the top nine quarterbacks on this list, Maye was the only one whose accuracy percentage was under 71% while blitzed (66.4%).

In these situations, Maye’s mechanical foibles are exacerbated by processing glitches. He sees the field very well in clean pockets, but his vision can constrict under pressure. This is especially true when he gets a coverage look he wasn’t expecting after the snap. He speeds up very quickly, leading to YOLO decisions.

In 2022, Maye lit the College Football world on fire with a 9-1 start. Things took a turn when UNC hosted 4-6 Georgia Tech on Nov. 19. The Yellow Jackets, down to a rotation of their QB3 and QB4, roared back from a 17-0 deficit to upset UNC 21-17 by harassing and frustrating Maye into a discombobulated mess. Maye failed to record a TD and threw for a season-low 202 yards while posting 16th-percentile EPA/pass. He was sacked six times, three by Keion White, with his YPA plummeting to 5.0 on pressures.

The next week, UNC was once again upset at home, this time by 7-4 NC State. NCSU also made Maye look human – 29-for-49 for 233 yards and a 1/1 TD/INT – but they did it very differently. Instead of ramping up the heat, NC State dropped eight players into coverage. Maye spent the day in a state of confusion. Multiple times, he simply did not see a wide-open receiver in the back of the end zone.

The Tar Heels went on to lose their next two games, finishing on a four-game skid. Then, Maye regressed a bit statistically in 2023 when moving out of former OC Phil Longo’s quarterback-friendly system with heavy doses of downfield shots into a more conventional attack.

When things are going well, and Maye is afforded clean pockets, watch him cook. His accuracy, touch, and velocity all consistently impress when he has that sturdy base under him. His arm will force teams to play two-deep safeties, which he can turn around and make them pay for by exploiting the space he’s given in the intermediate range.

A third-year prospect, Maye is young, with only two years of starting experience. Whether he turns into an NFL star will come down to whether he can improve his processing under pressure and against exotic coverage looks. He’s not a perfect prospect, and his risk profile is a bit higher than has been depicted. Still, the ceiling is there to become a perennial Pro Bowler if things break right.

5. Michael Penix Jr. (Washington)

6022/216 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Lefty Geno Smith

Michael Penix Jr. is a pocket-passing lefty with a live-wire arm. The ball detonates out of his hand. Penix Jr. has the arm talent to fit the ball into tight windows.

Though he has an unorthodox motion, Penix Jr. can get the ball out quickly, and he doesn’t take sacks. Normally throwing from a three-quarters arm slot, Penix Jr.’s arm elasticity allows him to dispense from different angles if needed. In clean pockets, he was one of the nation’s most dangerous surgeons the past few years, calmly carving up defenses.

However, his evaluation also raises multiple red flags. Penix Jr. is a see-it-throw-it passer whose game craters when he is pressured and moved off his spot. Disrupting the Huskies’ timing and forcing Penix Jr. to move off his spot was the only reliable way to slow Washington’s offense the past few seasons. However, even mediocre teams could do it if the pass rush was up to the task.

Penix Jr.’s accuracy wavers when he doesn’t have his platform beneath him. His 69.2% completion percentage dropped to 54.9% on throws where his feet weren’t set and 45.8% while scrambling. For this reason, Penix Jr. is not a good fit for teams that seek mobility out of their quarterbacks, or who have a lot of bootleg concepts in their playbook.

He is not a poor athlete. But Penix Jr. has a funky, non-repeatable motion with a ton of arm action that lives on the razor’s edge. I wish he’d use his lower half more while throwing to generate even more power, but that’s more of a nitpick. What he uses that lower-body for is the sturdy base to shoot pills out from his unorthodox upper-body delivery. This is an essential link in his throwing chain, and, as we’ve seen, he cannot afford for it to be compromised.

Penix Jr.’s best odds of succeeding in the NFL are with a sturdy offensive line in front of him. Because even though Penix Jr. doesn’t take many sacks, – an admirable quality – he can be frazzled into mistakes when his first read isn’t there and heat is in his face. Washington’s offense often gave Penix Jr. a pre-delineated first read to go to, and many times, he took it. You’d see instances of ball-patting and indecision when it wasn’t there. Penix Jr. wanted to confirm a receiver was open before throwing, oftentimes leading to being a beat behind.

Lastly, Penix Jr.’s accuracy comes and goes. While he has some of the prettiest throws in the class, he also has a propensity to overshoot targets. That goes back to the arm action in his delivery and the lack of repeatable, natural mechanics.

Penix Jr. got great news at the NFL Combine when reports surfaced that his medicals had been cleared. This was essential following four straight season-ending injuries earlier in his career at Indiana.

Penix Jr. has proven he can run an offense. He has a no-doubt NFL-caliber arm, and he won at Indiana – one of the hardest places to win in America – prior to nearly taking Washington to the mountain top. The red flags in his on-field eval make him a second-rounder for me. This would follow the path of the player I comp him to, (a right-handed) Geno Smith.

6. Spencer Rattler (South Carolina)

6002/211 | RAS: 4.13
Player comparison: Jeff Blake

Spencer Rattler is a short, aggressive pocket passer with a snappy arm. The NFL will appreciate his willingness to go through progressions and his poise with heat in his face. Rattler enters this draft process with all the pedigree and experience you’d want. He took 2,676 snaps over his five seasons and has proven that he can run multiple systems, playing with good and bad supporting casts.

Following the 2020 season, Rattler would have been the highest-ranked quarterback in this class. The No. 11 overall prospect in his recruiting class the year before, Rattler became the first hand-picked high school prospect to start for former Oklahoma HC Lincoln Riley (following Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts). As a redshirt freshman in 2020, Rattler ranked No. 4 in the FBS with a 92.5 PFF grade. He was a magician, leading the FBS in PFF big-time throws when under pressure and passing grade out of structure.

But the next year, Rattler got the hook for Riley’s newest five-star recruit – a kid named Caleb Williams. Rattler transferred to South Carolina for the 2022 season. He prefers to play out of the shotgun with the field spread and likes to move around to give himself better vantage points to throw.

This was not a good fit behind South Carolina’s poor offensive line that ranked outside the top 100 in PFF pass-blocking grade both years. Suddenly, the rope Rattler’s high-wire game walked across was in a wind tunnel each snap. He struggled to adapt his game to that during the first 10 games of the season.

But the light came back on for the last three, with Rattler lighting up Tennessee, Clemson and Notre Dame for 10 TD and 1,044 passing yards. Though he had very little help in 2023 outside of WR Xavier Legette, Rattler showed that he had made progress as an in-structure quarterback.

Rattler excels at testing NFL money zones, 10+ yards down the field between the hashes. On throws 10-19 yards down the field last year, he posted a 90.9 PFF grade. On throws 20+ yards downfield, he posted an 88.8 PFF grade.

Rattler remains frustratingly inconsistent due to his live-by-the-sword-die-by-the-sword aggression. On days he doesn’t see the field well and runs cold, he can be rotten. On days he’s feeling it, watch out. He has enough pocket-passing skill to hang around the league as a backup quarterback for a long time. But if things click for him, he also has starter upside.

7. Bo Nix (Oregon)

6021/214 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Matt Corral

Bo Nix is a former five-star dual-threat quarterback with five years of starting experience. He enters the NFL off a statistically dominant season (45/3 TD/INT). Nix’s accuracy numbers surged from around 60% in his first three seasons at Auburn to around 75% in his last two years at Oregon.

Nix has improved as a passer, but he was also flattered by the gimmicky offense he played in and the fleet of playmakers that surrounded him. Last year, only three FBS quarterbacks had an average release time quicker than Nix. Oftentimes, Nix was throwing to his first read immediately after the snap. His aDOT, by extension, ranked No. 93 in the FBS.

Oregon’s offense spread the field and asked Nix to identify his target pre-snap based on the defensive alignment. After the snap, Nix would often immediately shuttle the ball to that first read.

Go back to Nix’s true freshman year at Auburn. In an attempt to protect the inexperienced Nix that season, Auburn called 103 screen passes. Incredibly, as a fifth-year senior, Nix attempted even more – 106 screen passes.

Oregon’s scheme not only juiced his accuracy numbers but also kept the ball out of harm’s way while inoculating Nix from pressure. All three of these things were issues at Auburn, and all were addressed not necessarily through Nix’s game taking leaps forward, but by the offensive scheme.

Nix attempted more screen passes in four of his five individual collegiate seasons than McCarthy did in his entire career combined! In sum, Nix attempted 418 career screen passes to McCarthy’s 74.

Nix has average arm strength. While his repeatable upper-body throwing motion allows him to generate decent intermediate velocity with spin, his downfield attempts have always lacked consistent touch and placement. That’s because he needs to throw the kitchen sink to get the ball down there.

When not stretched beyond his limits, his upper-body mechanics are good. However, his legs and feet can get a mind of their own. When he’s errant, it’s often because his lower body isn’t married to his upper half.

Nix is a decent athlete who will steal yards outside the pocket when you let him. At the NFL level, Nix’s legs will chip in a little value alongside his short-and-intermediate accuracy. Unfortunately, you can’t construct an NFL offense out of YAC yardage on the perimeter like Oregon did, which means Nix is going to have to learn to stand in the pocket, survey his options longer and pick and choose his spots to attack downfield.

Already 24, I’m dubious of his odds of becoming something in the NFL that we’ve never seen him be. I believe he will become one of those players who is either a high-level backup or a very low-level starter, depending on the year. His days of being a standout quarterback are likely over.

8. Michael Pratt (Tulane)

6024/217 | RAS: 8.23
Player comparison: Will Grier

Michael Pratt is a seasoned veteran who helped turn around Tulane’s previously moribund program. He has a decent frame, and he’s an underrated athlete who runs with toughness.

The arm strength is average. Pratt is most effective in attacking the intermediate sector of the field. In the NFL, Pratt’s combination of rushing utility in the short game and intermediate skill in the passing game should make him a solid backup.

My concern is Pratt’s lengthy injury history, which includes multiple concussions and a serious shoulder injury. During many games in college, Pratt could be seen limping or being attended to on the sideline. On numerous occasions, he played hurt.

If forced to play extensively in the NFL, I have serious doubts that Pratt’s body will hold up. But as long as he has his health, he should provide a team with a reliable backup quarterback who can caretake until the starter returns.

9. Joe Milton III (Tennessee)

6051/235 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Cardale Jones

Milton III is a big, strapping athlete who can do standing backflips at 6’5/240. Milton III earned his “Bazooka Joe” moniker with one of the strongest arms in existence. He matched Josh Allen‘s NFL Combine record for max-velocity throw (62 mph).

The issue with Milton III is you don’t know where the ball is going when it leaves his hands. Playing in one of the most proven quarterback-friendly systems in all of College Football – one that offers one-on-one shots downfield on a silver platter – Milton III had a big-time throw rate of 3.3 last fall. That was lower than noodle-armed NC State QB Brennan Armstrong, who has issues on throws 20 yards downfield.

Milton III’s 2.0 PFF turnover-worthy play rate meant he was almost as likely to put the ball in harm’s way as he was to make a standout throw in 2023. Even Tennessee’s system, which cleaves the field in half and offers pre-delineated reads, couldn’t address Milton III’s issues under duress. Mixing up blitz and coverage looks was generally all it took to confuse Milton III sufficiently.

Milton III has all-world tools, and for that reason, he will be drafted. I won’t begrudge the organization that purchases the lottery ticket with crossed fingers on late Day 3, hoping they can get through to him in a way Harbaugh and Josh Heupel could not.

However, the acute issues with Milton III’s accuracy, pocket presence and decision-making caused him to lose two starting jobs over six years on campus. In 2020, McNamara took his gig at Michigan, and in 2022, Hendon Hooker did the same at Tennessee.

The Best of the Rest

10. Devin Leary (Kentucky)
6012/215 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Cj Beathard

11. Jordan Travis (Florida State)
6011/200 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Trevone Boykin

12. Kedon Slovis (BYU)
6024/223 | RAS: 9.84
Player comparison: Max Duggan

13. Austin Reed (Western Kentucky)
6014/220 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Kurt Benkert

14. John Rhys Plumlee (Central Florida)
6000/200 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Trevor Knight

15. Sam Hartman (Notre Dame)
6011/211 | RAS: 4.41
Player comparison: Brady White

2024 NFL Mock Drafts

Here are a few early predictions for the 2024 NFL Draft. We’ll continue to add our 2024 NFL Mock Drafts leading up to the start of Round 1.

• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Thor Nystrom (1.0 | 2.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Matthew Jones (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Kent Weyrauch (1.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Andrew Erickson (1.0 | 2.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Derek Brown (1.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Russell Brown (1.0 | 2.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: PJ Moran (1.0 | 2.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft With Trades: Mike Fanelli (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft With Trades: Marco Enriquez (1.0 | 2.0)
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft With Trades: Dennis Sosic
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Two-Round Writer Collaborative
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: First Round Picks & Predictions
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Top 20 Picks & Predictions
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Top 10 Picks & Predictions
• 2024 NFL Mock Draft: Early Picks & Predictions
• Early 2024 NFL Mock Draft with Trades: Picks & Predictions

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